tch tower. Caesar, however, received an ill
name from this fact, too, that whereas he should have hated those that
applied to him the name of king, he let them go and found fault instead
with the tribunes.

[-11-] Something else that happened not long after these events proved
still more clearly that while pretendedly he shunned the title, in
reality he desired to assume it. When he had entered the Forum at the
festival of the Lupercalia, at which naked boys competed, and was
sitting on the rostra in his golden chair adorned with the royal apparel
and conspicuous by his crown wrought of gold, Antony with his fellow
priests saluted him as king and surrounding his brows with a diadem
said: "The people gives this to you through my hands." He answered that
Jupiter alone was king of the Romans and sent the diadem to him to the
Capitol, yet he was not angry and caused it to be inscribed in the
records that the royalty presented to him by the people through the
consul he had refused to receive. It was accordingly suspected that this
had been done by some pre-arranged plan and that he was anxious for the
name but wished to be somehow compelled to take it, and the consequent
hatred against him was intense. After this certain men at the elections
proposed those tribunes previously mentioned for the office of consul,
and approaching Marcus Brutus and such other persons as were of high
spirit attempted privately to persuade them and incited them to action
publicly. [-12-] They scattered broadcast many letters (taking the
fullest advantage of his having the same name as the great Brutus who
overthrew the Tarquins), declaring that he was not truly that man's
descendant: for _he_ had put to death both his sons, the only ones he
had, when they were mere lads, and was left no offspring surviving. This
attitude was, however, a mere ruse on the part of the majority, adopted
in order that being in family akin to that famous man he might be
induced to undertake similar deeds. They kept continually invoking him,
crying out "Brutus, Brutus!", and adding further: "We need a Brutus."
Finally on the statue of the early Brutus they wrote "Would that thou
wert living," and upon their contemporary's platform (he was praetor at
the time) "Brutus, thou sleepest," and "Thou art not Brutus."

[-13-] These incidents persuaded him, especially as he had displayed
hostility to Caesar from the start, to attack the leader, who had
nevertheless shown himself