Caesar was coming! Caesar--whose tribunes the oligarchs had chased from the Senate! Caesar--whom they had proclaimed a rebel and public enemy! He was coming like a second Marius, who thirty-eight years before had swept down on Rome, and taken a terrible vengeance on enemies less bitter to him than they to the great Julian.

"_Moriendum est_,"[157] had been the only reply to every plea for mercy.

And would Caesar now be more lenient to those who had aimed to blast his honour and shed his blood?
[157] He has got to die.
Evening drew on, but the calamity was only delayed.

There was not a soldier to confront the invader.

Few men that night could sleep.