[-18-] Caesar for this reason was so long in coming that the conspirators feared there might be a postponement (a rumor circulated, indeed, that he would remain at home that day), and their plot thus fall through and they themselves be detected. Therefore they sent Decimus Brutus, as one appearing to be a devoted friend, to secure his attendance. This man made light of Caesar's scruples and by adding that the senate was extremely anxious to behold him, persuaded him to go forward. At this an image of his which he kept set up in the vestibule fell of its own accord and was shattered to pieces. He ought then to have changed his purpose, but instead he paid no attention to this and would not listen to some one who was giving him information of the plot. He received from him a little roll in which all the preparations made for the attack had been accurately inscribed, but did not read it, thinking that it was some other not very pressing matter. In brief, he was so confident that to the soothsayer who had warned him to beware of that day he said jokingly: "Where are your prophecies? Don't you see that the day over which you were all of a tremble is here and I am alive?" And the other, they say, answered only this: "Yes, it is here, but not yet gone."
[-19-] Now when he finally reached the senate Trebonius delayed Antony somewhere at a distance outside. They had planned to kill both him and Lepidus. But fearing that they might be ill spoken of as a result of the number of those destroyed, and that it might be said that they had slain Caesar to gain power and not to free the city, as they pretended, they did not wish Antony even to be present at his slaughter. As for Lepidus, he had set out on a campaign and was in the suburbs. Antony was held by Trebonius in conversation. Meanwhile the rest in a body surrounded Caesar (he was as easy of access and ready to be addressed as any one could have wished), and some talked among themselves, while others presented petitions to him, so that suspicion might be as far from his mind as possible. When the right moment came, one of them approached him as if to express his thanks for some favor or other and pulled his cloak from his shoulder; for this, according to the agreement, served to the conspirators as a signal raised. Thereupon they attacked him from many sides at once and wounded him to death, so that by reason of their numbers Caesar was unable to say or do anything, but veiling his face was slain with many wounds. This is the truest account. In times past some have made a declaration like this, that to Brutus who struck him severely he said: "Thou, too, my child?"