But even he could not escape a retribution, in spite of his exalted position and his great services.  The leaders of the aristocracy still hated him, and 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:—­