or Jupiter, the Best and the Greatest. A report was very
current, that he had a design of withdrawing to Alexandria or Ilium,
whither he proposed to transfer the imperial power, to drain Italy by new
levies, and to leave the government of the city to be administered by his
friends. To this report it was added, that in the next meeting of the
senate, Lucius Cotta, one of the fifteen [91], would make a motion, that
as there was in the Sibylline books a prophecy, that the Parthians would
never be subdued but by a king, Caesar should have that title conferred
upon him.

LXXX. For this reason the conspirators precipitated the execution of
their design [92], that they might not be obliged to give their assent to
the proposal. Instead, therefore, of caballing any longer separately, in
small parties, they now united their counsels; the people themselves
being dissatisfied with the present state of affairs, both privately and
publicly (49) condemning the tyranny under which they lived, and calling
on patriots to assert their cause against the usurper. Upon the
admission of foreigners into the senate, a hand-bill was posted up in
these words: "A good deed! let no one shew a new senator the way to the
house." These verses were likewise currently repeated:

The Gauls he dragged in triumph through the town,
Caesar has brought into the senate-house,
And changed their plaids [93] for the patrician gown.

Gallos Caesar in triumphum ducit: iidem in curiam
Galli braccas deposuerunt, latum clavum sumpserunt.

When Quintus Maximus, who had been his deputy in the consulship for the
last three months, entered the theatre, and the lictor, according to
custom, bid the people take notice who was coming, they all cried out,
"He is no consul." After the removal of Caesetius and Marullus from
their office, they were found to have a great many votes at the next
election of consuls. Some one wrote under the statue of Lucius Brutus,
"Would you were now alive!" and under the statue of Caesar himself these
lines:

Because he drove from Rome the royal race,
Brutus was first made consul in their place.
This man, because he put the consuls down,
Has been rewarded with a royal crown.

Brutus, quia reges ejecit, consul primus factus est:
Hic, quia consules ejecit, rex postremo factus est.

About sixty persons were engaged in the conspiracy against him, of whom
Caius Cassius, and Marcus and Decimus