His temperance was extreme, so that it was said he was the first man who came sober to the ruin of his country. In his diet he was far from choice. In other matters he was extravagant and profuse beyond measure, even upon trifles. He would purchase, at any cost, gems, statues, and pictures; and it is said that one of his motives in invading Britain, was the hope of finding pearls-an article in which he took especial delight, examining and comparing varieties of these one with another, with great nicety, and determining their weight by poising them in his hand.

34. Cæsar made no pretensions to be a virtuous character. His flatterers, knowing his weakness and gross sensuality, proposed a law that Cæsar should have as many wives as he pleased-the severest satire that could be passed upon him, if his youthful career had not been marked even by a worse stain. But among all vices, that which he was most guilty in the pursuit of, was ambition; for in this he became the destroyer of an immense multitude of his fellow-beings, by the scourge of war. Plutarch, the historian, summing up the account of his heroic deeds, in order to enhance his glory, observes, "that in the number of his engagements he exceeded all the great generals who had gone before him; that he took eight hundred cities, conquered three hundred nations; fought pitched battles at separate times with three millions of men; captured one million prisoners, and slew another million in the field." Nothing can, perhaps, more strongly show the extent and magnificence of his conquests, than the fact, that, at the period of his public triumph, he was enabled to bring into the public treasury sixty-five thousand talents, or above twelve millions and a half sterling.

35. All this success, great as it was, failed to satisfy the restless mind of a hero so ambitious. He formed a scheme for conquering the whole of the nations of the earth, whom he had not yet subdued; and to make this disposition the more manifest, he laid the foundations of a temple which he purposed to dedicate to Mars, and which should exceed in size every building of the kind in the world.

It was at this period of his eventful life that he contemplated the nobler undertaking, of draining the Pontine marshes, of making a road along the Apennines, and of constructing a new harbour at Ostium. His love of letters,

and of learned men, led him also to commit to Varro, the great grammarian of his age, a scheme for the collection and arrangement of a large library of Greek and Roman

writers.

36. Engaged in these and other gigantic designs, the mind of Cæsar seems to have been too regardless of his own personal safety; and his career of glory was suddenly brought to a close, in a manner that he was but little prepared to expect. For though, on the day preceding his death, he had declared, in a conversation at the house of Lepidus, that he thought a sudden death the most desirable, yet he disowned or disbelieved the existence of a conspiracy against his life, when repeatedly warned of it. He had refused the crown, which the consul Antony more than once attempted to put upon his head in public, and disowned the title of king when saluted by that name. He therefore probably imagined, that none could accuse him of any tyrannical designs against the liberty of the state, much less those who called themselves his friends. But the case was far otherwise; and a band of resolute conspirators, who beheld his greatness with jealousy, entered into a plot for his destruction. More than sixty of the principal citizens were thus leagued together; men who affected to bewail the encroachments of a tyrant upon their ancient freedom. At the head of these were Brutus and Cassius.

37. To this conspiracy Cæsar fell a victim, on the Ides of March (B.c. 44). A soothsayer had warned him that this day might be fatal to him, and the night before, he had dreamt that he had ascended above the clouds, and shaken hands with Jupiter. His wife Calphurnia had also fancied, in her sleep, that the roof of the house was tumbling down, and her husband was stabbed in her bosom; but, disregarding these and many other evil omens, he proceeded to administer justice as usual, in the senate-house built by Pompey, remarking as he entered, that the Ides of March* were come without any mischief having befallen him; to which Spurinna replied, "They are come indeed, but are not past."

38. Under colour of paying Cæsar their compliments, the conspirators gathered round him, with daggers concealed

* The 15th of March.

beneath their robes. So little precaution had he taken against danger, that he had no weapon besides his stylus, or iron pencil, with which, when the attack was made upon him, he pierced the arm of the first assailant; but finding himself at once beset on all sides, he gave up further resistance, and fell, after receiving three and twenty wounds, with a fortitude and dignity worthy of his name.

39. This last scene of his life, has been most faithfully and graphically depicted by Shakspeare, in the tragedy of Julius Cæsar. Marc Antony thus describes it to the

Roman populace:

"If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.

You all do know this mantle: I remember

The first time ever Cæsar put it on;

'Twas on a summer's evening in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii :—

Look! in this place, ran Cassius' dagger through:
See, what a rent the envious Casca made:
Through this, the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd;
And, as he pluck'd his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Cæsar followed it;
As rushing out of doors, to be resolved
If Brutus so unkindly knocked, or no;
For Brutus, as you know, was Cæsar's angel:
Judge, O ye gods, how dearly Cæsar loved him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all:

For when the noble Cæsar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,

Quite vanquish'd him: then burst his mighty heart;
And, in his mantle muffling up his face,

Even at the base of Pompey's statue,

Which all the while ran blood, great Cæsar fell."

