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108]
Some person among those who wished to spread the report of his desire to be
king placed a crown of laurel on his statue, bound with a white fillet. The
tribunes, Marullus and Cæsetius, sought out this person and put
him in prison, pretending to gratify Cæsar in this way, as he had
threatened any who should talk about making him king. Cæsar was
well satisfied with their action. Some others who met him at the city gates
as he was returning from some place greeted him as king, and when the people
groaned, he said with happy readiness to those who had thus saluted him, "I
am no king, I am Cæsar," as though they had mistaken his name. The
attendants of Marullus
found out which man began the
shouting and ordered the officers to bring him to trial before his tribunal.
Cæsar was at last vexed and accused the faction of Marullus before
the Senate of conspiring to make him odious by artfully accusing him of
aiming at royalty. He added that they were deserving of death, but that it
would be sufficient if they were deprived of their office and expelled from
the Senate. Thus he confirmed the suspicion that he desired the title, and
that he was privy to the attempts to confer it upon him, and that his
tyranny was already complete; for the cause of their punishment was their
zeal against the title of king, and, moreover, the office of tribune was
sacred and inviolable according to law and the ancient oath. By not waiting
for the expiration of their office he sharpened the public indignation.
