And then, having slain the tyrant and liberated the republic, the patriots were helpless. A doctrinaire like Cicero might still dream of restoring the commonwealth; but the only real question was who should succeed. The people only cried for peace. It was not so much the speech of Mark Antony as the funeral of Cæsar, cleverly stage-managed by Calpurnia, and the genuine sorrow of his veterans, which gradually turned the popular feeling against the conspirators. The senate did not venture to declare Cæsar a tyrant, they confirmed his acts, but there was no proposal to punish the murderers. The whole conclusion was a feeble compromise. The man who should have grasped the helm was Mark Antony. He was left sole consul, there was a legion and the prætorian cohort under arms only waiting the word. The conspirators had only a few gladiators in their pay. Antony had every right to arrest them. But Antony was not the man for the part. With all his talents his character was feeble. He was always dependent on his surroundings and generally under feminine influence. Once it had been the dancer Cytheris, at present it was the aggressive Fulvia; for a time Octavia almost reformed him, but Cleopatra easily ensnared him. He was a rake and a spendthrift, always in debt. He was timid of public opinion: just now the aristocratic society in which he moved was prating of tyrannicide. Antony wanted to be in the fashion. There were dramatic embracements between Antony and Brutus. Now the testament of Cæsar, which had just been confirmed by the senate, named young Gneius Octavius as heir to three-quarters of his estate. At the end of the will was a codicil adopting him. Henceforth until he gets the title of Augustus this young Cæsar must be called Octavianus, though he never accepted that name for himself. The “second heirs” named in case the first should fail or decline to succeed included D. Brutus, one of the murderers, and Mark Antony himself. Whosoever should accept the heirship would be bound by all Roman ideas of honour to undertake the chastisement of the murderers. Antony seems to have assumed that the obscure young man would not be likely to accept the inheritance. He therefore got together all Cæsar’s papers, and began to spend Cæsar’s immense fortune as only Antony could. He began also to manipulate Cæsar’s papers, inserting anything he liked among Cæsar’s “acts,” selling honours, raising taxes, recalling exiles to please Fulvia. For some time no one ventured to complain. Leading senators like Cicero retired to the country remarking that the tyrant was dead but the tyranny still alive. Then, of course, Antony had to provide himself with a province to ensure his future safety. Moreover, the cry of the veterans for revenge began to move him to play the Cæsarian. Thus Antony was virtually master of the Roman world and the sky was dark with menace.