To an insult which so plainly showed his contempt for the Senate he added an act of even greater insolence; for at the Latin Festival, as he was returning to the city, amid the extravagant and unprecedented demonstrations of the populace, someone in the press placed on his statue a laurel wreath with a white fillet tied to it; and when Epidius Marullus and Caesetius Flavus, tribunes of the commons, gave orders that the ribbon be removed from the crown and the man taken off to prison, Caesar sharply rebuked and deposed them, either offended that the hint at regal power had been received with so little favour, or, as he asserted, that he had been robbed of the glory of refusing it.1
Adiecit ad tam insignem despecti senatus contumeliam multo arrogantius factum. Nam cum in sacrificio Latinarum revertente eo inter inmodicas ac novas populi acclamationes quidam e turba statuae eius coronam lauream candida fascia praeligatapraelígatá, M; the other mss. have praeligatam. inposuisset et tribuni plebis Epidius Marullus Caesetiusque Flavus coronae fasciam detrahi hominemque duci in vincula iussissent, dolens seu parum prospere motam regni mentionem sive, ut ferebat, ereptam sibi gloriam recusandi, tribunos graviter increpitos potestate privavit.
1The white fillet was emblematic of royalty.
But from that time on he could not rid himself of the odium of having aspired to the title of monarch, although he replied to the commons, when they hailed him as king, I am Caesar and no king, and at the Lupercalia, when the consul Antony several times attempted to place a crown upon his head as he spoke from the rostra, he put it aside and at last sent it to the Capitol, to be offered to Jupiter Optimus Maximus.2
Neque ex eo infamiam affectati etiam regii nominis discutere valuit,valuit, ς; voluit, Ω. quanquam et plebei regem se salutanti Caesarem se, non regem esse responderit et Lupercalibus pro rostris a consule Antonio admotum saepius capiti suo diadema reppulerit atque in Capitolium Iovi Optimo Maximo miserit.
2With a pun on Rex as a Roman name; cf. Horace, Serm. 1. 7, etc.
Nay, more, the report had spread in various quarters that he intended to move to Ilium or Alexandria, taking with him the resources of the state, draining Italy by levies, and leaving it and the charge of the city to his friends; also that at the next meeting of the Senate Lucius Cotta would announce as the decision of the Fifteen, that inasmuch as it was written in the books of fate that the Parthians could be conquered only by a king, Caesar should be given that title.3
Quin etiam varia fama percrebruit migraturum Alexandream vel Ilium, translatis simul opibus imperii exhaustaque Italia dilectibus et procuratione urbis amicis permissa, proximo autem senatu Lucium Cottam quindecimvirum sententiam dicturum, ut, quoniam fatalibus libris contineretur,detineretur, MV; continetur GT. Parthos nisi a rege non posse vinci, Caesar rex appellaretur.
3The college of fifteen priests (quindecimviri sacris faciundis) in charge of the Sybilline books.