e the character of the man is
unpleasant to contemplate, unimpressionable, very far from divine. There
is none of the human softness necessary for love; none of the human
weakness needed for sympathy.

On the 15th of March Caesar fell. When the murder had been effected.
Brutus and the others concerned in it went out among the people
expecting to be greeted as saviors of their country. Brutus did address
the populace, and was well received; but some bad feeling seems to have
been aroused by hard expressions as to Caesar's memory coming from one of
the Praetors. For the people, though they regarded Caesar as a tyrant, and
expressed themselves as gratified when told that the would-be king had
been slaughtered, still did not endure to hear ill spoken of him. He had
understood that it behooved a tyrant to be generous, and appealed among
them always with full hands--not having been scrupulous as to his mode
of filling them. Then the conspirators, frightened at menacing words
from the crowd, betook themselves to the Capitol. Why they should have
gone to the Capitol as to a sanctuary I do not think that we know. The
Capitol is that hill to a portion of which access is now had by the
steps of the church of the Ara Coeli in front, and from the Forum in
the rear. On one side was the fall from the Tarpeian rock down which
malefactors were flung. On the top of it was the temple to Jupiter,
standing on the site of the present church. And it was here that Brutus
and Cassius and the other conspirators sought for safety on the evening
of the day on which Caesar had been killed. Here they remained for the
two following days, till on the 18th they ventured down into the city.
On the 17th Dolabella claimed to be Consul, in compliance with Caesar's
promise, and on the same day the Senate, moved by Antony, decreed a
public funeral to Caesar. We may imagine that the decree was made by
them with fainting hearts. There were many fainting hearts in Rome
during those days, for it became very soon apparent that the
conspirators had carried their plot no farther than the death of Caesar.

Brutus, as far as the public service was concerned, was an unpractical,
useless man. We know nothing of public work done by him to much purpose.
He was filled with high ideas as to his own position among the
oligarchs, and with especial notions as to what was due by Rome to men
of his name. He had a fierce conception of his own rights--among which
to be Praetor,