The conspirators were so far from having formed a deliberate plan, that they were not even agreed as to what was to be done next. In the first moment, Cassius demanded that Antony should die; but Brutus was against it, declaring that it was enough that one man should have died. In this Brutus was evidently wrong, as many besides ought to have been slain, to set everything right: at all events, Antony should have been killed, if even a shadow of the republic was still to be kept up; for indeed it was he, and men like him, who had made Cæsar’s rule hateful. He had been his chief instigator to take the diadem, and it is generally acknowledged that, if left to himself, Cæsar would have done nothing but good. In the height of the tumult, most of the senators took to flight, a few openly declared for Brutus and his companions, as tyrannicides. Cicero was one of these, which shows no small courage on his part. On neither side were people at all aware of what was next to follow. One might have believed that the people would have been full of exultation after Cæsar’s murder, as public opinion was against him, ever since he had aspired to the diadem; yet there is nothing more changeable than man: now that the thing which they had wanted was done, the same people who a few days before had wished for Cæsar’s death, were bewailing and lamenting him. The tumult lasted for some days. Cæsar had been murdered on the fifteenth of March; on the seventeenth, the senate met to deliberate on the steps which were to be taken in a time of such great excitement. In this meeting, Antony behaved quite differently from what had been expected, holding out his hand for a reconciliation: people indeed did not trust him; yet they believed that he was forced by circumstances to act in this way. Cicero came forward as an adviser, and it was decreed that an amnesty should be granted for all that was past; just as they did at Athens after the time of the thirty tyrants. There was much consultation about what was to be done. Brutus and Cassius, as public opinion was against them, had betaken themselves to the Capitol to escape from the storm; and from thence they began to negotiate: there were many of Cæsar’s soldiers in the city, others thronged in, and the commotion was very great. The resolutions which were come to, aimed at reconciliation; but they were full of contradictions to each other. Whilst, on the one hand, there was a strong feeling of admiration for the murderers, the decrees of the senate took quite the opposite turn. The proposal that Cæsar should be declared a tyrant, and all his acts be repealed, was not only rejected by the senate, through fear of the veterans, but divine honours were even conferred upon him, and the validity of all his ordinances expressly acknowledged. The motion had been made that his will should be annulled; but his father-in-law, L. Calpurnius Piso, with persevering impudence, carried that it should be