XIII. This confirmed Brutus and Cassius, and when they were enumerating the friends whom they could trust in the undertaking, they deliberated about Antonius. The rest were for adding Antonius to their number, but Trebonius opposed it; for he said that at the time when they went to meet Cæsar on his return from Iberia, and Antonius was in the same tent with him and journeyed with him, he tried his disposition in a quiet way and with caution, and he said that Antonius understood him, though he did not respond to the proposal, nor yet did he report it to Cæsar, but faithfully kept the words secret. Upon this they again deliberated whether they should kill Antonius after they had killed Cæsar; but Brutus opposed this, urging that the act which was adventured in defence of the laws and of justice must be pure and free from injustice. But as they were afraid of the strength of Antonius and the credit that his office gave him, they appointed some of the conspirators to look after him in order that when Cæsar entered the Senate house and the deed was going to be done, they might detain him on the outside in conversation about some matter and on the pretence of urgent business. XIV. This being accomplished according as it was planned and Cæsar having fallen in the Senate house, Antonius immediately put on a slave's attire and hid himself. But when he learned that the men were not attacking any one, but were assembled in the Capitol, he persuaded them to come down after giving them his son as a hostage; and he entertained Cassius at supper, and Brutus entertained Lepidus. Antonius having summoned the Senate spoke about an amnesty and a distribution of provinces among Brutus and Cassius and their partizans, and the Senate ratified these proposals, and decreed not to alter anything that had been done by Cæsar.[349] Antonius went out of the Senate the most distinguished of men, being considered to have prevented a civil war and to have managed most prudently and in a most statesmanlike manner circumstances which involved difficulties and no ordinary causes of confusion. But from such considerations as these he was soon disturbed by the opinion that he derived from the multitude, that he would certainly be the first man in Rome, if Brutus were put down. Now it happened that when Cæsar's corpse was carried forth, as the custom was, he pronounced an oration over it in the Forum;[350] and seeing that the people were powerfully led and affected, he mingled with the praises of Cæsar commiseration and mighty passion over the sad event, and at the close of his speech, shaking the garments of the dead, which were blood-stained and hacked with the swords, and calling those who had done these things villains and murderers, he inspired so much indignation in the men that they burnt the body of Cæsar in the Forum, heaping together the benches and the tables; and snatching burning faggots from the pile they ran to the houses of the assassins and assaulted them.