strongly negative tone in[] other contemporary[] evidence", indicating the possibility of a curse, per classicists James Russell and Jeffrey Tatum. Immediately after Caesar's death, senators fled the chaos. None attempted to aid Caesar or to move his body. Cicero reported that Caesar fell at the foot of the statue of Pompey. His body was only moved after night fell, carried home to Caesar's wife Calpurnia. The conspirators travelled to the Capitoline hill; Caesar's deputy in the dictatorship, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, moved a legion of troops from the Tiber Island into the city and surrounded the forum. Suetonius reports that Brutus and Cassius initially planned to seize Caesar's property and revoke his decrees, but stalled out of fear of Lepidus and Antony. Before Lepidus' troops arrived to the forum, Brutus spoke before the people in a contio. The text of that speech is lost. Dio says the liberatores promoted their support of democracy and liberty and told the people not to expect harm; Appian says the liberatores merely congratulated each other and recommended the recall of Sextus Pompey and the tribunes Caesar had recently deposed. The support of the people was tepid, even though other speeches followed supporting the tyrannicide. Publius Cornelius Dolabella, who was to become consul in a few days on the 18th, decided immediately to assume the consulship illegally, expressed his support of Brutus and Cassius before the people, and joined the liberatores on hill. Cicero urged the tyrannicides to call a meeting of the senate to gather its support; Brutus however, "perhaps trusting too much in the character of Antony [or] hoping that he could win round Lepidus" who was married to one of Brutus' half-sisters, sent a delegation to the Caesarians asking for a negotiated settlement. The Caesarians delayed for a day, moving troops and gathering weapons and supplies for a possible conflict. After Caesar's death, Dio reports a series of prodigies and miraculous occurrences which are "self-evidently fantastic" and likely fictitious. Some of the supposed prodigies did in fact occur, but were actually unrelated to Caesar's death: Cicero's statue was knocked over but only in the next year, Mt Etna in Sicily did erupt but not contemporaneously, a comet was seen in the sky but only months later. Settlement The initial plan from Brutus and Cassius seems to have been to establish a period of calm and then to work towards a general reconciliation. While