University of Virginia Library

THE
KILLING OF JULIUS CÆSAR “LOCALIZED.”

NOTHING in the world affords a newspaper
reporter so much satisfaction
as gathering up the details of a
bloody and mysterious murder, and writing
them up with aggravated circumstantiality.
He takes a living delight in this labor of love—
for such it is to him—especially if he knows
that all the other papers have gone to press,
and his will be the only one that will contain
the dreadful intelligence. A feeling of regret
has often come over me that I was not reporting

in Rome when Cæsar was killed—reporting
on an evening paper, and the only one in the
city, and getting at least twelve hours ahead
of the morning paper boys with this most magnificent
“item” that ever fell to the lot of the
craft. Other events have happened as startling
as this, but none that possessed so peculiarly
all the characteristics of the favorite “item” of
the present day, magnified into grandeur and
sublimity by the high rank, fame, and social
and political standing of the actors in it. In
imagination I have seen myself skirmishing
around old Rome, button-holing soldiers, senators,
and citizens by turns, and transferring
“all the particulars” from them to my notebook;
and, better still, arriving at the base of
Pompey's statue in time to say persuasively to
the dying Cæsar, “Oh! come now, you an't so
far gone, you know, but what you could stir
yourself up a little and tell a fellow just how
this thing happened, if you was a mind to,
couldn't you?—now do!” and get the “straight
of it” from his own lips, and be envied by the
morning paper hounds!

Ah! if I had lived in those days, I would
have written up that item gloatingly, and spiced

it with a little moralizing here and plenty of
blood there; and some dark, shuddering mystery;
and praise and pity for some, and misrepresentation
and abuse for others, (who did
not patronize the paper,) and gory gashes, and
notes of warning as to the tendency of the
times, and extravagant descriptions of the excitement
in the Senate-house and the street,
and all that sort of thing.

However, as I was not permitted to report
Cæsar's assassination in the regular way, it has
at least afforded me rare satisfaction to translate
the following able account of it from the
original Latin of the Roman Daily Evening
Fasces of that date—second edition.

“Our usually quiet city of Rome was thrown
into a state of wild excitement yesterday by
the occurrence of one of those bloody affrays
which sicken the heart and fill the soul with
fear, while they inspire all thinking men with
forebodings for the future of a city where human
life is held so cheaply, and the gravest
laws are so openly set at defiance. As the result
of that affray, it is our painful duty, as
public journalists, to record the death of one
of our most esteemed citizens — a man whose

name is known wherever this paper circulates,
and whose fame it has been our pleasure and
our privilege to extend, and also to protect
from the tongue of slander and falsehood, to
the best of our poor ability. We refer to Mr.
J. Cæsar, the Emperor-elect.

“The facts of the case, as nearly as our reporter
could determine them from the conflicting
statements of eye-witnesses, were about as
follows: The affair was an election row, of
course. Nine tenths of the ghastly butcheries
that disgrace the city nowadays grow out of
the bickerings and jealousies and animosities
engendered by these accursed elections. Rome
would be the gainer by it if her very constables
were elected to serve a century; for in our experience
we have never even been able to
choose a dog-pelter without celebrating the
event with a dozen knock-downs and a general
cramming of the station-house with drunken
vagabonds over night. It is said that when the
immense majority for Cæsar at the polls in the
market was declared the other day, and the
crown was offered to that gentleman, even his
amazing unselfishness in refusing it three times
was not sufficient to save him from the whispered

insults of such men as Casca, of the Tenth
Ward, and other hirelings of the disappointed
candidate, hailing mostly from the Eleventh
and Thirteenth and other outside districts, who
were overheard speaking ironically and contemptuously
of Mr. Cæsar's conduct upon that
occasion.

“We are further informed that there are
many among us who think they are justified in
believing that the assassination of Julius Cæsar
was a put-up thing—a cut-and-dried arrangement,
hatched by Marcus Brutus and a lot of
his hired roughs, and carried out only too faithfully
according to the programme. Whether
there be good grounds for this suspicion or not,
we leave to the people to judge for themselves,
only asking that they will read the following
account of the sad occurrence carefully and
dispassionately before they render that judgment.

“The Senate was already in session, and
Cæsar was coming down the street toward the
capitol, conversing with some personal friends,
and followed, as usual, by a large number of
citizens. Just as he was passing in front of Demosthenes
& Thucydides's drug-store, he was

observing casually to a gentleman, who, our informant
thinks, is a fortune-teller, that the Ides
of March were come. The reply was, `Yes,
they are come, but not gone yet.' At this moment
Artemidorus stepped up and passed the
time of day, and asked Cæsar to read a schedule
or a tract, or something of the kind, which
he had brought for his perusal. Mr. Decius
Brutus also said something about an `humble
suit' which he wanted read. Artemidorus begged
that attention might be paid to his first, because
it was of personal consequence to Cæsar.
The latter replied that what concerned himself
should be read last, or words to that effect.
Artemidorus begged and beseeched him to read
the paper instantly.[1] However, Cæsar shook
him off, and refused to read any petition in the
street. He then entered the capitol, and the
crowd followed him.

