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.