The Historians' History of the World 05

At such a critical moment as this the conspirators were naturally wide awake to every suspicion; and becoming uneasy at his delay, Decimus Brutus was sent to call on him, and to persuade him to attend the senate by urging to him the offence that he would naturally give if he appeared to slight that body at the very moment when they were preparing to confer on him the title of king. Decimus Brutus visited Cæsar, and being entirely in his confidence, his arguments were listened to, and Cæsar set out about eleven o’clock to go to the senate house. When he was on his way thither, Artemidorus of Cnidus, a Greek sophist, who was admitted into the houses of some of the conspirators, and had there become acquainted with some facts that had excited his suspicions, approached him with a written statement of the information which he had obtained, and putting it into his hand, begged him to read it instantly, as it was of the last importance. Cæsar, it is said, tried to look at it, but he was prevented by the crowd which pressed around him, and by the numerous writings of various sorts that were presented to him as he passed along. Still, however, he held it in his hand, and continued to keep it there when he entered the senate house.

Mark Antony, who was at this time Cæsar’s colleague in the consulship, was on the point of following him into the senate, when C. Trebonius called him aside, and detained him without, by professing to desire some conversation with him. It is said that some of the conspirators had wished to include him in the fate of Cæsar; but Brutus had objected to it as a piece of unnecessary bloodshed; and when it was remembered that he himself, not long ago, had proposed to Trebonius the very act which they were now about to perform, they consented that his life should not be endangered. Meantime, as Cæsar entered the senate house, all the senators rose to receive him. The conspirators had contrived to surround his person in the street, and they now formed his immediate train as he passed on to the curule chair, which had been prepared, as usual, for his reception. That chair had been placed near the pedestal of a statue of Pompey the Great; for the building in which the senate was assembled had been one of Pompey’s public works; and it is said, that Cassius, labouring under the strong feeling of the moment, turned himself to the image, and seemed to implore its assistance in the deed which was to be perpetrated.

DEATH OF CÆSAR