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for his victories in Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, and Africa, Caesar is made Dictator for the year.

§ 2. Cicero's letters now show a more cheerful spirit; he had now divorced Terentia, and after a short interval married his young and wealthy ward, Publilia; the marriage, however, was an unhappy one.

§ 3. Cicero wrote this year his Partitiones oratoriae, Brutus, and Orator.

§ 1. In February Tullia, shortly after her divorce from Dolabella, died in childbed. Cicero, who had loved her devotedly, refused to be comforted and sought refuge in the solitude of Astura.

§ 2. Caesar now openly aimed at monarchy, and Cicero especially resented, as an insult to the senatorial order, the election as consul for one day of Caninius Rebilus.

§ 1. Caesar, now consul for the fifth time and dictator for the fourth, had already by his arrogance and ill-concealed ambition aroused the opposition of the republicans, and a conspiracy had long been maturing which culminated in his assassination on March 15 at the foot of Pompey's statue in the senate-house. By his will he adopted C. Octavius and made him his chief heir.

§ 2. On the 17th, at a meeting of the Senate in the temple of Tellus, Cicero proposed an amnesty, which the Senate passed, but at the same time ratified all Caesar's acts. After this he retired into private life for six months.