Part 56

[513] Plutarch here alludes to the office of Prætor Urbanus, who, during the year of his office, was the chief person for the administration of justice. The number of prætors at this time was ten (Dion Cassius, xlii. 51), to which number they were increased from eight by Cæsar in B.C. 47. The Prætor Urbanus still held the first rank. The motive of Cæsar may have been, as Dion Cassius says, to oblige his dependents by giving them office and rank. Brutus was Prætor Urbanus in B.C. 44, the year of Cæsar's assassination.

[514] This anecdote is told in Cæsar's Life, c. 62.

[515] Q. Fufius Calenus was sent by Cæsar before the battle of Pharsalus to Greece (Life of Cæsar, c. 43). Megara made strong resistance to Calenus, and was treated with severity. Dion Cassius (xlii. 14) says nothing about the lions.

[516] See the Life of Sulla, c. 34, and note to c. 37; and the Life of Cæsar, c. 53, note.

[517] See the Life of Cæsar, c. 61, and Dion Cassius, xliv. 3, &c.

[518] His name was Quintus. Ligarius fought against Cæsar at the battle of Thapsus B.C. 46. He was taken prisoner and banished. He was prosecuted by Q. Delius Tubero for his conduct in Africa, and defended by Cicero in an extant speech. Ligarius obtained a pardon from Cæsar, and he repaid the dictator, like many others, by aiding in his murder. It seems pretty certain that he lost his life in the proscriptions of the Triumviri (Appian, _Civil Wars_, iv, 22, 23).

[519] Compare the Life of the Younger Cato, c. 65, 73; and as to Favonius, the same life.

[520] Q. Antistius Labeo was one of the hearers of Servius Sulpicius (Dig. i. tit. 2, s. 2, § 44), and himself a jurist, and the father of a more distinguished jurist, Antistius Labeo, who lived under Augustus. He was at the battle of Philippi, and after the defeat he killed himself, and was buried in a grave in his tent, which he had dug for the purpose (Appian, _Civil Wars_, iv. 135).

[521] See the Life of Cæsar, c. 64, and the note.

The signs of Cæsar's death are mentioned in the Life of Cæsar, c. 63.

[522] Brutus was first married to Claudia, a daughter of Appius Claudius, consul B.C. 54. It was probably in B.C. 55, and after Cato's death, that he put away Claudia, for which he was blamed (Cic. _Ad Attic._ xiii. 9), and married Porcia, the daughter of Cato, and widow of M. Calpurnius Bibulus, the colleague of Cæsar in the consulship B.C. 59. As to the affair of the wound, compare Dion Cassius (xliv. 13 &c.).

[523] This was the great architectural work of Pompeius (Life of Pompeius, c. 40, note).

[524] The same story is told by Appian (_Civil Wars_, ii. 115).

[525] The circumstances of Cæsar's death are told in his Life, c. 66; where it is incorrectly said that Brutus Albinus engaged Antonius in conversation. To the authorities referred to in the note to c. 66 of the Life of Cæsar, add Cicero, _Philipp._ ii. 14, which is referred to by Kaltwasser.

[526] L. Munatius Plancus, who had received favours from Cæsar, and the province of Transalpine Gaul, with the exception of Narbonensis and Belgica B.C. 44.

As to the arrangement about the provinces after Cæsar's death, see the Life of Antonius, c. 14.

[527] Compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 68, and the note.

[528] The allusion is to P. Clodius, who fell in a brawl with T. Annius Milo B.C. 52. See the Life of Cicero, c. 52.

[529] Compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 68.

[530] Now Porto d'Anzo, on the coast of Latium, thirty miles from Rome. It is now a poor place, with numerous remains of former buildings (Westphal, _Die Römische Kampagne_, and his two maps).

[531] These were the Ludi Apollinares (Dion, xlvii. 20), which Brutus had to superintend as Prætor Urbanus. The day of celebration was the fourth of Quintilis or Julius. The games were superintended by L. Antonius, the brother of Marcus, and the colleague of Brutus.

[532] Compare the Life of Cicero, c. 43, and notes; and the Life of Antonius, c. 16.

