[Pinnock’s Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith’s History of Rome by Oliver Goldsmith]@TWC D-Link book
Pinnock’s Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith’s History of Rome

CHAPTER XXI
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What were his most important resolutions?
SECTION III.
O mighty Caesar! dost thou lie so low?
Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, Shrunk to this little measure ?--_Shakspeare._ 1.

Caesar having been made perpetual dictator, and received from the senate accumulated honours, it began to be rumoured that he intended to make himself king.

In fact, he was possessed of the power; but the people, who had an aversion to the name, could not bear his assuming the title.2.Whether he really designed to assume that empty honour, must for ever remain a secret; but certain it is, that the unsuspecting openness of his conduct created something like confidence in the innocence of his intentions.3.When informed by those about him of the jealousies of many who envied his power, he was heard to say, that he would rather die once by treason, than live continually in the apprehension of it.

When advised by some to beware of Brutus, in whom he had for some time reposed the greatest confidence, he opened his breast, all scarred with wounds, saying, "Do you think Brutus cares for such poor pillage as this ?" and, being one night at supper, as his friends disputed among themselves what death was easiest, he replied, "That which is most sudden and least foreseen." But, to convince the world how little he apprehended from his enemies, he disbanded his Spanish guards, and thus facilitated the enterprise against his life.
4.

A deep conspiracy was now laid against him, into which no less than sixty senators entered.


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