40. Thus perished, in the 56th year of his age (B. C. 44), a man, whom the world may justly reckon among its greatest heroes. The fate of Cæsar, is a melancholy instance of the instability of human power and of human friendship. Cæsar had escaped the dangers of the battle-field, and had risen to the supreme authority; but he could not shield himself from the daggers of assassins, in the place where he might have seemed most secure; nor could he depend upon the sincerity of his friends, to save him from the malignant designs of those who were too jealous of his superiority. His example affords a strong instance of the very insecure foundation upon which the power of an ambitious man

rests, one who plays the part of a tyrant though with moderation, for thus Cæsar must be regarded. On the authority of Cicero, we learn, that Cæsar thought tyranny* the greatest of goddesses; and had frequently in his mouth the verse of a Greek poet, which meant, that if right and justice were ever to be violated, it was for the sake of obtaining the sovereign rule.

41. The fall of Cæsar was, however, to be lamented as the death of a great man, possessed of a genius that must have made him memorable, even if he had never been a military hero. His orations were so much admired, that it is said he spoke with the same force as he fought. Among the great writers of this period, Varro may be mentioned, as a grammarian of the most extensive learning, and whose works are said to have amounted originally to five hundred volumes, of which all have perished, except two treatises, one on the Latin language, and the other on rural affairs. Lucretius was distinquished as a poet and advocate of the doctrines of Epicurus, who died (B.c. 55), on the same day that Virgil, his more illustrious successor in the art, assumed, at sixteen, the toga virilis a period which was the second consulate of Pompey. Sallust and Livy, eminent as historians, and Cornelius Nepos, as a biographer, belong rather to the next era, or that of Augustus; their works not having been published till after the death of Cæsar. The most illustrious of all literary men in this age was Cicero, famous equally for his powers as an orator, a philosopher, and a statesman. Between Cicero and Cæsar there was never any cordial friendship, and though he could not but applaud the genius, and admire the success of the conqueror, yet he was constrained by principles which he had always cherished and professed, to avow that he perished as a tyrant deserved.

42. Such a sentiment, however just it might seem to a Roman, will not excuse the crime of Caesar's murder, nor the conduct of his murderers, which was full of perfidy, as well as ingratitude. The liberties of Rome were not recovered by this atrocious deed; and it may be doubtful if the faction who conspired against him, had any nobler ideas on the subject of government than Cæsar himself entertained. Certain it is, that their enterprise entirely failed. If liberty

The word meant at that time arbitrary power and sovereignty, without reference to acts of violence or cruelty.

was the only end in view, Cæsar died in vain. He was the first of a line of emperors bearing his name, each of whom was far more tyrannical than himself.

43. The perpetrators of the guilty deed reaped no honours or success among the people, but were, for the most part, considered as objects of disgust or indignation. Brutus himself perished, about two years afterwards (B.C. 42), at the battle of Philippi; and the rest of his companions did not long survive him. The Roman historian Suetonius, in his lives of the Twelve Cæsars, thus sums up the history of our great hero ;—

"He died in the 56th year of his age, and was ranked among the gods, not only by a formal decree of the senate, but in the real persuasion of the vulgar. For during the games which his heir, Augustus, gave in honour of his memory, a comet shone for seven days together, rising always about eleven o'clock; and it was supposed to be the soul of Cæsar now received into heaven. The senatehouse in which he was slain was ordered to be shut up, and a decree made, that the Ides of March should be called the Parricide; and that the senate should never more assemble on that day. Scarcely any of those who were accessory to his murder survived him more than three years, or died a natural death. They were all condemned by the senate; some were taken off by one accident, some by another. Part of them perished at sea, others fell in battle; and several of them slew themselves with the same dagger with which they had stabbed Cæsar."

44. The description of his funeral ceremonies, as it will convey some idea of the customs of the Romans at this period, we shall give nearly in the words of the ancient writer to whom we have just referred.

45. The time for his funeral being fixed by proclamation, a pile was erected in the field of Mars, near the tomb of his daughter Julia; and before the rostra there was placed a gilded tabernacle, resembling that of the temple of Venus Genetrix, and within it was an ivory bed, covered with purple and cloth of gold, on which the body was laid. At the head was a trophy, with the garment in which he was slain. In the funeral plays, acted before the funeral, several passages were sung from the old poets, one of which was to to this effect::