eaven-daring Oriental tyranny, where
men's lives hung upon the nod and whim of the tyrant, as on
the hazards of a lottery.]

[Note 123: /What need we:/ why need we. So in _Antony and
Cleopatra_, V, ii, 317; _Titus Andronicus_, I, i, 189. Cf.
_Mark_, xiv, 63.]

[Note 125: /secret Romans:/ Romans who had promised secrecy.]

[Note 126: /palter:/ equivocate, quibble. The idea is of
shuffling as in making a promise with what is called a "mental
reservation." "Palter with us in a double sense" is the famous
expression in _Macbeth_, V, viii, 20, and it brings out
clearly the meaning implicit in the term.]

[Note 129: /cautelous:/ deceitful. The original meaning is
'wary,' 'circumspect.' It is the older English adjective for
'cautious.' "The transition from caution to suspicion, and
from suspicion to craft and deceit, is not very
abrupt."--Clar. Cf. 'cautel' in _Hamlet_, I, iii, 5.]

[Note 130: /carrions:/ carcasses, men as good as dead.]

[Note 133: /The even virtue:/ the virtue that holds an equable
and uniform tenor, always keeping the same high level. Cf.
_Henry VIII_, III, i, 37.]

[Note 134: /insuppressive:/ not to be suppressed. The active
form with the passive sense. Cf. 'unexpressive,' in _As You
Like It_, III, ii, 10.]

[Note 135: /To think:/ by thinking. The infinitive used
gerundively.]

[Page 53]

CASCA. Let us not leave him out.

CINNA. No, by no means.

METELLUS. O, let us have him, for his silver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinion, 145
And buy men's voices to commend our deeds:
It shall be said, his judgment rul'd our hands;
Our youths and wildness shall no whit appear,
But all be buried in his gravity.

BRUTUS. O, name him not; let us not break with him,
For he will never follow any thing 151
That other men begin.

CASSIUS. Then leave him out.

CASCA. Indeed he is not fit.

DECIUS. Shall no man else be touch'd but only Caesar?

[Note 145: /opinion:/ reputation. So in _The Merchant of
Venice_, I, i, 91.]

[Note 150: /break with him:/ broach the matter to him. This
bit of dialogue is very charming. Brutus knows full well that
Cicero is not the man to take a subordinate position; that if
he have anything to do with the enterprise it must be as the
leader of it; and that is just what Brutus wants to be
himself. Merivale thinks it a great honor to Cicero that the