When Quintus Maximus, who had been his deputy in the consulship for the
last three months, entered the theatre, and the lictor, according to
custom, bid the people take notice who was coming, they all cried out,
"He is no consul." After the removal of Caesetius and Marullus from
their office, they were found to have a great many votes at the next
election of consuls. Some one wrote under the statue of Lucius Brutus,
"Would you were now alive!" and under the statue of Caesar himself these
lines:

Because he drove from Rome the royal race,
Brutus was first made consul in their place.
This man, because he put the consuls down,
Has been rewarded with a royal crown.

Brutus, quia reges ejecit, consul primus factus est:
Hic, quia consules ejecit, rex postremo factus est.

About sixty persons were engaged in the conspiracy against him, of whom
Caius Cassius, and Marcus and Decimus Brutus were the chief. It was at
first debated amongst them, whether they should attack him in the Campus
Martius when he was taking the votes of the tribes, and some of them
should throw him off the bridge, whilst others should be ready to stab
him upon his fall; or else in the Via Sacra, or at the entrance of the
theatre. But after public notice had been given by proclamation for the
senate to assemble upon the ides of March [15th March], in the
senate-house built by Pompey, they approved both of the time and place,
as most fitting for their purpose.

LXXXI. Caesar had warning given him of his fate by indubitable (50)