Senate orders Caesar’s will read in public and a public funeral
Reconstructed from historical sources
At the demand of Caesar’s father-in-law Piso, and over Cassius’s objection, the Senate orders Caesar’s will read in public and gives him a public funeral; it thanks Antony for stopping a civil war, and provinces go to Brutus, Cassius and their party.
ROME, the day after the Liberalia.—Caesar’s will is to be read in public, and Caesar himself is to be given a public funeral. So the Senate ordered today, at a sitting the consuls called again at the demand of Lucius Piso, Caesar’s father-in-law.
When the house met, a day after it voted that Caesar’s acts stand, Piso rose against the men who killed Caesar and charged them openly with tyranny.
Piso told the senators: “These men who talk of having killed a tyrant are already so many tyrants over us in place of one.”
These men who talk of having killed a tyrant are already so many tyrants over us in place of oneLucius Piso, Caesar's father-in-law, speaking in the Senate
“They forbid the burying of a Pontifex Maximus and they threaten me when I produce his will.” Then he went further: “It is no longer Brutus or Cassius who do this, but those who instigated them to the murder.”
Last he turned to the will. He told the house: “Of his burial you are the masters. Of his will I am, and never will I betray what has been intrusted to me unless somebody kills me also.”
His words raised a clamour in the house, and indignation broke out on every side.
Antony, the consul, threw his weight behind the demand. He pressed for the will to be read out before the people, and for Caesar’s body to be carried out in an open funeral, with honours.
Cassius set himself hard against both. Brutus did not stand with him and gave way, and the house gave its order.
Appian, Civil Wars book 2 (tr. Horace White, 1899) · Appian, Civil Wars book 2 (tr. Horace White, 1899) · Plutarch, Life of Brutus (Loeb, tr. Perrin, 1918) · Plutarch, Life of Antony (Loeb, tr. Perrin, 1920).