[533] Complaints like these, of the conduct of Cicero, appear in the sixteenth and seventeenth letters of the book which is entitled 'M. Tullii Epistolarum ad Brutum Liber Singularis;' but the genuineness of these letters is very doubtful. Plutarch himself (_Brutus_, 53) did not fully believe in the genuineness of all the letters attributed to Brutus.

[534] Elea, the Romans called this place Velia. It was on the coast of Lucania, in the modern province of Basilicata in the kingdom of Naples; and the remains are near Castella a mare della Brucca. Velia is often mentioned by Cicero, who set sail from thence when he intended to go to Greece (Life of Cicero, c. 43).

[535] The passages in Homer are, _Iliad_, vi. 429 and 491, the parting of Hector and Andromache. The old stories of Greece furnished the painter with excellent subjects, and the simplicity with which they treated them may be inferred from Plutarch's description. The poet was here the real painter. The artist merely gave a sensuous form to the poet's conception. The parting of Hector and Andromache is the subject of one of Schiller's early poems.

[536] Dion Cassius (xlvii. 20) describes the reception of Brutus at Athens. The Athenians ordered bronze statues of Brutus and Cassius to be set up by the side of the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who had liberated Athens from the tyranny of the Peisistratidæ.

[537] See the Life of Pompeius, c. 75. Cicero's son Marcus was attending the lectures of Cratippus B.C. 44, and also, as it appears, up to the time when Brutus came to Athens. Horace, who was now at Athens, also joined the side of Brutus, and was present at the battle of Philippi.

[538] A town near the southern point of Euboea. The Roman commander who gave up the money, was the Quæstor M. Appuleius (Cicero, _Philipp._ x. 11). Plutarch in the next chapter calls him Antistius.

[539] These are the dying words of Patroclus (_Iliad_, xvi. 849). Apollo is Leto's son.

[540] See the Life of Cicero, c. 43, note; and Dion Cassius (xlvii. 29, &c.).

[541] A town in Thessalia.

[542] Q. Hortensius Hortalus, the son of the orator Hortensius, who held the province of Macedonia (B.C. 44), in which Brutus was to succeed him. He was put to death by M. Antonius after the battle of Philippi (c. 28).

[543] This may be an error of Plutarch's copyists. His name was P. Vatinius (Dion Cassius, xlvii. 21).

[544] The Greek soldiers suffered in this way in their retreat from Babylonia over the table-land of Armenia (Xenophon, _Anabasis_, iv. 5, 7). This bulimy is a different thing from that which modern writers call by that name, and which they describe as a "canine appetite, insatiable desire for food." The nature of the appetite is exemplified by the instance of a man eating in one day four pounds of raw cow's udder, ten pounds of raw beef, two pounds of candles, and drinking five bottles of porter (Penny Cyclopædia, art. Bulimia). The subject of Bulimia is discussed by Plutarch (_Symposiaca_, b. vi. Qu. 8).

[545] Now Butrinto, was on the main land in the north part of the channel which divides Corcyra (Corfu) from the continent. It was made a Colonia by the Romans after their occupation of Epirus. Atticus, the friend of Cicero, had land in the neighbourhood of Buthrotum.

As to the events mentioned at the end of this chapter, compare Dion Cassius, xlvii. 21-23.

[546] Compare Dion Cassius, xlvii. 22.

[547] This was Decimus Brutus Albinus, who fell into the hands of the soldiers of M. Antonius in North Italy, and was put to death by order of Antonius B.C. 43. Compare Dion Cassius (xlvi. 53), and the note of Reimarus.

[548] Brutus passed over into Asia probably about the middle of B.C. 43, while the proscriptions were going on at Rome. As to Cyzicus, see the Life of Lucullus, c. 9.

[549] Cassius was now in Syria, whence he designed to march to Egypt to punish Cleopatra for the assistance which she had given to Dolabella.

[550] The Mediterranean, for which the Romans had no name.

