men again called him king, and he said that his name was not king but Caesar:  then when those tribunes brought suit against the first man that termed him king, he no longer restrained his wrath, but showed evident irritation, as if these officials were actually aiming at the stability of his government.  For the moment he took no revenge upon them:  later, when they issued public notice to the effect that they found themselves not at liberty to speak freely and without molestation for the public good, he appeared exceedingly angry and brought them into the senate-house, where he accused them and put their conduct to the vote.  He did not put them to death, though some declared them worthy of that penalty, but first having removed them from the tribuneship through the motion of Helvius Cinna, their colleague, he erased their names from the senate.  Some were pleased at this, or pretended to be, on the ground that they would have no need to incur danger by free speech, and keeping out of politics they viewed events as from a watch tower.  Caesar, however, received an ill name from this fact, too, that whereas he should have hated those that applied to him the name of king, he let them go and found fault instead with the tribunes.

[-11-] Something else that happened not long after these events proved still more clearly that while pretendedly he shunned the title, in reality he desired to assume it.  When he had entered the Forum at the festival of the Lupercalia, at which naked boys competed, and was sitting on the rostra in his golden chair adorned with the royal apparel and conspicuous by his crown wrought of gold, Antony with his fellow priests saluted him as king and surrounding his brows with a diadem said:  “The people gives this to you through my hands.”  He answered that Jupiter alone was king of the Romans and sent the diadem to him to the Capitol, yet he was not angry and caused it to be inscribed in the records that the royalty presented to him by the people through the consul he had refused to receive.  It was accordingly suspected that this had been done by some pre-arranged plan and that he was anxious for the name but wished to be somehow compelled to take it, and the consequent hatred against him was intense.  After this certain men at the elections proposed those tribunes previously mentioned for the office of consul, and approaching Marcus Brutus and such other persons as were of high spirit attempted privately to persuade them and incited them to action publicly. [-12-] They scattered broadcast many letters (taking the fullest advantage of his having the same name as the great Brutus who overthrew the Tarquins), declaring that he was not truly that man’s descendant:  for he had put to death both his sons, the only ones he had, when they were mere lads, and was left no offspring surviving.  This attitude was, however, a mere ruse on the part of the majority, adopted in order that being in family akin to that famous man he might be induced to undertake similar deeds.  They kept continually invoking him, crying out “Brutus, Brutus!”, and adding further:  “We need a Brutus.”  Finally on the statue of the early Brutus they wrote “Would that thou wert living,” and upon their contemporary’s platform (he was praetor at the time) “Brutus, thou sleepest,” and “Thou art not Brutus.”