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49“Yet this father, this high priest, this inviolable being, this hero and god, is dead, alas, dead not by the violence of some disease, nor wasted by old age, nor wounded abroad somewhere in some war, nor caught up inexplicably by some supernatural force, but right here within the walls as the result of a plot—the man who had safely led an army into Britain; 2ambushed in this city—the man who had enlarged its pomerium; murdered in the senate-house—the man who had reared another such edifice at his own expense; unarmed—the brave warrior; defenceless—the promoter of peace; the judge—beside the court of justice; the magistrate—beside the seat of government; at the hands of the citizens—he whom none of the enemy had been able to kill even when he fell into the sea; at the hands of his comrades—he who had often taken pity on them. 3Of what avail, O Caesar, was your humanity, of what avail your inviolability, of what avail the laws? Nay, though you enacted many laws that men might not be killed by their personal foes, yet how mercilessly you yourself were slain by your friends! And now, the victim of assassination, you lie dead in the Forum through which you often led the triumph crowned; wounded to death, you have been cast down upon the rostra from which you often addressed the people. 4Woe for the blood-bespattered locks of gray, alas for the rent robe, which you assumed, it seems, only that you might be slain in it!”
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