[551] Xanthus stood on a river of the same name, about ten miles from the mouth. The river is now called Etchen-Chai. Xanthus is first mentioned by Herodotus (i. 176), who describes its destruction by the Persian general Harpagus, to which Plutarch afterwards (c. 31) alludes. Numerous remains have been recently discovered there by Fellowes, and some of them are now in the British Museum (Penny Cyclop. art. Xanthian Marbles, and the references in that article).

The last sentence of this chapter is very confused in the original.

[552] Compare the Life of Pompeius, c. 77, 80.

[553] Brutus and Cassius met at Sardis in the early part of B.C. 42.

[554] The passage to which Plutarch refers is _Iliad_, i. 259. The character of Favonius is well known from the Lives of Pompeius and Cato the Younger.

[555] Kaltwasser has a note on the Roman practice of an invited guest taking his shadows (umbræ) with him. Horace alludes to the practice (i. Ep. 5, 28),

----"locus est et pluribus umbris."

Plutarch discusses the etiquette as to umbræ in his Symposiaca (book vii. Qu. 6).

[556] The Romans reclined at table. They placed couches on three sides of the table and left the fourth open. The central couch or sofa (lectus medius) was the first place. The other sofas at the adjoining two sides were respectively lectus summus and imus.

[557] Nothing further seems to be known of him. The name Pella is probably corrupt. The consequence of his condemnation was Infamia, as to the meaning of which term: see Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Infamia. This interview between Brutus and Cassius forms one of the finest scenes in Shakespeare's play of Julius Cæsar.

[558] The reading here is probably corrupt. See the note of Sintenis.

[559] The ghost story is told also in the Life of Cæsar, c. 69.

[560] Cassius was one of the Romans who had embraced the doctrines of Epicurus, modified somewhat by the Roman character. Cicero in a letter to Cassius (_Ad Diversos_, xv. 16) rallies him about his opinions; and Cassius (xv. 19) in reply defends them. Cicero says to Cassius, that he hopes he will tell him whether it is in his power, as soon as he chooses to think of Cassius, to have his spectrum ([Greek: eidôlon]) present, before him, and whether, if he should begin to think of the island Britannia, the image (spectrum) of Britannia will fly to his mind.

Lucretius expounded the Epicurean doctrines in his poem De Rerum Natura. In his fourth book he treats of images (simulacra):

"Quæritur in primis quare quod quoique libido Venerit, extemplo mens cogitet ejus id ipsum. Anne voluntatem nostram simulacra tuentur, Et simulac volumus, nobis occurrit imago?"--iv. 781, &c.

The things on which the mind has been engaged in waking hours, recur as images during sleep:

"Et quo quisque fere studio defunctus adhæret, Aut quibus in rebus multum sumus ante moratei Atque in ea ratione fuit contenta magis mens, In somnis eadem plerumque videmur obire: Causidicei causas agere et componere leges, Induperatores pugnare ac proelia obire," &c.--iv. 963.

He has observed in a previous passage, that numerous images of things wander about in all directions, that they are of a subtile nature, and are easily united when they meet; they are of a much more subtile nature than the things which affect the sight, for they penetrate through the pores of bodies, and inwardly move the subtile nature of the mind. He then adds:

"Centauros itaque et Scyllarum membra videmus, Cerbereasque canum fauceis simulacraque eorum Quorum morte obita tellus amplectitur ossa."--iv. 734, &c.

The doctrine which Lucretius inculcated as to the deities, admitted their existence, but denied that they concerned themselves about mundane affairs; and they had nothing to do with the creation of the world. It is one of the main purposes of the poem to free men from all religious belief, and to show the misery and absurdities that it breeds.

A belief in dæmons would be inconsistent with such doctrines; and as to the gods, Cassius means to say, that though he did not believe in their existence, he almost wished that there were gods to aid their righteous cause.

As to the opinions of Cassius, compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 66.

[561] C. Norbanus Flaccus and L. Decidius Saxa, two legates of Antonius, who had been sent forward with eight legions, and had occupied Philippi. The town of Philippi lay near the mountain-range of Pangæus and Symbolum, which was the name of a place at which Pangæus joins another mountain, that stretches up into the interior. Symbolum was between Neapolis (new city) and Philippi. Neapolis was on the coast opposite to Thasus: Philippi was in the mountain region, and was built on a hill; west of it was a plain which extended to the Strymon (Appian, _Civil Wars_, iv. 1205; Dion Cassius. xlvii. 35). Philippi was originally called Krenides, or the Springs, then Datus, and lastly Philippi by King Philippus, of Macedonia, who fortified it. Appian's description of the position of Philippi is very clear.

