Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/214

 General History of Europe throughout the great empire. He put an end to centuries of inconvenience which had resulted from the use of the old-fashioned calendar based on the moon-month, and introduced the Egyptian calendar. Our month of July (Latin, Julius) is named after him. In short, it is not too much to say that he really established the Roman Empire and was its first emperor in fact if not in name. 239. Murder of Caesar (44 B.C.). But there were still men in Rome who were not ready to submit to the rule of one man. On COIN OF BRUTUS The above cut shows us the two sides of a coin issued by Brutus, one of the leading assassins of Julius Caesar. On one side the coin bears the head of Brutus, accompanied by his name and the title Imperator, that is, general (abbreviated to IMP). On the other side are two daggers, intended to recall the assassination of Caesar, and between them appears the cap of liberty, to suggest the liberty which the Romans supposedly gained by his murder. In order that the meaning of all this might be perfectly clear, there appears, below, the inscription EID MAR, which means the Ides of March (the Roman term for the fifteenth of March), the date of Caesar's murder the fifteenth of March, 44 B.C., three days before the date arranged for his departure on a great campaign beyond the Euphrates, these men struck down the greatest of the Romans. If some of his murderers, like Brutus and Cassius, fancied them- selves patriots overthrowing a tyrant, they little understood how vain were all such efforts to restore the ancient Republic. World dominion and its military power had destroyed forever the Roman Republic and its old democratic government. The murder of Caesar had the most unhappy effects and again plunged Italy and the Empire into civil war.