Book 2
19.136
Then Piso called out with a loud voice and demanded that the consuls should reconvene the senators, who were still present, which was done, and then he said: These men who talk of having killed a tyrant are already so many tyrants over us in place of one. They forbid the burying of a Pontifex Maximus and they threaten me when I produce his will. Moreover, they intend to confiscate his property as that of a tyrant. They have ratified Caesar’s acts as regards themselves, but they annul those which relate to him. It is no longer Brutus or Cassius who do this, but those who instigated them to the murder.ἀλλ’ οἱ κἀκείνους ἐς τόνδε τὸν ὄλεθρον ἐκριπίσαντες. Combes-Dounous translates these words: Those who have hurled Brutus and Cassius into the abyss, an error due perhaps to a hasty reading of the last word and deriving it from ἐκρίπτω, to cast away, instead of ἐκριπίζω, to instigate. 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. This speech excited clamor and indignation on all sides, and especially among those who hoped that they should obtain something from the will. It was decreed that the will should be read in public and that Caesar should have a public funeral. Thereupon the Senate adjourned.
