some obscure and half-formed image floated in his mind of
the eagle, as the king of birds; secondly, as the tutelary emblem
under which his conquering legions had so often obeyed his voice; and,
thirdly, as the bird of Jove. To this triple relation of the bird his
dream covertly appears to point. And a singular coincidence appears
between this dream and a little anecdote brought down to us, as having
actually occurred in Rome about twenty-four hours before his death. A
little bird, which by some is represented as a very small kind of
sparrow, but which, both to the Greeks and the Romans, was known by a
name implying a regal station (probably from the ambitious courage
which at times prompted it to attack the eagle), was observed to
direct its flight towards the senate-house, consecrated by Pompey,
whilst a crowd of other birds were seen to hang upon its flight in
close pursuit. What might be the object of the chase, whether the
little king himself, or a sprig of laurel which he bore in his mouth,
could not be determined. The whole train, pursuers and pursued,
continued their flight towards Pompey's hall. Flight and pursuit were
there alike arrested; the little king was overtaken by his enemies,
who fell upon him as so many conspirators, and tore him limb from
limb.

If this anecdote were reported to Caesar, which is not at all
improbable, considering the earnestness with which his friends
laboured to dissuade him from his purpose of meeting the senate on the
approaching Ides of March, it is very little to be doubted that it had
a considerable effect upon his feelings, and that, in fact, his own
dream grew out of the impression which it had made. This way of
linking the two anecdotes, as cause and effect, would also bring a
third anecdote under the same _nexus_. We are told that Calpurnia, the
last wife of Caesar, dreamed on the same night, and to the same
ominous result. The circumstances of _her_ dream are less striking,
because less figurative; but on that account its import was less open
to doubt: she dreamed, in fact, that after the roof of their mansion
had fallen in, her husband was stabbed in her bosom. Laying all these
omens together, Caesar would have been more or less than human had he
continued utterly undepressed by them. And if so much superstition as
even this implies, must be taken to argue some little weakness, on the
other hand let it not be forgotten, that this very weakness does but
the more illustra