and the majority, followed the course mentioned because they wished to make him envied and disliked as quickly as possible, that he might the sooner perish.  Of course precisely that happened, though Caesar took courage on account of these very measures to believe that he would never be plotted against by the men who had voted him such honors, nor by any one else, because they would prevent it; and in consequence from this time he dispensed with a bodyguard.  Nominally he accepted the privilege of being watched over by the senators and knights and thus did away with his previous guardians. [-8-] Once on a single day they had passed in his honor an unusually large number of decrees of especially important character, that had been voted unanimously by all the rest except Cassius and a few others, who became notorious for this action:  yet they suffered no harm, a fact which conspicuously displayed their ruler’s clemency.  So, then, they approached him as he was sitting in the fore-part of the temple of Venus with the intention of announcing to him in a body their decisions;—­such business they transacted in his absence, in order to have the appearance of doing it not under compulsion but voluntarily.  And either by some Heaven-sent fatuity or through excess of joy he received them sitting, an act which aroused so great indignation among them all, not only senators but all the rest, that it afforded his slayers one of their chief excuses for their plot against him.  Some who subsequently tried to defend him said that owing to diarrhoea he could not control the movement of his bowels and had remained where he was in order to avoid a flux.

They were not able, however, to persuade the majority, since not long after this he arose and walked home without assistance; hence most men suspected him of being inflated with pride and hated him for his supercilious behavior, when it was they themselves who had made him disdainful by the extreme nature of their honors.  After this occurrence suspicion was increased by the fact that somewhat later he submitted to being made dictator for life.

[-9-] When he had reached this point, the conduct of the men plotting against him became no longer doubtful, and in order to embitter even his best friends against him they did their best to traduce the man and finally called him “king,”—­a name which was often heard in their consultations.  When he refused the title and rebuked in a way those that so saluted him, yet did nothing by which he could be thought to be really displeased at it, they secretly adorned his statue, which stood on the rostra, with a diadem.  And when Gaius Epidius Marullus and Lucius Caesetius Flavus, tribunes, took it down, he became thoroughly angry, although they uttered no insulting word and furthermore spoke well of him before the people as not desiring anything of the sort.[-10-] At this time, though vexed, he remained quiet; subsequently, however, when he was riding in from Albanum, some