The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, CompleteSuetonius
History
The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete
Suetonius
Emperors -- Rome -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-284 A.D.
And some lines also from Attilius’s tragedy of “Electra,” to the same
effect. Instead of a funeral panegyric, the consul Antony ordered a
herald to proclaim to the people the decree of the senate, in which they
had bestowed upon him all honours, divine and human; with the oath by
which they had engaged themselves for the defence of his person; and to
these he added only a few words of his own. The magistrates and others
who had formerly filled the highest offices, carried the bier from the
Rostra into the Forum. While some proposed that the body should be burnt
in the sanctuary of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and others in
Pompey’s senate-house; on a sudden, two men, with swords by their sides,
and spears in their hands, set fire to the bier with lighted torches.
The throng around immediately heaped upon it dry faggots, the tribunals
and benches of the adjoining courts, and whatever else came to hand.
Then the musicians and players stripped off the dresses they wore on the
present occasion, taken from the wardrobe of his triumph at spectacles,
rent them, and threw them into the flames. The legionaries, also, of his
(54) veteran bands, cast in their armour, which they had put on in honour
of his funeral. Most of the ladies did the same by their ornaments, with
the bullae [99], and mantles of their children. In this public mourning
there joined a multitude of foreigners, expressing their sorrow according
to the fashion of their respective countries; but especially the Jews
[100], who for several nights together frequented the spot where the body
was burnt.
LXXXV. The populace ran from the funeral, with torches in their hands,
to the houses of Brutus and Cassius, and were repelled with difficulty.
Going in quest of Cornelius Cinna, who had in a speech, the day before,
reflected severely upon Caesar, and mistaking for him Helvius Cinna, who
happened to fall into their hands, they murdered the latter, and carried
his head about the city on the point of a spear. They afterwards erected
in the Forum a column of Numidian marble, formed of one stone nearly
twenty feet high, and inscribed upon it these words, TO THE FATHER OF HIS
COUNTRY. At this column they continued for a long time to offer
sacrifices, make vows, and decide controversies, in which they swore by
Caesar.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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