and was shattered to pieces.  He ought then to have changed his purpose, but instead he paid no attention to this and would not listen to some one who was giving him information of the plot.  He received from him a little roll in which all the preparations made for the attack had been accurately inscribed, but did not read it, thinking that it was some other not very pressing matter.  In brief, he was so confident that to the soothsayer who had warned him to beware of that day he said jokingly:  “Where are your prophecies?  Don’t you see that the day over which you were all of a tremble is here and I am alive?” And the other, they say, answered only this:  “Yes, it is here, but not yet gone.”

[-19-] Now when he finally reached the senate Trebonius delayed Antony somewhere at a distance outside.  They had planned to kill both him and Lepidus.  But fearing that they might be ill spoken of as a result of the number of those destroyed, and that it might be said that they had slain Caesar to gain power and not to free the city, as they pretended, they did not wish Antony even to be present at his slaughter.  As for Lepidus, he had set out on a campaign and was in the suburbs.  Antony was held by Trebonius in conversation.  Meanwhile the rest in a body surrounded Caesar (he was as easy of access and ready to be addressed as any one could have wished), and some talked among themselves, while others presented petitions to him, so that suspicion might be as far from his mind as possible.  When the right moment came, one of them approached him as if to express his thanks for some favor or other and pulled his cloak from his shoulder; for this, according to the agreement, served to the conspirators as a signal raised.  Thereupon they attacked him from many sides at once and wounded him to death, so that by reason of their numbers Caesar was unable to say or do anything, but veiling his face was slain with many wounds.  This is the truest account.  In times past some have made a declaration like this, that to Brutus who struck him severely he said:  “Thou, too, my child?”

[-20-] A great outcry naturally arose from all the rest who were inside and who were standing nearby outside at the suddenness of the event and because they were not acquainted with the slayers, their numbers, or their intention; and all were thrown into confusion, believing themselves in danger; so they themselves started in flight by whatever way each man could, and they alarmed those who met them by saying nothing definite, but merely shouting out these words:  “Run, bolt doors!  Run, bolt doors!” The rest, taking it up from one another as each one echoed the cries, filled the city with lamentations, and they burst into shops and houses to hide themselves.  Yet the assassins hurried just as they were to the Forum, indicating both by their gestures and their shouts not to be afraid.  At the same time that they said this they called continuously for Cicero:  but the crowd did not believe that they were sincere,