About one thing almost all are fully agreed, that he all but desired such a death as he met; for once when he read in Xenophon how Cyrus in his last illness gave directions for his funeral, he expressed his horror of such a lingering kind of end and his wish for one which was swift and sudden. And the day before his murder, in a conversation which arose at a dinner at the house of Marcus Lepidus, as to what manner of death was most to be desired, he had given his preference to one which was sudden and unexpected.1
Illud plane inter omnes fere constitit, talem ei mortem paene ex sententia obtigisse. Nam et quondam, cum apud Xenophontem legisset Cyrum ultima valitudine mandasse quaedam de funere suo, aspernatus tam lentum mortis genus subitam sibi celeremque optaverat; et pridie quam occideretur, in sermone nato super cenam apud Marcum Lepidum, quisnam esset finis vitae commodissimus, repentinum inopinatumque praetulerat.