ASSASSINATION OF CAESAR.--Caesar was tired of staying in Rome, and was proposing to undertake an expedition against the Parthians. Neither his clemency nor the necessity and the merits of the government sustained by him, availed to shield him against the machinations of enemies. The aristocratic party detested his policy. He was suspected of aiming at the title, as well as the power, of a king. A conspiracy made up of numerous senators who secretly hated him, of other individuals influenced by personal spite, and of republican visionaries like _Cassius_ and _Junius Brutus_, who gloried in what they considered tyrannicide, assaulted him on the ides of March (March 15, 44 B.C.) in the hall of _Pompeius_, whither he had come to a session of the Senate. He received twenty-three wounds, one of which, at least, was fatal, and fell, uttering, a tradition said, a word of gentle reproach to Brutus, one who had been counted a special friend. _Cicero_ had acquiesced in the new government, and eulogized _Caesar_ and his administration. But even he expressed his satisfaction at the event which left the republic without a master. An amnesty to those who slew Caesar was advocated by him, and decreed by the Senate. THE SECOND TRIUMVIRATE.--The Senate gave to the leading conspirators provinces; to _Decimus Brutus_, Cisalpine Gaul. But at Rome there was quickly a re-action of popular wrath against the enemies of Csesar, which was skillfully fomented by _Marcus Antonius_ in the address which he made to the people over his dead body, pierced with so many wounds. The people voted to give Cisalpine Gaul to _Antonius_, and he set out to take it from _Decimus Brutus_ by force of arms. _Cicero_ delivered a famous series of harangues against Antonius, called the _Philippics. Antonius,_ being defeated, fled to _Lepidus_, the governor of Transalpine Gaul. _Octavius_, the grand-nephew and adopted son of _Caesar_, a youth of eighteen, now became prominent, and at first was supported by the Senate in the hope of balancing the power of _Antonius_. But in October, 43, _Octavianus_ (as he was henceforward called), _Antonius,_ and _Lepidus_ together formed a second triumvirate, which became legal, by the ratification of the people, for the period of five years. A proscription for the destruction of the enemies of the three contracting parties was a part of this alliance. A great number were put to death, among them _Cicero_, a sacrifice to the vengeance of Antonius. War against the republicans was the necessary consequence. At _Philippi_ in Thrace, in the year 42, _Antonius_ and _Octavianus_ defeated _Brutus_ and _Cassius_, both of whom committed suicide. _Porcia_, the wife of _Brutus_, and the daughter of _Cato_, on hearing of her husband's death, put an end to her own life. Many other adherents of the republic followed the example of their leaders. The victors divided the world between themselves, _Antonius_ taking the east, _Octavianus_ the west, while to