Antony

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. IX. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1920.

And it was Antony who also unwittingly supplied the conspirators with their most specious pretext. For at the festival of the Lycaea, which the Romans call Lupercalia, Caesar, arrayed in a triumphal robe and seated in the forum upon the rostra, was viewing the runners to and fro. Now, the runners to and fro are many noble youths and many of the magistrates, anointed with oil, and with leathern thongs they strike in sport those whom they meet.

Antony was one of these runners, but he gave the ancient usages the go-by, and twining a wreath of laurel round a diadem, he ran with it to the rostra, where he was lifted on high by his fellow runners and put it on the head of Caesar, thus intimating that he ought to be king. When Caesar with affected modesty declined the diadem, the people were delighted and clapped their hands.