Some proposed a beautiful temple on the Capitoline Hill. Others
wished to take it to the senate-house, where he had been slain. The
Senate, and those who were less inclined to pay extravagant honors to
the departed hero, were in favor of some more retired spot, under
pretense that the buildings of the city would be endangered by the fire.
This discussion was fast becoming a dispute, when it was suddenly ended
by two men, with swords at their sides and knees in their hands, forcing
their way through the crowd with lighted torches, and setting the bed
and its canopy on fire where it lay.
[Illustration: BURNING OF CAESAR'S BODY.]
[Sidenote: The body burned in the Forum.]
This settled the question, and the whole company were soon in the
wildest excitement with the work of building up a funeral pile upon the
spot. At first they brought fagots and threw upon the fire, then benches
from the neighboring courts and porticoes, and then any thing
combustible which came to hand. The honor done to the memory of a
deceased hero was, in some sense, in proportion to the greatness of his
funeral pile, and all the populace on this occasion began soon to seize
every thing they could find, appropriate and unappropriate, provided
that it would increase the flame.
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