his competitor; on which occasion Caesar is reported to have said,
"Cassius assigns the strongest reasons, but I cannot refuse Brutus."

Some impeached Brutus after the conspiracy was formed; but, instead of
listening to them, he laid his hand on his body and said, "Brutus will
wait for this skin"; intimating that though the virtue of Brutus
rendered him worthy of empire, he would not be guilty of any ingratitude
or baseness to obtain it. Those, however, who were desirous of a change
kept their eyes upon him only, or principally at least; and as they
durst not speak out plain, they put billets night after night in the
tribunal and seat which he used as praetor, mostly in these terms: "Thou
sleepest, Brutus," or, "Thou art not Brutus."

Cassius, perceiving his friend's ambition a little stimulated by these
papers, began to ply him closer than before, and spur him on to the
great enterprise; for he had a particular enmity against Caesar. Caesar,
too, had some suspicion of him, and he even said one day to his friends:
"What think you of Cassius? I do not like his pale looks." Another time,
when Antony and Dolabella were accused of some designs against his
person and government, he said: "I have no apprehensions from those fat
and sleek men; I rather fear the pale and lean ones," meaning Cassius
and Brutus.

It seems, from this instance, that fate is not so secret as it is
inevitable; for we are told there were strong signs and presages of the
death of Caesar. As to the lights in the heavens, the strange noises
heard in various quarters by night, and the appearance of solitary birds
in the Forum, perhaps they deserve not our notice in so great an event
as this. But some attention should be given to Strabo the philosopher.
According to him there were seen in the air men of fire encountering
each other; such a flame appeared to issue from the hand of a soldier's
servant that all the spectators thought it must be burned, yet, when it
was over, he found no harm; and one of the victims which Caesar offered
was found without a heart. The latter was certainly a most alarming
prodigy; for, according to the rules of nature, no creature can exist
without a heart. What is still more extraordinary, many report that a
certain soothsayer forewarned him of a great danger which threatened him
on the ides of March, and that when the day was come, as he was going to
the senate house, he called to the soothsayer, and said, laughing, "The