[562] A lustration was a solemn ceremony of purification, which was performed on various occasions, and before a battle: see Livy, xxix. 47.

The omens which preceded the battle are recorded by Dion Cassius, xlvii. 49.

[563] M. Valerius Messala Corvinus, of a distinguished Roman family, was a son of Messala who was consul B.C. 53. After the battle of Philippi he attached himself to M. Antonius, whom he deserted to join Octavianus Cæsar. He fought on Cæsar's side at the battle of Actium (c. 53). He died somewhere between B.C. 3 and A.D. 3. Messala was a poet and an historian. His history of the Civil Wars, after the death of the Dictator Cæsar, was used by Plutarch.

[564] See the note of Sintenis, who proposes to read [Greek: keklêmenos] for [Greek: keklêmenon], to prevent any ambiguity, such as Kaltwasser discovered in the passage. It was the birthday of Cassius (Appian, _Civil Wars_, iv, 113).

[565] Plutarch here quotes the Memoirs of Cæsar. It is of no great importance who saw the dream, and perhaps there was no dream at all. Cæsar wished to have an excuse for being out of the way of danger. Dion Cassius (xlvii. 41) says that it was Cæsar's physician who had the dream, but he does not mention his name. See the notes of Reimarus.

[566] The true name may be Briges. The Briges were a Thracian tribe (Stephan. Byzant., [Greek: Briges]), who are mentioned by Herodotus (vii. 73). The Macedonian tradition was that they were the same as the Phrygians; that so long as they lived in Europe with the Macedonians they kept the name of Briges, and that when they passed over into Asia they were called Phryges.

[567] Drumann (_Geschichte Roms_, i. 516, n. 84) assumes that it is P. Volumnius Eutrapelus, a boon companion of Antonius. Several of Cicero's letters to him are extant (_Ad Div._ vii. 32, 33).

[568] Plutarch has handled the character of Brutus with partiality. He could not be ignorant of his love of money and of the oppressive manner in which he treated his unlucky creditors. Drumann (_Junii_, p. 20, &c.) has collected the evidence on this point. Though Brutus was an austere man and affected philosophy, his character is not free from the imputation of ingratitude to Cæsar, love of power, and avarice. He seems to have been one of those who deceive themselves into a belief of their own virtues, because they are free from other people's vices. The promise of plunder to his soldiers is not excusable because Antonius and Cæsar did worse than he intended to do. Plutarch here alludes to many of the Italians being driven out of their lands, which were given to the soldiers who had fought on the side of Cæsar and Antonius at Philippi. The misery that was occasioned by this measure was one of the chief evils of the Civil Wars. The slaughter in war chiefly affected the soldiers themselves, and if both armies had been destroyed, the people would only have been the better for it. The misery that arose from the ejection of the hard-working husbandmen reached to their wives and children. But a country which had a large army on foot which is no longer wanted, must either pay them out of taxes and plunder, or have a revolution. Necessity was the excuse for Cæsar and Antonius, and the same necessity would have been the excuse of Brutus, if he had been victorious. Defeat saved him from this necessity.

[569] The ships which were bringing aid to Cæsar from Brundusium under the command of Domitius Calvinus. They were met and defeated by L. Statius Marcus.

[570] Nothing seems to be known about him. Of course he is not the Volumnius mentioned in c. 45.

[571] See the Life of Cato the Younger, c. 73.

[572] See the Life of Antonius, c. 70.

[573] The verse is from the Medea of Euripides (v. 332), in which Medea Is cursing her faithless husband Jason. The educated Romans were familiar with the Greek dramatists, whom they often quoted. (Compare the Life of Pompeius, c. 78.) Appian says that Brutus intended to apply this line to Antonius (_Civil Wars_, iv. 130).

