rs and magistrates, so that there were 16 Praetors, 40 Quaestors,
and 6 AEdiles, and new members were added to the priestly colleges. Among
other plans of internal improvement, he proposed to frame a digest of
all the Roman laws, to establish public libraries, to drain the Pomptine
marshes, to enlarge the harbor of Ostia and to dig a canal through the
isthmus of Corinth. To protect the boundaries of the Roman Empire, he
meditated expeditions against the Parthians and the barbarous tribes on
the Danube, and had already begun to make preparations for his departure
to the East. In the midst of these vast projects he entered upon the
last year of his life, B.C. 44, and his fifth Consulship and
Dictatorship. He had made M. Antonius his colleague in the Consulship,
and M. Lepidus the Master of the Horse. He had for some time past
resolved to preserve the supreme power in his family; and, as he had no
legitimate children, he had fixed upon his great-nephew Octavius
(afterward the Emperor Augustus) as his successor. Possessing royal
power, he now wished to obtain the title of king, and accordingly
prevailed upon his colleague Antonius to offer him the diadem in public
on the festival of the Lupercalia (the 15th of February). But the very
name of king had long been hateful at Rome; and the people displayed
such an evident dislike to the proposal that it was dropped for the
present.

The conspiracy against Caesar's life had been formed as early as the
beginning of the year. It had been set on foot by C. Cassius Longinus, a
personal enemy of Caesar's, and more than sixty persons were privy to it.
Private hatred alone seems to have been the motive of Cassius, and
probably of several others. Many of them had taken an active part in the
war against Caesar, and had not only been forgiven by him, but raised to
offices of rank and honor. Among others was M. Junius Brutus, who had
been pardoned by Caesar after the battle of Pharsalia, and had since been
treated almost as his son. In this very year Caesar had made him Praetor,
and held out to him the prospect of the Consulship. Brutus, like Cato,
seems to have been a sincere Republican, and Cassius persuaded him to
join the conspiracy, and imitate his great ancestor who freed them from
the Tarquins. It was now arranged to assassinate the Dictator in the
Senate-house on the Ides or 15th of March. Rumors of the plot got
abroad, and Caesar was strongly urged not to attend the Senate. But he