it to a
third, and immediately it spread through the crowd that this man was
one of those who had killed Caesar; and indeed there was one of the
conspirators who was named Cinna: and taking this man to be him the
people forthwith rushed upon him and tore him in pieces on the spot.
It was principally through alarm at this that the partisans of Brutus
and Cassius after a few days left the city. But what they did and
suffered before they died is told in the Life of Brutus.[618] LXIX. At
the time of his death Caesar was full fifty-six years old, having
survived Pompeius not much more than four years, and of the power and
dominion which all through his life he pursued at so great risk and
barely got at last, having reaped the fruit in name only, and with the
glory of it the odium of the citizens. Yet his great daemon,[619] which
accompanied him through life, followed him even when he was dead, the
avenger of his murder, through every land and sea hunting and tracking
out his murderers till not one of them was left, and pursuing even
those who in any way whatever had either put their hand to the deed or
been participators in the plot. Among human events the strangest was
that which befell Cassius, for after his defeat at Philippi he killed
himself with the same dagger that he had employed against Caesar; and
among signs from heaven, there was the great comet, which appeared
conspicuous for seven nights after Caesar's assassination and then
disappeared, and the obscuration of the splendour of the sun. For
during all that year the circle of the sun rose pale and without rays,
and the warmth that came down from it was weak and feeble, so that the
air as it moved was dark and heavy owing to the feebleness of the
warmth which penetrated it, and the fruits withered and fell off when
they were half ripened and imperfect on account of the coldness of the
atmosphere. But chief of all, the phantom that appeared to Brutus
showed that Caesar's murder was not pleasing to the gods; and it was
after this manner. When Brutus was going to take his army over from
Abydus[620] to the other continent, he was lying down by night, as his
wont was, in his tent, not asleep, but thinking about the future; for
it is said that Brutus of all generals was least given to sleep, and
had naturally the power of keeping awake longer than any other person.
Thinking that he heard a noise near the door, he looked towards the
light of the lamp which was already sin