Casar had warning given him of his fate by indubitable omens. A few months
					before, when the colonists settled at Capua , by virtue of the Julian law, were demolishing some old
					sepulchres, in building countryhouses, and were the more eager at the work,
					because they discovered certain vessels of antique workmanship, a tablet of
					brass was found in a tomb, in which Capys, the founder of Capua , was said to have been buried, with an
					inscription in the Greek language to this effect: "Whenever the bones of Capys
					come to be discovered, a descendant of Iulus will be slain by the hands of his
					kinsmen, and his death revenged by fearful disasters throughout Italy ." Lest any person should regard this
					anecdote as a fabulous or silly invention, it was circulated upon the authority
					of Caius Balbus, an intimate friend of Caesar's. A few days likewise before his
					death, he was informed that the horses, which, upon his crossing the Rubicon, he
					had consecrated, and turned loose to graze without a keeper, abstained entirely
					from eating, and shed floods of tears. The soothsayer Spurinna, observing
					certain ominous appearances in a sacrifice which he was offering, advised him to
					beware of some danger, which threatened to befall him before the ides of March
					were past. The day before the ides, birds of various kinds from a neighbouring
					grove, pursuing a wren which flew into Pompey's senate-house, This senate-house stood in that part of the Campus Martius which is now the Campo di
						Fiore, and was attached by Pompey, "spoliis Orientis Onustus," to the
						magnificent theatre, which he built A.U.C. 698, in his second consulship.
						His statue, at the foot of which Caesar fell, as Plutarch tells us, was
						placed in it. We shall find that Augustus caused it to be removed. 
					with a sprig of laurel in its beak, tore it in pieces. Also, in the night on
					which the day of his murder dawned, he dreamt at one time that he was soaring
					above the clouds, and, at another, that he had joined hands with Jupiter . His wife Calpurnia fancied in her
					sleep that the pediment of the house was falling down, and her husband stabbed
					on her bosom; immediately upon which the chamber doors flew open. On account of
					these omens, as well as his infirm health, he was in some doubt whether he
					should not remain at home, and defer to some other opportunity the business
					which he intended to propose to the senate; but Decimus Brutus advising him not
					to disappoint the senators, who were numerously assembled, and waited his
					coming, he was prevailed upon to go, and accordingly set forward about the fifth
					hour. In his way, some person having thrust into his hand a paper, warning him
					against the plot, he mixed it with some other documents which he held in his
					left hand, intending to read it at leisure. Victim after victim was slain,
					without any favourable appearances in the entrails; but still, disregarding all
					omens, he entered the senate-house, laughing at Spurinna as a false prophet,
					because the ides of March were come without any mischief having befallen him. To
					which the soothsayer replied, "They are come, indeed, but not past." When he had taken his seat, the conspirators stood round him, under colour of
					paying their compliments; and immediately Tullius Cimber, who had engaged to
					commence the assault, advancing nearer than the rest, as if he had some favour
					to request, Casar made signs that he
					should defer his petition to some other time. Tullius immediately seized him by
					the toga, on both shoulders; at which Casar crying out, "Violence is meant!" one of the Cassii
					wounded him a little below the throat. Caesar seized him by the arm, and ran it
					through with his style; The stylus , or graphium , was an
						iron pen, broad at one end, with a sharp point at the other, used for
						writing upon waxen tables, the leaves or bark of trees, plates of brass, or
						lead, etc. For writing upon paper or parchment, the Romans employed a reed,
						sharpened and split in the point like our pens, called calamus , arundo , or canna . This they
						dipped in the black liquor emitted by the cuttle fish, which served for
						ink. and endeavouring to rush forward, was stopped by another wound.
					Finding himself now attacked on all hands with naked poniards, he wrapped the
						toga It was customary among the ancients, in great
						extremities to shroud the face. in order to conceal any symptoms of horror
						or alarm which the countenance might express. The skirt of the toga was
						drawn round the lower extremities, that there might be no exposure in
						falling, as the Romans, at this period, wore no covering for the thighs and
						legs. about his head, and at the same moment drew the skirt round his
					legs with his left hand, that he might fall more decently with the lower part of
					his body covered.He was stabbed with three and twenty wounds, uttering a groan
					only, but no cry, at the first wound; although some authors relate, that when
					Marcus Brutus fell upon him, he
					exclaimed, "What! art thou, too, one of them!" Thou, my son!" Caesar's dying apostrophe to Brutus is represented in all the editions of Suetonius as
						uttered in Greek, but with some variations. The words, as here translated,
						are καὶ σὺ εἶ ἐκείνων; καὶ σὺ . The Salmasian manuscript omits the latter clause.
						Some commentators suppose that the words "my son," vere not merely
						expressive of the difference of age, or former familiarity between them, but
						an avowal that Brutus was the fruit of the connection between Julius and Servilia, mentioned before [see
						p. 40]. But it appears very improbable that Caesar, who had never before
						acknowledged Brutus to be his son,
						should make so unnecessary an avowal, at the moment of his death.
