pleasantly distributed. It was decided that Caesar was in the way.
To put him out of it a pretext was necessary.

One day the senate assembled at his command. They were to sign a
decree creating him king. In order not to, Suetonius says, they
killed him, wounding each other in the effort, for Caesar fought
like the demon that he was, desisting only when he recognized
Brutus, to whom, in Greek, he muttered a reproach, and, draping
his toga that he might fall with decency, sank backward, his head
covered, a few feet from the bronze wolf that stood, its ears
pointed at the letters S. P. Q. R. which decorated a frieze of the
Curia.

Brutus turned to harangue the senate; it had fled. He went to the
Forum to address the people; there was no one. Rome was strangely
empty. Doors were barricaded, windows closed. Through the silent
streets gladiators prowled. Night came, and with it whispering
groups. The groups thickened, voices mounted. Caesar's will had
been read. He had left his gardens to the people, a gift to every
citizen, his wealth and power to his butchers. The body, which two
slaves had removed, an arm hanging from the litter, had never been
as powerfully alive. Caesar reigned then as never before. A mummer
mouthed:

"I brought them life, they gave me death."

And willingly would the mob have made Rome the funeral pyre of
their idol. In the sky a comet appeared. It was his soul on its
way to Olympus.