Julius Caesar Murdered – 7

Today’s installment concludes Julius Caesar Murdered,
the name of our combined selection by Barthold Georg Niebuhr and Plutarch. The concluding installment, is by Plutarch.

If you have journeyed through all of the installments of this series, just one more to go and you will have completed seven thousand words from great works of history. Congratulations!

Previously in Julius Caesar Murdered.

Time: 44 BC
Place: Rome

Caesar thus dispatched, Brutus advanced to speak to the senate and to assign his reasons for what he had done but they could not bear to hear him; they fled out of the house and filled the people with inexpressible horror and dismay. Some shut up their houses; others left their shops and counters. All were in motion; one was running to see the spectacle; another running back. Antony and Lepidus, Caesar’s principal friends, withdrew and hid themselves in other people’s houses. Meantime Brutus and his confederates, yet warm from the slaughter, marched in a body with their bloody swords in their hands, from the senate house to the Capitol, not like men that fled but with an air of gayety and confidence, calling the people to liberty and stopping to talk with every man of consequence whom they met. There were some who even joined them and mingled with their train, desirous of appearing to have had a share in the action and hoping for one in the glory. Of this number were Caius Octavius and Lentulus Spinther, who afterward paid dear for their vanity, being put to death by Antony and young Caesar; so that they gained not even the honor for which they lost their lives, for nobody believed that they had any part in the enterprise; and they were punished, not for the deed but for the will.

Next day Brutus and the rest of the conspirators came down from the Capitol and addressed the people, who attended to their discourse without expressing either dislike or approbation of what was done. But by their silence it appeared that they pitied Caesar, at the same time that they revered Brutus. The senate passed a general amnesty; and, to reconcile all parties, they decreed Caesar divine honors and confirmed all the acts of his dictatorship; while on Brutus and his friends they bestowed governments and such honors as were suitable; so that it was generally imagined the Commonwealth was firmly established again and all brought into the best order.

But when, upon the opening of Caesar’s will, it was found that he had left every Roman citizen a considerable legacy and they beheld the body, as it was carried through the Forum, all mangled with wounds, the multitude could no longer be kept within bounds. They stopped the procession and, tearing up the benches, with the doors and tables, heaped them into a pile and burned the corpse there. Then snatching flaming brands from the pile, some ran to burn the houses of the assassins, while others ranged the city to find the conspirators themselves and tear them in pieces; but they had taken such care to secure themselves that they could not meet with one of them.

One Cinna, a friend of Caesar’s, had a strange dream the preceding night. He dreamed — as they tell us — that Caesar invited him to supper and, upon his refusal to go, caught him by the hand and drew him after him, in spite of all the resistance he could make. Hearing, however, that the body of Caesar was to be burned in the Forum, he went to assist in doing him the last honors, though he had a fever upon him, the consequence of his uneasiness about his dream. On his coming up, one of the populace asked who that was? and having learned his name, told it to his next neighbor. A report immediately spread through the whole company that it was one of Caesar’s murderers; and, indeed, one of the conspirators was named Cinna. The multitude, taking this for the man, fell upon him and tore him to pieces upon the spot. Brutus and Cassius were so terrified at this rage of the populace that a few days after they left the city. An account of their subsequent actions, sufferings and death may be found in the life of Brutus.

Caesar died at the age of fifty-six and did not survive Pompey above four years. His object was sovereign power and authority, which he pursued through innumerable dangers and by prodigious efforts he gained it at last. But he reaped no other fruit from it than an empty and invidious title. It is true the divine Power, which conducted him through life, attended him after his death as his avenger, pursued and hunted out the assassins over sea and land and rested not till there was not a man left, either of those who dipped their hands in his blood or of those who gave their sanction to the deed.

The most remarkable of natural events relative to this affair was that Cassius, after he had lost the battle of Philippi, killed himself with the same dagger which he had made use of against Caesar; and the most signal phenomenon in the heavens was that of a great comet, which shone very bright for seven nights after Caesar’s death and then disappeared; to which we may add the fading of the sun’s luster; for his orb looked pale all that year; he rose not with a sparkling radiance, nor had the heat he afforded its usual strength. The air, of course, was dark and heavy, for want of that vigorous heat which clears and rarefies it; and the fruits were so crude and unconcocted that they pined away and decayed, through the chilliness of the atmosphere.

We have a proof still more striking that the assassination of Caesar was displeasing to the gods, in the phantom that appeared to Brutus. The story of it is this: Brutus was on the point of transporting his army from Abydos to the opposite continent; and the night before, he lay in his tent awake, according to custom and in deep thought about what might be the event of the war; for it was natural for him to watch a great part of the night and no general ever required so little sleep. With all his senses about him, he heard a noise at the door of his tent and looking toward the light, which was now burned very low, he saw a terrible appearance in the human form but of prodigious stature and the most hideous aspect. At first he was struck with astonishment; but when he saw it neither did nor spoke anything to him but stood in silence by his bed, he asked it who it was? The specter answered: “I am thy evil genius, Brutus; thou shalt see me at Philippi.” Brutus answered boldly, “I’ll meet thee there”; and the specter immediately vanished.

Sometime after, he engaged Antony and Octavius Caesar at Philippi and the first day was victorious, carrying all before him, where he fought in person and even pillaging Caesar’s camp. The night before he was to fight the second battle the same specter appeared to him again but spoke not a word. Brutus, however, understood that his last hour was near and courted danger with all the violence of despair. Yet he did not fall in the action; but seeing all was lost, he retired to the top of a rock, where he presented his naked sword to his breast and a friend, as they tell us, assisting the thrust, he died upon the spot.

This ends our selections on Julius Caesar Murdered by two of the most important authorities of this topic. This blog features short and lengthy pieces on all aspects of our shared past. Here are selections from the great historians who may be forgotten (and whose work have fallen into public domain) as well as links to the most up-to-date developments in the field of history and of course, original material from yours truly, Jack Le Moine. – A little bit of everything historical is here.

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