ligious and political fanaticism.
And all these horrible crimes were perpetrated in the name of that great
and august character who had won the world by his sword. The prestige of
that mighty name sanctioned their atrocities and upheld their power. Caesar
still lived, although assassinated, and the triumvirs reigned as his heirs
or avengers, even as Louis Napoleon grasped the sceptre of his uncle, not
from any services _he_ had rendered, but as the heir of his conquests. The
Romans loved Caesar as the French loved Napoleon, and submitted to the rule
of the triumvirs, as the French submitted to the usurpations of the
proscribed prisoner of Ham. And in the anarchy which succeeded the
assassination of the greatest man of antiquity, it must need be that the
strongest would seize the reins, since all liberty and exalted patriotism
had fled.

(M1031) But these usurpers did not secure their power without one more
last struggle of the decimated and ruined aristocracy. They rallied under
the standards of Brutus and Cassius in Macedonia and Syria. The one was at
the head of eight legions, and the other of eleven, a still formidable
force. Sextus Pompeius also still lived, and had intrenched himself in
Sicily. A battle had still to be fought before the republic gave its last
sigh. Cicero ought to have joined these forces, and might have done so,
but for his vacillation. So Lepidus, as consul, took control of Rome and
the interests of Italy, while Antonius marched against Brutus and Cassius
in the East, and Octavius assailed Sextus in Sicily; unable, however, to
attack him without ships, he joined his confederate. Their united forces
were concentrated in Philippi, in Thrace, and there was fought the last
decisive battle between the republicans, if the senatorial and
aristocratic party under Brutus and Cassius can be called republicans, and
the liberators, as they called themselves, or the adherents of Caesar. The
republicans had a force of eighty thousand infantry and twenty thousand
cavalry, while the triumvirs commanded a still superior force. The numbers
engaged in this great conflict exceeded all former experience, and the
battle of Philippi was the most memorable in Roman annals, since all the
available forces of the empire were now arrayed against each other. The
question at issue was, whether power should remain with the old
constitutional party, or with the party of usurpation which Caesar had
headed and led to victory. It w