His wonderful victories and great kindnesses made Cæsar the idol of the people. But he had enemies at home, and a rival, another great general named Pompey. The Senate were on the side of Pompey, and at last they decreed that if Cæsar did not give up his command and dismiss his army by a certain day, he would be called an enemy of the country. Pompey and the Senate were against the poorer classes, and Cæsar knew that if he yielded to this command, the common people, whose friend he was, would lose their freedom. So instead of disbanding his army he marched it to the borders of Italy. He stopped on the bank of a little river called the Rubicon. Anyone who crossed that river with an army was considered an enemy of Rome. When Cæsar decided to cross the river and advance with his army against the city, he exclaimed, “The die is cast!” His words meant that he could no more go back than a die, once thrown out of the dice-box, can be taken back. Nowadays, when a man decides to do something which may bring great loss to him if he does not win, and from which he cannot draw back, once he has begun, he is said to have “crossed the Rubicon.”
Cæsar’s fortunes, however, did not desert him, and he succeeded in driving Pompey away and finally conquering him. Within three years, after many victorious battles in Greece and Egypt and Asia Minor, he returned to Rome in triumph. By this time the Senate were willing to do anything for him that he wanted, and the adoring people chose him Dictator for ten years. That meant that although he was not called king he had almost the same power as a king.
Two of Cæsar’s sayings are often quoted. Once, when he was pursuing Pompey, he started on a voyage when a storm seemed to be coming up. The sailors were afraid to cross the sea, but he said to them, “You carry Cæsar and his fortunes!” They set sail at once and reached the other side in safety. At another time he caught an escaping army in Asia. He announced this victory in three words: “Veni, Vidi, Vici,” the meaning of which was, “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
By his policy of kindness to the people as dictator, Cæsar so won their love that they came even to worship him as one of their gods. The month in the year in which he was born was at this time named in his honor, for our word July is a shortened form of Julius. He governed Rome well and made many useful changes. One thing that he did was to arrange the calendar, which before this time was very clumsy. It was he who divided the year into months of so many days each, very much as it is divided now.
The climax of Cæsar’s popularity was reached when he was offered a crown, to show that the people of Rome wished him to be their king. He refused this honor three times in public. But not all the men of Rome shared in this admiration of Cæsar, for one party, some of whom had been his friends, felt that his growing power was not good for Rome. They wanted their country to be a republic, and not to be ruled by a king. So they began to plot against Cæsar.
On the fifteenth of March, 44 B. C., just as Cæsar was about to take his seat in the presence of the Roman Senate, a group of men gathered round and began plunging their daggers into his body. Among them was Marcus Brutus, for whom Cæsar had done many kindnesses. When Cæsar saw Brutus with his dagger raised to stab him to the heart, he exclaimed with a sad smile, “And thou too, Brutus!” Then, covering his face with his mantle, he fell down and died. Of the twenty-three knife wounds that were found in Cæsar’s body, Shakespeare wrote that the stab of Brutus was “the most unkindest cut of all.”