In this frantic and savage career, numbers had formed designs for cutting him
					off; but one or two conspiracies being discovered, and others postponed for want
					of opportunity, at last two men concerted a plan together. and accomplished
					their purpose; not without the privity of some of the greatest favourites
					amongst his freedmen, and the prefects of the pretorian guards; because, having
					been nante, though falsely, as concerned in one conspiracy against hipi, they
					perceived that they were suspected and become objects of his hatred. For he had
					immediately endeavoured to render them obnoxious to the soldiery, drawing his
					sword, and declaring, "That he would kill himself if they thought him worthy of
					death ;" and ever after he was continually accusing them to one another, and
					setting them all mutually at variance. The conspirators having resolved to fall
					upon him as he returned at noon from the Palatine garies, Cassius Charea, tribune of the pretorian
					guards, claimed the part of making the onset. This Chaerea was now an elderly
					man, and had been often reproached by Caius for effeminacy. When he came for the
					watchword, the latter would give "Priapus," or " Venus ;" and if on any occasion he returned thanks, would offer
					him his hand to kiss, making with his fingers an obscene gesture. His approaching fate was indicated by many prodigies. The statue of Jupiter at Olympia , which he had ordered to be taken down and brought to
						 Rome , suddenly burst out into such
					a violent fit of laughter, that, the machines employed in the work giving way,
					the workmen took to their heels. When this accident happened, there came up a
					man named Cassius, who said that he was commanded in a dream to sacrifice a bull
					to Jupiter . The Capitol at Capua was struck with lightning upon the ides
					of March [i th March]; as was also, at Rome , the apartment of the chief porter of the Palatiun. Some
					construed the latter into a presage that the master of the palace was in danger
					from his own guards; and the other they regarded as a sign, that an illustrious
					person would be cut off, as had happened before on that day. Sylla, the
					astrologer, being consulted by him respecting his nativity, assured him, "That
					death would unavoidably and speedily befall him." The oracle of Fortune at
						 Antium likewise forewarned him of
					Cassius; on which account he had given orders for putting to death Cassius Longi
					nus, at that time proconsul of Asia ,
					not considering that Chaerea bore also that name. The day preceding his death he
					dreamt that he was standing in heaven near the throne of Jupiter, who giving him
					a push with the great toe of his right foot, he fell headlong upon the earth.
					Some things which happened the very day of his death, and only a little before
					it, were likewise considered as ominous presages of that event. Whilst he was at
					sacrifice, he was bespattered with the blood of a flamingo. And Mnester, the
					pantomimic actor, performed in a play, which the tragedian Neoptolemus had
					formerly acted at the games in which Philip, the king of Macedon , was slain. And in the piece called
					Laureolus, in which the principal actor, running out in a hurry, and falling,
					vomited blood, several of the inferior actors vying with each other to give the
					best specimen of their art, made the whole stage flow with blood. A spectacle
					had been purposed to be performed that night, in which the fables of the
					infernal regions were to be represented by Egyptians and Ethiopians. On the ninth of the calends of February [24th January], and about the seventh
					hour of the day, after hesitating whether he should rise to dinner, as his
					stomach was disordered by what he had eaten the day before, at last, by the
					advice of his friends, he came forth. In the vaulted passage through which he
					had to pass, were some boys of noble extraction, who had been brought from
						 Asia to act upon the stage, waiting
					for him in a private corridor, and he stopped to see and speak to them; and had
					not the leader of the party said that he was suffering from cold, he would have
					gone back, and made them act immediately. Respecting what followed, two
					different accounts are given. Some say, that, whilst he was speaking to the
					boys, Chaerea came behind him, and gave him a heavy blow on the neck with his
					sword first crying out, "Take this:" that then a tribune, by name Cornelius
					Sabinus, another of the conspirators, ran him through the breast. Others say,
					that the crowd being kept at a distance by some centurions who were in the plot,
					Sabinus came, according to custom,.fr. the word, and that Caius gave him
						" Jupiter ," upon which Chaerea cried
					out, "Be it so !" and then, on his looking round, clove one of his jaws with a
					blow. As he lay on the ground, crying out that he was still alive, Josephus, who supplies us with minute details of the
						assassination of Caligula, says that he made no outcry, either disdaining
						it, or because an alarm would have been useless; but that he attempted to
						make his escape through a corridor which led to some baths behind the
						palace. Among the ruins on the Palatine hill, these baths still attract attention, some of
						the frescos being in good preservation. See the account in Josephus, xix. i,
						2. the rest dispatched him with thirty wounds. For the word agreed
					upon among them all was, "Strike again." Some likewise ran their swords through
					his privy parts. Upon the first bustle, the litter bearers came running in with
					their poles to his assistance, and, immediately afterwards, his German body
					guards, who killed some of the assassins, and also some senators who had no
					concern in the affair. He lived twenty-nine years, and reigned three years, ten months and eight days.
					His body was carried privately into the Lamian Gardens, The
						Lamian was an ancient family, the founders of Formiae . They had gardens on the Esquiline mount. where it was half
					burnt upon a pile hastily raised, and then had some earth carelessly thrown over
					it. It was afterwards disinterred by his sisters, on their return from
					banishment, burnt to ashes, and buried. Before this was done, it is well-known
					that the keepers of the gardens were greatly disturbed by apparitions; and that
					not a night passed without some terrible alarm or other in the house where he
					was slain, until it was destroyed by fire. His wife Caesonia was killed with
					him, being stabbed by a centurion; and his daughter had her brains knocked out
					against a wall. Of the miserable condition of those times, any person may easily form an estimate
					from the following circumstances. When his death was made public, it was not
					immediately credited. People entertained a suspicion that a report of his being
					killed had been contrived and spread by himself with the view of discovering how
					they stood affected towards him. Nor had the conspirators fixed upon any one to
					succeed him. The senators were so unanimous in their resolution to assert the
					liberty of their country, that the consuls assembled them at first not in the
					usual place of meeting, because it was named after Julius Caesar, but in the
					Capitol. Some proposed to abolish the memory of the Caesars, and level their
					temples with the ground. It was particularly remarked on this occasion, that all
					the Caesars, who had the praenomen of Caius, died by the sword, from the Caius
					Caesar who was slain in the times of Cinna.