could not be appeased for the overthrow of their power.
They resolved to assassinate him, from vengeance rather than fear.
Cicero was not among the conspirators; because his discretion could not
be relied upon, and they passed him by. But his heart was with them.
"There are many ways," said he, "in which a man may die." It was not a
wise thing to take his life; since the Constitution was already
subverted, and somebody would reign as imperator by means of the army,
and his death would necessarily lead to renewed civil wars and new
commotions and new calamities. But angry, embittered, and passionate
enemies do not listen to reason. They will not accept the inevitable.
There was no way to get rid of Caesar but by assassination, and no one
wished him out of the way but the nobles. Hence it was easy for them to
form a conspiracy. It was easy to stab him with senatorial daggers.
Caesar was not killed because he had personal enemies, nor because he
destroyed the liberties of Roman citizens, but because he had usurped
the authority of the aristocracy.

Yet he died, perhaps at the right time, at the age of fifty-six, after
an undisputed reign of only three or four years,--about the length of
that of Cromwell. He was already bending under the infirmities of a
premature old age. Epileptic fits had set in, and his constitution was
undermined by his unparalleled labors and fatigues; and then his
restless mind was planning a new expedition to Parthia, where he might
have ingloriously perished like Crassus. But such a man could not die.
His memory and deeds lived. He filled a role in history, which could not
be forgotten. He inaugurated a successful revolution. He bequeathed a
policy to last as long as the Empire lasted; and he had rendered
services of the greatest magnitude, by which he is to be ultimately
judged, as well as by his character. It is impossible for us to settle
whether or not his services overbalanced the evils of the imperialism he
established and of the civil wars by which he reached supreme command.
Whatever view we may take of the comparative merits of an aristocracy or
an imperial despotism in a corrupt age, we cannot deny to Caesar some
transcendent services and a transcendent fame. The whole matter is laid
before us in the language of Cicero to Caesar himself, in the Senate,
when he was at the height of his power; which shows that the orator was
not lacking in courage any more than in foresight and moral wisdom