“About this time the following conversation
was overheard, and we consider that, taken in
connection with the events which succeeded it,

it bears an appalling significance: Mr. Papilius
Lena remarked to George W. Cassius, (commonly
known as the `Nobby Boy of the Third
Ward,') a bruiser in the pay of the Opposition,
that he hoped his enterprise to-day might
thrive; and when Cassius asked, `What enterprise?'
he only closed his left eye temporarily
and said with simulated indifference,
`Fare you well,' and sauntered toward Cæsar.
Marcus Brutus, who is suspected of being the
ringleader of the band that killed Cæsar, asked
what it was that Lena had said. Cassius told
him, and added in a low tone, `I fear our purpose
is discovered.'

“Brutus told his wretched accomplice to keep
an eye on Lena, and a moment after Cassius
urged that lean and hungry vagrant, Casca,
whose reputation here is none of the best, to be
sudden, for he feared prevention. He then
turned to Brutus, apparently much excited,
and asked what should be done, and swore
that either he or Cæsar should never turn back
— he would kill himself first. At this time
Cæsar was talking to some of the back-country
members about the approaching fall elections,
and paying little attention to what was going

on around him. Billy Trebonius got into conversation
with the people's friend and Cæsar's
—Mark Antony—and under some pretense or
other got him away, and Brutus, Decius Casca,
Cinna, Metellus Cimber, and others of the gang
of infamous desperadoes that infest Rome at
present, closed around the doomed Cæsar.
Then Metellus Cimber knelt down and begged
that his brother might be recalled from banishment,
but Cæsar rebuked him for his fawning,
sneaking conduct, and refused to grant his petition.
Immediately, at Cimber's request, first
Brutus and then Cassius begged for the return
of the banished Publius; but Cæsar still refused.
He said he could not be moved; that
he was as fixed as the North Star, and proceeded
to speak in the most complimentary
terms of the firmness of that star, and its steady
character. Then he said he was like it, and he
believed he was the only man in the country
that was; therefore, since he was `constant'
that Cimber should be banished, he was also
`constant' that he should stay banished, and
he'd be d—d if he didn't keep him so!

“Instantly seizing upon this shallow pretext
for a fight, Casca sprang at Cæsar and struck

him with a dirk, Cæsar grabbing him by the
arm with his right hand, and launching a blow
straight from the shoulder with his left, that
sent the reptile bleeding to the earth. He
then backed up against Pompey's statue, and
squared himself to receive his assailants. Cassius
and Cimber and Cinna rushed upon him
with their daggers drawn, and the former succeeded
in inflicting a wound upon his body;
but before he could strike again, and before
either of the others could strike at all, Cæsar
stretched the three miscreants at his feet with
as many blows of his powerful fist. By this
time the Senate was in an indescribable uproar;
the throng of citizens in the lobbies had blockaded
the doors in their frantic efforts to escape
from the building, the sergeant-at-arms and his
assistants were struggling with the assassins,
venerable senators had cast aside their encumbering
robes, and were leaping over benches
and flying down the aisles in wild confusion
toward the shelter of the committee-rooms, and
a thousand voices were shouting, `Po-lice!
Po-lice!' in discordant tones that rose above
the frightful din like shrieking winds above
the roaring of a tempest. And amid it all,
great Cæsar stood with his back against the
statue, like a lion at bay, and fought his assailants
weaponless and hand to hand, with the
defiant bearing and the unwavering courage
which he had shown before on many a bloody
field. Billy Trebonius and Caius Legarius
struck him with their daggers and fell, as their
brother-conspirators before them had fallen.
But at last, when Cæsar saw his old friend
Brutus step forward, armed with a murderous
knife, it is said he seemed utterly overpowered
with grief and amazement, and dropping his invincible
left arm by his side, he hid his face in
the folds of his mantle and received the treacherous
blow without an effort to stay the hand
that gave it. He only said, `Et tu, Brute?'
and fell lifeless on the marble pavement.

“We learn that the coat deceased had on
when he was killed was the same he wore in his
tent on the afternoon of the day he overcame the
Nervii, and that when it was removed from the
corpse it was found to be cut and gashed in no
less than seven different places. There was nothing
in the pockets. It will be exhibited at the
coroner's inquest, and will be damning proof of
the fact of the killing. These latter facts may

be relied on, as we get them from Mark Antony,
whose position enables him to learn every item
of news connected with the one subject of absorbing
interest of to-day.

“Later.—While the coroner was summoning
a jury, Mark Antony and other friends of the
late Cæsar got hold of the body, and lugged it
off to the Forum, and at last accounts Antony
and Brutus were making speeches over it and
raising such a row among the people that, as
we go to press, the chief of police is satisfied
there is going to be a riot, and is taking measures
accordingly.”