A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

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Caesar's Death; Character 449
in the face, Brutus smote him in the thigh, and BucoHanus
between the shoulder-blades.
With rage and outcries Caesar turned now upon one and
now upon another like a wild animal, but after receiving
the wound from Brutus he despaired, and veiling himself
with his robe, he fell prostrate at the foot of Pompey's
statue. After he had fallen they continued their attack
till
he received twenty-three wounds.
When the will of Caesar was opened, and the people The funeial.
learned that he had given a handsome present to every piutarch,
Roman, and they saw the body as it was carried through
'^'^''' ^^'
the Forum, disfigured with wounds, the multitude no
longer kept within the bounds of propriety and order, but
taking from the Forum benches, lattices, and tables, they
to the pile and
heaped them about the corpse, and set fire
burned the body on the spot. Then seizing the flaming
pieces of wood, they ran to the houses of the conspirators
to fire them, and others hurried about the city in all directions
in search of the murderers to seize and tear them to
pieces.
He died in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and was ranked His spirit,
among the gods, not only by a formal decree but also in Suetonius,
the belief of the people. For during the first games which c^^^r, 88.
Augustus, his heir, consecrated to his memory, a comet
blazed seven days together, rising always about eleven
o'clock; and the people thought it was the soul of Caesar
now received into heaven.
That mighty superhuman spirit, which had accompanied
him through life, followed him even in death; the avenger
of his murder, it ran through every land and sea, to hunt Plutarch,
and track down his assassins till not one of them was left
it
pursued even those who in any way whatever had put
their hand to the deed or had shared in the plot.