[-3-] It happened as follows, and his death was due to the cause I shall presently describe. He had not aroused dislike without any definite justification, except in so far as it was the senators themselves who had by the novelty and excess of their honors sent his mind soaring; and then, after filling him with conceit, they found fault with his prerogatives and spread injurious reports to the effect that he was glad to accept them and behaved more haughtily as a result of them. It is true that sometimes Caesar erred by accepting some of the honors voted him and believing that he really deserved them, yet most blameworthy are those who, after beginning to reward him as he deserved, led him on and made him liable to censure by the measures that they voted. He neither dared to thrust them all aside, for fear of being thought contemptuous, nor could he be safe when he accepted them. Excess in honors and praises renders conceited even the most modest, especially if such rewards appear to have been given with sincerity. [-4-] The privileges that were granted him (in addition to all those mentioned) were of the following number and kinds. They will be stated all together, even if they were not all moved or ratified at one time. First, then, they voted that he should always appear even in the city itself wearing the triumphal garb and should sit in his chair of state everywhere except at festivals. At that time he got the right to be seen on the tribune's benches and in company with those who were successively tribunes. And they gave him the right to offer the so-called _spolia opima_ at the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, as if he had slain some hostile general with his own hand, and to have lictors that always carried laurel, and after the Feriae Latinae to ride from Albanum to the city mounted on a charger. In addition to these remarkable privileges they named him father of his country, stamped his image on the coinage, voted to celebrate his birthday by public sacrifice, ordered that there be some statue of him in the cities and all the temples of Rome, and they set on the rostra two, one representing him as the savior of the citizens and the other as the rescuer of the city from siege, along with the crowns customary for such achievements. They also passed a resolution to build a temple of Concordia Nova, on the ground that through his efforts they enjoyed peace, and to celebrate an annual festival in her honor. [-5-] When he had accepted these, they assigned to him the charge of filling the Pontine marshes, cutting a canal through the Peloponnesian isthmus, and constructing a new senate-house, since that of Hostilius although repaired had been demolished. The reason given for that action was that a temple of Good Fortune might be built there, which Lepidus, indeed, while master of the horse had completed: but the real intention was that the name of Sulla should not be preserved in it and that another