was gathering around him all the means and
resources necessary for the execution of them.

CHAPTER XI

THE CONSPIRACY.

Caesar's greatness and glory came at last to a very sudden and violent
end. He was assassinated. All the attendant circumstances of this deed,
too, were of the most extraordinary character, and thus the dramatic
interest which adorns all parts of the great conqueror's history marks
strikingly its end.

[Sidenote: Jealousies awakened by Caesar's power.]
[Sidenote: The Roman Constitution.]
[Sidenote: Struggles and Conflicts.]

His prosperity and power awakened, of course, a secret jealousy and ill
will. Those who were disappointed in their expectations of his favor
murmured. Others, who had once been his rivals, hated him for having
triumphed over them. Then there was a stern spirit of democracy, too,
among certain classes of the citizens of Rome which could not brook a
master. It is true that the sovereign power in the Roman commonwealth
had never been shared by all the inhabitants. It was only in certain
privileged classes that the sovereignty was vested; but among these the
functions of government were divided and distributed in such a way as
to balance one interest against another, and to give all their proper
share of influence and authority. Terrible struggles and conflicts often
occurred among these various sections of society, as one or another
attempted from time to time to encroach upon the rights or privileges of
the rest. These struggles, however, ended usually in at last restoring
again the equilibrium which had been disturbed. No one power could ever
gain the entire ascendency; and thus, as all _monarchism_ seemed
excluded from their system, they called it a republic. Caesar, however,
had now concentrated in himself all the principal elements of power, and
there began to be suspicions that he wished to make himself in name and
openly, as well as secretly and in fact, a king.

[Sidenote: Roman repugnance to royalty.]
[Sidenote: Firmness of the Romans.]

The Romans abhorred the very name of king. They had had kings in the
early periods of their history, but they made themselves odious by their
pride and their oppressions, and the people had deposed and expelled
them. The modern nations of Europe have several times performed the same
exploit, but they have generally felt unprotected and ill at ease
without a personal sovereign over them and have accordingly, in most
cases, after