[Sidenote:  The Sibylline books.] [Sidenote:  Declaration of the Sibylline books.] [Sidenote:  Plan for crowning Caesar.]

There were in Rome, and, in fact, in many other cities and countries of the world in those days, a variety of prophetic books, called the Sibylline Oracles, in which it was generally believed that future events were foretold.  Some of these volumes or rolls, which were very ancient and of great authority, were preserved in the temples at Rome, under the charge of a board of guardians, who were to keep them with the utmost care, and to consult them on great occasions, in order to discover beforehand what would be the result of public measures or great enterprises which were in contemplation.  It happened that at this time the Romans were engaged in a war with the Parthians, a very wealthy and powerful nation of Asia.  Caesar was making preparations for an expedition to the East to attempt to subdue this people.  He gave orders that the Sibylline Oracles should be consulted.  The proper officers, after consulting them with the usual solemn ceremonies, reported to the Senate that they found it recorded in these sacred prophecies that the Parthians could not be conquered except by a king, A senator proposed, therefore, that, to meet the emergency, Caesar should be made king during the war.  There was at first no decisive action on this proposal.  It was dangerous to express any opinion.  People were thoughtful, serious, and silent, as on the eve of some great convulsion.  No one knew what others were meditating, and thus did not dare to express his own wishes or designs.  There soon, however, was a prevailing understanding that Caesar’s friends were determined on executing the design of crowning him, and that the fifteenth of March, called, in their phraseology, the Ides of March, was fixed upon as the coronation day.

[Sidenote:  The conspiracy.]

In the mean time, Caesar’s enemies, though to all outward appearance quiet and calm, had not been inactive.  Finding that his plans were now ripe for execution, and that they had no, open means of resisting them, they formed a conspiracy to assassinate Caesar himself, and thus bring his ambitious schemes to an effectual and final end.  The name of the original leader of this conspiracy was Cassius.

[Sidenote:  Cassius.]

Cassius had been for a long time Caesar’s personal rival and enemy.  He was a man of a very violent and ardent temperament, impetuous and fearless, very fond of exercising power himself, but very restless and uneasy in having it exercised over him.  He had all the Roman repugnance to being under the authority of a master, with an additional personal determination of his own not to submit to Caesar.  He determined to slay Caesar rather than to allow him to be made a king, and he went to work, with great caution, to bring other leading and influential men to join him in this determination.  Some of those to whom he applied said that they would unite with him in his plot provided he would get Marcus Brutus to join them.