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CAESAR’S REJECTION OF TIIE CROWN.

was merely a nominal one, and conferred no privilege upon a
person except that of holding certain priestly offices, which
could be filled by none but patricians, and for which their
number was scarcely sufficient. If Caesar had died quietly,
the republic would have been in the same, nay in a much
worse, state of dissolution than if he had not existed at all. I
consider it a proof of the wisdom and good sense of Caesar
that he did not, like Sulla, think an improvement in the state
of public affairs so near at hand or a matter of so little difficulty.
The cure of the disease lay yet at a very great distance, and the
first condition on which it could be undertaken was the sove-
reignty of Caesar, a condition which would have been quite
unbearable even to many of his followers, who as rebels did
not scruple to go along with him. But Eome could no longer
exist as a republic.

It is curious to see in Cicero’s work, De re publica, the con-
sciousness running through it, that Eome, as it then stood,
required the strong hand of a king. Cicero had surely often
owned this to himself; but he saw no one who would have
entered into such an idea. The title of king had a great fasci-
nation for Caesar, as it had for Cromwell,—a surprising phe-
nomenon in a practical mind like that of Caesar. Every one
knows the fact that while Caesar was sitting on the suggestum,
during the celebration of the Lupercalia, Antony presented to
him the diadem, to try how the people would take it. Caesar
saw the great alarm which the act created, and declined the
diadem for the sake of appearance; but had the people been
silent, Caesar would unquestionably have accepted it. His
refusal was accompanied by loud shouts of acclamation, which,
for the present, rendered all further attempts impossible.
Antony then had a statue of Caesar adorned with the diadem ;
but two tribunes of the people, L. Caesetius Flavus, and
Epidius Marullus, took it away : and here Caesar shewed the
real state of his feelings, for he treated the conduct of the
tribunes as a personal insult towards himself. Hc had lost his
self-possession, and his fate carried him iιrcsistibly onward.
He wished to have the tribunes imprisoned, but was prevailed
upon to be satisfied with their being stripped of their office
and sent into exile. This created a great sensation at Eome.
Caesar had also been guilty of an act of thoughtlessness, or
perhaps merely of distraction, as might happen very easily to a

man in his circumstances. When the senate had made its last
decrees, conferring upon Caesar unlimited powers, the senators,
consuls, and praetors, or the whole senate, in festal attire, pre-
sented the decrees to him, and Caesar at the moment forgot to
shew his respect for the senators ; he did not rise from his sella
curulis, hut received the decrees in an unceremonious manner.
This want of politeness was never forgiven by the persons who
had not scrupled to make him their master; for it had been
expected that he would, at least, behave politely, and be grate-
ful for such decrees.⁷ Caesar himself had no design in the act,
which was merely the consequence of distraction or thought-
lessness; but it made the senate his irreconcilable enemies.
The affair with the tribunes, moreover, had made a deep im-
pression upon the people. Cicero, who was surely not a demo-
crat, wrote at the time, Iurpissimi consulares, turpis senatus,
populus fortis, infimus quιsque honore fortissimus, etc. The praise
here bestowed upon the people may be somewhat exaggerated,
but the rest is true. We must, however, remember that the
people, under such circumstances, are most sensible to anything
affecting their honour, as we have seen at the beginning of the
French revolution.

In the year of Caesar’s death, Brutus and Cassius were
praetors. Both had been generals under Pompey. Brutus’
mother, Servilia, was a half-sister of Cato, for after the death
of her first husband, Cato’s mother had married Servilius
Caepio. She was a remarkable woman, but very immoral, and
unworthy of her son ; not even the honour of her own daugh-
ter was sacred to her. The family of Brutus derived its origin
from L. Junius Brutus; and from the time of its first appear-
ance among the plebeians, it had had few men of importance
to boast of. During the period subsequent to the passing
of the Licinian laws, we meet with some Junii in the Fasti,
but not one of them acquired any great reputation. The
family had become reduced and almost contemptible. One
M. Brutus in particular, disgraced his family by sycophancy
(accusationes faetitabat^ in the time of Sulla, and was after-
wards killed in Gaul by Pompey. Although no Roman family

⁷ I have known an instance of a man of rank and influence, who could never
forgive another man, who was by far hɪs superior in every ɪespeet, for having
forgotten to take off his lɪat during a visit, —N.

^sCιcero, De Offi'. iɪ. 14. Compare Brutus, 74, and Plutarch, Brut. 4.
where, however,he is eriOneouslydescrihed as the father of Brutus the tyrannicide,

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