One of these soothsayers, named Spurinna, came to Caesar one day, and informed him that he had found, by means of a public sacrifice which he had just been offering, that there was a great and mysterious danger impending over him, which was connected in some way with the Ides of March, and he counseled him to be particularly cautious and circumspect until that day should have passed.
[Sidenote: The hawks and the wren.] The Senate were to meet on the Ides of March in a new and splendid edifice, which had been erected for their use by Pompey.

There was in the interior of the building, among other decorations, a statue of Pompey.

The day before the Ides of March, some birds of prey from a neighboring grove came flying into this hall, pursuing a little wren with a sprig of laurel in its mouth.

The birds tore the wren to pieces, the laurel dropping from its bill to the marble pavement of the floor below.

Now, as Caesar had been always accustomed to wear a crown of laurel on great occasions, and had always evinced a particular fondness for that decoration, that plant had come to be considered his own proper badge, and the fall of the laurel, therefore, was naturally thought to portend some great calamity to him.
[Sidenote: Caesar's agitation of mind.] [Sidenote: His dream.] [Sidenote: Calpurnia's dream.] [Sidenote: The effect of a disturbed mind.] The night before the Ides of March Caesar could not sleep.