						Exclusively of this objection, the apostrophe seems too verbose, both for
						the suddenness and urgency of the occasion. But this is nor all. Can we
						suppose that Caesar, though a perfect master of Greek, would at such a time
						have expressed himself in that language, rather than in Latin, his familiar
						tongue, and in which he spoke with peculiar elegance? Upon the whole, the
						probability is, that the words uttered by Casar were, Et tu Brute! 
						which, while equally expressive of astonishment with the other version, and
						even of tenderness, are both more natural, and more emphatic. The
					whole assembly instantly dispersing, he lay for some time after he expired,
					until three of his slaves laid the body on a litter, and carried it home, with
					one arm hanging down over the side. Among so many wounds, there was none that
					was mortal, in the opinion of the surgeon Antistius, except the second, which he
					received in the breast. The conspirators meant to drag his body into the
						 Tiber as soon.as they had killed
					him; to confiscate his estate, and rescind all his enactments; but they were
					deterred by fear of Mark Antony, and Lepidus, Caesar's master of the horse, and
					abandoned their intentions. At the instance of Lucius Piso, his fatherin-law, his will was opened and read in
					Mark Antony's house. He had made it on the ides (13th) of the preceding
					September, at his Lavica villa, and committed it to the custody of the chief of
					the Vestal Virgins. Quintus Tubero informs us, that in all the wills he had
					signed, from the time of his first consulship to the breaking out of. the civil
					war, Cneius Pompey was appointed his heir, and that this had been publicly
					notified to the army. But in his last will, he named three heirs, the grandsons
					of his sisters; namely, Caius Octavius for three fourths of his estate, and
					Lucius Pinarius and Quintus Pedius for the remaining fourth. Other heirs [in
					remainder] were named at the close of the will, in which he also adopted Caius
					Octavius, who was to assume his name, into his family; and nominated most of
					those who were concerned in his death among the guardians of his son, if he
					should have any; as well as Decimus Brutus amongst his heirs of the second
					order. He bequeathed to the Roman people his gardens near the Tiber , and three hundred sesterces each
					man. Notice of his funeral having been solemnly proclaimed, a pile was erected in the
						 Campus Martius , near the tomb of
					his daughter Julia; and before the Rostra was placed a gilded tabernacle, on the
					model of the temple of Venus Genitrix; within which was an ivory bed, covered
					with purple and cloth of gold. At the head was a trophy, with the
					[blood-stained] robe in which he was slain. It being considered that the whole
					day would not suffice for carrying the funeral oblations in solemn procession
					before the corpse, directions were given for every one, without regard to order,
					to carry them from the city into the Campus
						Martius , by what way they pleased. To raise pity and indignation
					for his murder, in the plays acted at the funeral, a passage was sung from
					Pacuvius's tragedy, entitled, The Trial for Arms : That ever I, unhappy man, should save Wretches, who thus have brought me to the grave? 
					 Men' me servasse, it essent qui me
							perderent? And some lines also from Attilius's tragedy of " Electra," to the same
					effect. Instead of a funeral panegyric, the consul Antony ordered a herald to
					proclaim to the people the decree of the senate, in which they had bestowed upon
					him all honours, divine and human; with the oath by which they had engaged
					themselves for the defence of his person; and to these he added only a few words
					of his own. The magistrates and others who had formerly filled the highest
					offices, carried the bier from the Rostra into the Forum. While some proposed
					that the body should be burnt in the sanctuary of the temple of Jupiter
					Capitolinus, and others in Pompey's senate-house; on a sudden, two men, with
					swords by their sides, and spears in their hands, set fire to the bier with
					lighted torches. The throng around immediately heaped upon it dry faggots, the
					tribunals and benches of the adjoining courts, and whatever else came to hand.
					Then the musicians and players stripped off the dresses they wore on the present
					occasion, taken from the wardrobe of his triumph at spectacles, rent them, and
					threw them into the flames. The legionaries, also, of his veteran bands, cast in
					their armour, which they had put on in honour of his funeral. Most of the ladies
					did the same by their ornaments, with the bullae , The Bulla , generally made of gold, was a hollow globe, which boys
						wore upon their breast, pendant from a string or ribbon put round the neck.
						The sons of freedmen and poor citizens used globes of leather. and
					mantles of their children. In this public mourning there joined a multitude of
					foreigners, expressing their sorrow according to the fashion of their respective
					countries; but especially the Jews, Josephus frequently
						mentions the benefits conferred on his countrymen by Julius Caesar. Anti. Jud. xiv. 14, 15, 16. 
					 who for several nights together frequented the spot where the body was
					burnt. The populace ran from the funeral, with torches in their hands, to the houses of
					Brutus and Cassius, and were repelled with difficulty. Going in quest of
					Cornelius Cinna, who had in a speech, the day before, reflected severely upon
					Caesar, and mistaking for him Helvius Cinna, who happened to fall into their
					hands, they murdered the latter, and carried his head about the city on the
					point of a spear. They afterwards erected in the Forum a column of Numidian
					marble, formed of one stone nearly twenty feet high, and inscribed upon it these
					words, TO THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY. At this column they continued for a long
					time to offer sacrifices, make vows, and decide controversies, in which they
					swore by Caesar.