Caesar would
have spared something of it; enough, perhaps, to have thrown up shoots
again as soon as he had himself passed away in the common course of
nature. By combining in a focus the most hateful characteristics of the
order, by revolting the moral instincts of mankind by ingratitude and
treachery, they stripped their cause by their own hands of the false
glamour which they hoped to throw over it. The profligacy and avarice, the
cynical disregard of obligation, which had marked the Senate's supremacy
for a century, had exhibited abundantly their unfitness for the high
functions which had descended to them; but custom and natural tenderness
for a form of government, the past history of which had been so glorious,
might have continued still to shield them from the penalty of their
iniquities. The murder of Caesar filled the measure of their crimes, and
gave the last and necessary impulse to the closing act of the revolution.
Thus the ides of March drew near. Caesar was to set out in a few days for
Parthia. Decimus Brutus was going, as governor, to the north of Italy,
Lepidus to Gaul, Marcus Brutus to Macedonia, and Trebonius to Asia Minor.
Antony, Caesar's colleague in the consulship, was to remain in Italy.
Dolabella, Cicero's son-in-law, was to be consul with him as soon as
Caesar should have left for the East.
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