[e] Hirtius and Pansa were consuls A.U.C. 711; before the Christian aera 43.  In this year, the famous triple league, called the TRIUMVIRATE, was formed between Augustus, Lepidus, and Antony.  The proscription, or the list of those who were doomed to die for the crime of adhering to the cause of liberty, was also settled, and Cicero was one of the number.  A band of assassins went in quest of him to his villa, called Astura, near the sea-shore.  Their leader was one Popilius Laenas, a military tribune, whom Cicero had formerly defended with success in a capital cause.  They overtook Cicero in his litter.  He commanded his servants to set him down, and make no resistance; then looking upon his executioners with a presence and firmness which almost daunted them, and thrusting his neck as forward as he could out of the litter, he bade them do their work, and take what they wanted.  The murderers cut off his head, and both his hands.  Popilius undertook to convey them to Rome, as the most agreeable present to Antony; without reflecting on the infamy of carrying that head, which had saved his own.  He found Antony in the forum, and upon shewing the spoils which he brought, was rewarded on the spot with the honour of a crown, and about eight thousand pounds sterling.  Antony ordered the head to be fixed upon the rostra, between the two hands; a sad spectacle to the people, who beheld those mangled members, which used to exert themselves, from that place, in defence of the lives, the fortunes, and the liberties of Rome.  Cicero was killed on the seventh of December, about ten days from the settlement of the triumvirate, after he had lived sixty-three years, eleven months, and five days.  See Middleton’s Life of Cicero, 4to edit. vol. ii. p. 495 to 498.  Velleius Paterculus, after mentioning Cicero’s death, breaks out in a strain of indignation, that almost redeems the character of that time-serving writer.  He says to Antony, in a spirited apostrophe, you have no reason to exult:  you have gained no point by paying the assassin, who stopped that eloquent mouth, and cut off that illustrious head.  You have paid the wages of murder, and you have destroyed a consul who was the conservator of the commonwealth.  By that act you delivered Cicero from a distracted world, from the infirmities of old age, and from a life which, under your usurpation, would have been worse than death.  His fame was not to be crushed:  the glory of his actions and his eloquence still remains, and you have raised it higher than ever.  He lives, and will continue to live in every age and nation.  Posterity will admire and venerate the torrent of eloquence, which he poured out against yourself, and will for ever execrate the horrible murder which you committed. Nihil tamen egisti, Marce Antoni (cogit enim excedere propositi formam operis erumpens animo ac pectore indignatio):  nihil, inquam, egisti; mercedem caelestissimi oris, et clarissimi capitis