previous next

[143] Cæsar's will was now produced and the people ordered that it be read at once. In it Octavius, the grandson of his sister, was adopted by Cæsar. His gardens were given to the people as a place of recreation, and to every Roman still living in the city he gave seventy-five Attic drachmas.1 The people were again stirred to anger when they saw the will of this lover of his country, whom they had before heard accused of tyranny. Most of all did it seem pitiful to them that Decimus Brutus, one of the murderers, should have been named by him for adoption in the second degree; for it was customary for the Romans to name alternate heirs in case of the failure of the first. Whereupon there was still greater disturbance among the people, who considered it shocking and sacrilegious that Decimus should have conspired against Cæsar when he had been adopted as his son. When Piso brought Cæsar's body into the forum a countless multitude ran together with arms to guard it, and with acclamations and magnificent display placed it on the rostra. Wailing and lamentation were renewed for a long time, the armed men clashed their shields, and gradually they began to repent themselves of the amnesty. Antony, seeing how things were going, did not abandon his purpose, but, having been chosen to deliver the funeral oration, as a consul for a consul, a friend for a friend, a relative for a relative (for he was related to Cæsar on his mother's side), resumed his artful design and spoke as follows:--

1 About $14.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Greek (L. Mendelssohn, 1879)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide References (3 total)
  • Cross-references to this page (3):
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), TRIBUS
    • Smith's Bio, Brutus
    • Smith's Bio, Piso
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: