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ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

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HE news of Pompey's death occasioned a fresh division among his fugitive friends. Many who were attached personally to him, and who held out in hopes of seeing him again at their head, determined to have recourse to the conqueror's clemency. Cornelia returned to Italy, well knowing that she had nothing to apprehend from Cæsar. Cato, with Pompey's two sons, remained in Africa, and marched overland to join Varus and Juba, king of Numidia. We shall see, immediately, how they renewed the war, and exposed the victor to fresh fatigues and dangers.

Cæsar, immediately after his victory, commenced a close pursuit of his competitor; and did not hear of his death until his arrival in Alexandria, when messengers from the Egyptian King brought him Pompey's head and ring. Cæsar turned with disgust from these relics. He ordered the head to be inhumed with due honour; and, to show his disapprobation of Egyptian treachery, he caused a temple to be erected near Pompey's tomb, dedicated to Nemesis, the avenging power of cruel and inhuman deeds. His next task was to arrange the disputed succession of the crown; but, seduced by the charms of the princess Cleopatra, he showed an undue preference for her interests, and thus induced the partisans of the young king Ptolemy to take up arms. As Cæsar had only brought a handful of men with him to Alexandria, he was exposed to great danger by this sudden burst of insurrection. A fierce battle was fought in the city. Cæsar succeeded in firing the Egyptian fleet; but, unfortunately, the flames extended to the celebrated public library, and the greater part of that magnificent collection of the most valuable works of ancient times perished in the flames. After the struggle had been protracted for some time, Cæsar at length received reinforcements from Syria, and soon triumphed over all his enemies. From Egypt he marched against Pharnaces, the unnatural son of the great Mithridates, and subdued him so easily, that he described the campaign in three words, "VENI, VIDI, VICI,"-(I came, I saw, I conquered).

Having thus settled the affairs of the East, he departed for Rome, having been created dictator in his absence; and found on his return the affairs of the city in the greatest confusion, caused by the quarrels between Antony and Dolabella. Cæsar with difficulty reconciled their differences, and began to make preparations for his war in Africa against Cato and the sons of Pompey. On his arrival in Africa, he did not find victory quite so easy as he had anticipated; but at length he forced his enemies to a decisive engagement at Thapsus, and gave them a complete overthrow From

thence he advanced to Utica, which was garrisoned by the celebrated Cato, whose hostility to Cæsar was inflexible. He was not, however, supported by his followers; and Cato, seeing his friends resolved on yielding, committed suicide. The sons of Pompey made their escape into Spain, where they soon collected a formidable party.

Having concluded the African war in about five months, Cæsar returned to Rome (B. c. 45) to celebrate his triumph. The senate placed no bounds to their adulation, passing, in their excessive flattery, the limits even of ordinary decency. They decreed that in his triumph his chariot should be drawn by four white horses, like those of Jupiter and the Sun: they created him dictator for ten years, and inspector of morals for three years they commanded his statue to be placed in the capitol, opposite to that of Jupiter, with the globe of the earth beneath his feet, and with the following inscription,"To Cæsar, the demigod."

During his residence at Rome, the dictator distinguished himself by several acts of clemency, more truly honourable to his character than all the titles conferred upon him by a servile senate. Having provided for the safety of the city during his absence, he hasted into Spain to terminate the civil war by crushing the relics of his opponents, who still made head under the sons of Pompey. Early in the spring (B. C. 44), the two armies met in the plains of Munda: the battle was arduous and well contested; Cæsar had never been exposed to such danger; even his veterans began to give ground. By leading, however, his favourite tenth legion to the charge, he restored the fortune of the field, and his exertions were crowned with a decisive victory, which put an end to the war. The elder of Pompey's sons was taken and slain; Sextus the younger escaped to the mountains of Celtiberia.

Having thus completely extinguished the last embers of the civil war, Cæsar contemplated several vast designs for extending and improving the empire he had acquired. He resolved to revenge the defeat and death of Crassus on the

Parthians; he undertook to rebuild and repair several towns in Italy, to drain the Pontine marshes, to dig a new bed for the Tiber, to form a capacious harbour at Ostia, and to cut a canal through the isthmus of Corinth. But these gigantic projects did not compensate, in the minds of his countrymen, for the criminal design he was understood to have formed of making himself king of Rome. Mark Antony, it is supposed at Cæsar's secret instigation, offered the dictator a regal crown at the feast of the Lupercalia, which Cæsar, perceiving the displeasure of the people, deemed it prudent to refuse: Antony, however, had it entered in the the public acts, "That by the command of the people, as consul, he had offered the name of king to Cæsar, perpetual dictator; and that Cæsar would not accept of it."

A large body of the senators, regarding Cæsar as a usurper, conspired for his destruction, among whom Brutus and Cassius were the most conspicuous. They resolved to put their plot into execution in the senate-house (March 15, B. c. 44); Eat they very narrowly escaped detection, from a variety of untoward accidents. As soon as Cæsar had taken his place, he was surrounded by the conspirators, one of whom, pretending to urge some request, held him down by his robe: this was the signal agreed upon; the other conspirators rushed upon him with their daggers, and he fell, pierced by twentythree wounds, at the base of Pompey's statue. The murderers had no sooner finished their work, than Brutus, lifting up his dagger, congratulated the senate, and Cicero in particular, on the recovery of liberty; but the senators, seized with astonishment, rushed from the capitol and hid themselves in their own houses. Tranquillity prevailed until the day of Cæsar's funeral, when Mark Antony, by a studied harangue, so inflamed the passions of the populace, that they stormed the senate-house, tore up its benches to make a funeral pile for the body, and raised such a conflagration that several houses were entirely consumed. This was a clear warning to the conspirators, who immediately quitted Rome, and prepared to defend themselves by force of arms.

The superstition of the Roman people led them to invent or imagine many omens and prodigies, which they believed to have portended the death of Cæsar. They are thus enumuerated by the poet Ovid:

Not gods can alter Fate's resistless will!

Yet they foretold by signs the approaching ill.
Dreadful were heard, among the clouds, alarms
Of echoing trumpets and of clashing arms:
The sun's pale image gave so faint a light,
That the sad earth was almost veil'd in night.
The ether's face with fiery meteors glowed,
With storms of hail were mingled drops of blood;

A dusky hue the morning star o'erspread,
And the moon's orb was stained with spots of red;
In every place portentous shrieks were heard,
The fatal warnings of the infernal bird:

In every place the marble melts to tears;

While in the groves, rever'd through length of years,
Boding and awful sounds the ear invade,
And solemn music warbles through the shade.
No victim can atone the impious age,
No sacrifice the wrathful gods assuage;
Dire wars and civil fury threat the state,
And every omen points out Cæsar's fate.
Around each hallow'd shrine and sacred dome,
Night-howling dogs disturb the peaceful gloom;
Their silent seats the wand'ring shades forsake,
And fearful tremblings the rock'd city shake.

Yet could not by these prodigies be broke
The plotted charm, or staid the fatal stroke;
Their swords the assassins in the temple draw,
Their murd'ring hands nor gods nor temples awe;
This sacred place their bloody weapons stain,
And virtue falls, before the altar slain.

Mark Antony long deceived the conspirators by an ap pearance of moderation, and an affected anxiety to procure an act of amnesty; but when joined by Octavius Cæsar, the nephew and heir of the murdered dictator, he threw off the mask, and proposed extraordinary honours to the memory of Cæsar, with a religious supplication to him as a divinity. Brutus and Cassius at length discovering that Antony meditated nothing but war, and that their affairs were daily growing more desperate, left Italy, and sought refuge in the East. Octavius Cæsar, becoming jealous of Antony, joined the party

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