rchy was, according to the view univerally diffused in antiquity,
the image of the monarch on the coins; from the year 710
the head of Caesar appears on those of the Roman state.

There could accordingly be no complaint at least on the score
that Caesar left the public in the dark as to his view of his position;
as distinctly and as formally as possible he came forward
not merely as monarch, but as very king of Rome. It is possible even,
although not exactly probable, and at any rate of subordinate
importance, that he had it in view to designate his official power
not with the new name of Imperator, but directly with the old one
of King.(18) Even in his lifetime many of his enemies as of his friends
were of opinion that he intended to have himself expressly nominated
king of Rome; several indeed of his most vehement adherents
suggested to him in different ways and at different times
that he should assume the crown; most strikingly of all,
Marcus Antonius, when he as consul offered the diadem to Caesar
before all the people (15 Feb. 710). But Caesar rejected
these proposals without exception at once. If he at the same time
took steps against those who made use of these incidents to stir
republican opposition, it by no means follows from this that he was not
in earnest with his rejection. The assumption that these invitations
took place at his bidding, with the view of preparing the multitude
for the unwonted spectacle of the Roman diadem, utterly misapprehends
the mighty power of the sentimental opposition with which
Caesar had to reckon, and which could not be rendered more compliant,
but on the contrary necessarily gained a broader basis,
through such a public recognition of its warrant on the part
of Caesar himself. It may have been the uncalled-for zeal of vehement
adherents alone that occasioned these incidents; it may be also,
that Caesar merely permitted or even suggested the scene with Antonius,
in order to put an end in as marked a manner as possible
to the inconvenient gossip by a declinature which took place
before the eyes of the burgesses and was inserted by his command
even in the calendar of the state and could not, in fact,
be well revoked. The probability is that Caesar, who appreciated alike
the value of a convenient formal designation and the antipathies
of the multitude which fasten more on the names than on the essence
of things, was resolved to avoid the name of king as tainted
with an anci