The very tribunes, factious and reckless as they were, potent for ill and powerless for good, presumed not to interpose. Not even Lucius Bestia, deep as he was in the design—Bestia, whose accusation of the consul from the rostrum was the concerted signal for the massacre, the conflagration—not Bestia himself, relied so far on the inviolability of his person, as to intrude his VETO. The good cause had prevailed—the good Consul triumphed! The Senate was dismissed, and as the stream of patrician togas flowed through the temple door conspicuous, the rash and reckless traitor shouldered the mass to and fro, dividing it as a brave galley under sail divides the murmuring but unresisting billows. Once in the throng he touched Julius Cæsar’s robe as he brushed onward, and as he did so, a word fell on his ear in the low harmonious tones which marked the orator, second to none in Rome, save Cicero alone!— "Fear not," it said—"another day will come!—" "Fear!—" exclaimed the Conspirator in a hoarse cry, half fury, half contempt. "What is fear?—I know not the thing, nor the word!—Go, prate of fear to Cicero, and he will understand you!" These words perhaps alienated one who might have served him well. But so it ever is! Even in the shrewdest and most worldly wise of men, passion will often outweigh interest; and plans, which have been framed for years with craft and patience, are often wrecked by the impetuous rashness of a moment. END OF VOL. I. FOOTNOTES _ 1 Vicus sceleratus._ So called because Tullia therein drove her chariot over her father’s corpse. 2 Τροιας αμακον αθιραβη κιονα.—PINDAR 3 That it was such, can scarce be doubted, from the line of Martial: "Myrrheaque in Parthis pocula cocta focis." 4 It must not be imagined that this is fanciful. Rooms were fitted up in this manner, and termed _camera vitræ_, and the panels _vitræ quadraturæ_. But a few years later than the period of the text, B. C. 58, M. Æmilius Scaurus built a theatre capable of containing 80,000 persons, the scena of which, composed of three stories, had one, the central, made entirely of colored glass in this fashion. 5 About £90 sterling. See Pliny Hist. Nat. 13, 16, for a notice of this very table, which was preserved to his time. 6 By the _Lex annalis_, B. C. 180, passed at the instance of the tribune L. V. Tappulus. 7 The _Quinquertium_, the same as the Greek Pentathlon, was a conflict in five successive exercises—leaping, the discus, the foot race, throwing the spear, and wrestling. 8 The _Aqua Crabra_ was a small stream flowing into the Tiber from the south-eastward, now called _Maranna_. It entered the walls near the Capuan gate, and passing through the _vallis Murcia_ between the Aventine and Palatine hills, where it supplied the Circus Maximus with water for the _naumachia_, fell into the river above the Palatine bridge.