He was willing to live, if they would let him live; but, for himself,
he had ceased to care about it. He disdained to take precautions against
assassination. On his first return from Spain, he had been attended by a
guard; but he dismissed it in spite of the remonstrances of his friends,
and went daily into the senate-house alone and unarmed. He spoke often of
his danger with entire openness; but he seemed to think that he had some
security in the certainty that, if he was murdered, the Civil War would
break out again, as if personal hatred was ever checked by fear of
consequences. It was something to feel that he had not lived in vain. The
Gauls were settling into peaceful habits. The soil of Gaul was now as well
cultivated as Italy. Barges loaded with merchandise were passing freely
along the Rhone and the Saone, the Loire, the Moselle, and the Rhine.
[8] The best of the chiefs were made senators of Rome, and the people
were happy and contented. What he had done for Gaul he might, if he lived,
do for Spain, and Africa, and the East. But it was the concern of others
more than of himself. "Better," he said, "to die at once than live in
perpetual dread of treason."
[Sidenote: B.C. 44.]
But Caesar was aware that conspiracies were being formed against him; and
that he spoke freely of his danger, appears from a speech delivered in the
middle of the winter by Cicero in Caesar's presence.
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