KILLING OF JULIUS C^SAR -'LOCALIZED." 



165 



conversation with tlie people's friend and Caesar's — Mark Antony — and .under some pretence or 

 other got him away, and Brutus, Decius, Casca, Cinna,- Metellus Cimber, and others of the gang of 

 infamous desperadoes that infest Rome at present, closed around the doorned Caesar. Then Metellus 

 Cimber knelt down and begged that his brother might be recalled from banishment, but Caesar 

 rebuked him for his fawning conduct, and refused to grant his petition. Immediately, at Cimber's 

 • request, first Brutus and then Cassius begged for the return of the banished Publius ; but Caesar 

 still refused. He said he could not be moved ; that he was as fixed as the North Star, and pro- 

 ceeded to speak in the most complimentary terms of the firmness of that star, and its steady charac- 

 ter. Then he said he was like it, and he believed he was the only man in the country that was ; 

 therefore, since he was ' constant ' that Cimber should be banished, he was also ' constant ' that he 

 should stay banished, and he'd be hanged if he didn't keep him so !- 



" Instantly seizing upon this shallow pretext for a fight, Casca sprang at Csesar and struck 

 him with a dirk, Caesar grabbing him by the arm with his right hand, and launching a blow 

 straight from the shoulder with his left, that sent the reptile bleeding to the earth. He then backed 

 up against Pompey's statue, and squared himself to receive his assailants. Cassius and Cimber and 

 Cinna rushed upon him with their daggers drawn, and the former succeeded in inflicting a wound 

 upon his body ; but before he could strike again, and before either of the others could strike at all, 

 Caesar stretched the three miscreants at his feet with as many blows of his powerful fist. By this 

 time the Senate was in an indescribable uproar; the throng of citizens in the lobbies had blockaded 

 the doors in their frantic efforts to escape from the building, the sergeant-at-arms and his assistants 

 were struggling with the assassins, venerable senators had cast aside their encumbering robes, and 

 were leap'ng over benches and flying down the aisles in wild confusion towards the shelter of the 

 committee-rooms, and a thousand voices were shouting ' Po-lice ! Po-lice ! ' in discordant tones that 

 rose above the frightful din like shrieking winds above the roaring of a tempest. And amid it all, 

 great Czesar stood with his back against the statue, like a lion at bay, and fought his assailants 

 weaponless and hand to hand, with the defiant bearing and the unwavering courage which he had 

 shown before on many a bloody field. Billy Trebonius and Caius Legarius struck him with their 

 daggers and fell, as their brother-conspirators before them had fallen. But at last, when Caesar 

 saw his old friend Brutus step forward armed with a murderous knife, it is said he seemed utterly 

 overpowered with grief and amazement, and dropping his invincible left arm by his side, he hid his 

 face in the folds of his mantle and received the treacherous blow without an effort to stay the hand 

 that gave it. He only said, ' Et tu. Brute? ' and fell lifeless, on the marble pavement. 



"We learn that the coat deceased had on when he was killed was the same he wore in his tent on 



'^!:i '-:-■' •"■■1 ^'-^i.''-.^ I 



the afternoon of the day he overcame the Nervii, and that when it was removed from the corpse it 

 was found to be cut and gashed in no less than seven different places. There was nothing in tht 



