Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

buried?" 127 His confidence in Brutus, in his subjects, and in himself was equally deceived; and he fell, assassinated before the Senate, undefended.123

It was not the will of Almighty God, that, at a time so near the revelation of life and immortality, a man like Cæsar should even seem to have obtained, through devotion to himself, a lasting triumph upon earth. On the other hand, it is as mercifully apparent that the fall of heathen Rome, over which Cæsar had risen, was not to be reversed or delayed. The very testament of the murdered Emperor confirmed the fate he had brought upon the Commonwealth in his lifetime. Large bequests of gardens and money were made to the people; but the young Octavius, then Master of the Knights elect, was declared the adopted son and heir to whom the titles of the dead were to descend. And when Mark Antony brought forth the corpse of his master to the burial, the eulogy he pronounced consisted in greater part 129 of a mere rehearsal of the decree in which the Senate had lavished every honor, human and divine, upon the Emperor, and of the oath by which they had sworn obedience and protection. It was the same thing as to tell the multitude which thronged about the funeral pile, that, though there had been a conspiracy and a murder, no claims could be preferred, on any side, to liberty.

127 Plut., Brut., 8; Cæs., 62. details of the plot and its execution One of Cæsar's great sayings was, are in Plut., Brut., 7-17; Cæs.,

"Mori

se quam timere malle." Vell. Pat., II. 57. So Suet., Cæs.,

[blocks in formation]

62-66.

129 Suet., Cæs., 84. See Cic., Philipp., II. 36.

CHAPTER II.

THE CONSPIRATORS AND THE TRIUMVIRS.

"A factious band agree

To call it freedom."- - GOLDSMITH, Traveller.

"César mort, il a été remplacé par Antoine, par Octave, par Tibère, par Néron."- NAFOLÉON, Guerres de J. César, p. 218.

WHEN Brutus came forward from the place where lay the body of Cæsar pierced with wounds, the Senators escaped in terror. When he and the rest of the sixty conspirators went forth together from the Senate-house with bloody daggers and loud outcries,2 the crowd without, like the Senators within, fled, frightened to hear the Emperor was slain. The panic seized the murderers themselves; and they hastened to the Capitol,3 as to a watch-tower from which they could look down upon the confusion they had caused. The only design they had, after assassinating their benefactor and their master, was to save themselves, and to let their countrymen do what they could to join them or to revenge their deed. It was not liberty, then, that had been given back to Rome.

Some, however, rejoicing in the deed of blood or in the alarm by which it was followed, ran up to the Capitol, a few, perhaps, believing that the day of lib

1 App., Bell. Civ., II. 118. 2 Plut., Brut., 19.

3 Dion Cass., XLIV. 19–21.

[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]
« НазадПродовжити »