So firmly does
he believe it that he wishes others to know that he believes it, and
insists that the shrine shall be erected in a frequented place![580]
Though the great Dictator did not believe in another world, he
consented at the end of his life to become Jupiter Julius, and after
his death was duly canonised as Divus, and had a temple erected to
him. But the many-sided question of the deification of the Caesars
cannot be discussed here; it is only mentioned as showing in another
way the trend of thought in this dark age of Roman history. Whatever
some philosophers may have thought, there cannot be a doubt that the
ordinary Roman believed in the godhead of Julius.[581]
3. We saw in an earlier chapter with what gay and heedless frivolity
young men like Caelius were amusing themselves even on the very eve of
civil war. In strange contrast with this is the gloom that overspread
all classes during the war itself, and more especially after the
assassination of the Dictator. Caesar seemed irresistible and godlike,
and men were probably beginning to hope for some new and more stable
order of things, when he was suddenly struck down, and the world
plunged again into confusion and doubt; and it was not till after
the final victory of Octavian at Actium, and the destruction of the
elements of disunion with the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, that
men really began to hope for better times.
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