The other verse, which Volumnius forgot, was remembered by somebody else, if it be the verse of which Florus (iv. 7) has recorded the substance, "that virtue is not a reality, but a name." Dion Cassius (xlvii. 49, and the note of Reimarus) also has recorded two Greek verses which Brutus is said to have uttered; but he does not mention the verse which Plutarch cites. The substance of the two verses cited by Dion is this:

"Poor virtue, empty name, whom I have serv'd As a true mistress; thou art fortune's slave."

Volumnius might not choose to remember these verses, as Drumann suggests, in order to save the credit of his friend.

[574] See c. 11, and the Life of the younger Cato, c. 65, 73.

[575] Brutus was forty-three years of age when he died. Velleius (ii. 72) says that he was in his thirty-seventh year, which is a mistake.

The character of Brutus requires a special notice. It is easy enough to write a character of a man, but not easy to write a true one. Michelet (_Histoire de la Revolution Française_, ii. 545), speaking of the chief actors of the revolution in 1789. '90, '91, says: "We have rarely given a judgment entire, indistinct, no _portrait_ properly speaking; all, almost all, are unjust; resulting from a mean which is taken between this and that moment in a person's life, between the good and the bad, neutralising the one by the other, and making both false. We have judged the acts, as they present themselves, day by day, hour by hour. We have given a date to our judgments; and this has allowed us often to praise men, whom at a later time we shall have to blame. Criticism, forgetful and harsh, too often condemns beginnings which are laudable, having in view the end which it knows, of which it has a view beforehand. But we do not choose to know this end; whatever this man may do to-morrow, we note for his advantage the good which he does to-day: the end will come soon enough." This is the true method of writing history; this is the true method of judging men. Unfortunately we cannot trace the career of many individuals with that particularity of date and circumstance which would enable us to do justice. Plutarch does not draw characters in the mass in the modern way: he gives us both the good and the bad, in detail: but with little regard sometimes to time and circumstance. He has treated Brutus with partiality: he finds only one act in his life to condemn (chap. 46). The great condemnation of Brutus is, that acting in the name of virtue, he did not know what it was; that fighting for his country, he was fighting for a party; his Roman republic was a republic of aristocrats; his people was a fraction of the Roman citizens; he conceived no scheme for regenerating a whole nation: he engaged in a death struggle in which we can feel no sympathy. His name is an idle abused theme for rhetoric; and his portrait must be drawn, ill or well, that the world may be disabused.

Drumann (_Geschichte Roms_, Junii, p. 34) has carefully collected the acts of Brutus; and he has judged him severely, and, I think, truly.

Brutus had moderate abilities, with great industry and much learning: he had no merit as a general, but he had the courage of a soldier, he had the reputation of virtue, and he was free from many of the vices of his contemporaries; he was sober and temperate. Of enlarged political views he had none; there is not a sign of his being superior in this respect to the mass of his contemporaries. When the Civil War broke out, he joined Pompeius, though Pompeius had murdered his father. If he gave up his private enmity, as Plutarch says, for what he believed to be the better cause, the sacrifice was honourable: if there were other motives, and I believe there were, his choice of his party does him no credit. His conspiracy against Cæsar can only be justified by those, if there are such, who think that a usurper ought to be got rid of in any way. But if a man is to be murdered, one does not expect those to take a part in the act who, after being enemies have received favours from him, and professed to be friends. The murderers should at least be a man's declared enemies who have just wrongs to avenge. Though Brutus was dissatisfied with things under Cæsar, he was not the first mover in the conspiracy. He was worked upon by others, who knew that his character and personal relation to Cæsar would in a measure sanctify the deed; and by their persuasion, not his own resolve, he became an assassin in the name of freedom, which meant the triumph of his party, and in the name of virtue, which meant nothing.

The act was bad in Brutus as an act of treachery; and it was bad as an act of policy. It failed in its object--the success of a party, because the death of Cæsar was not enough; other victims were necessary, and Brutus would not have them. He put himself at the head of a plot, in which there was no plan: he dreamed of success and forgot the means. He mistook the circumstances of the times and the character of the men. His conduct after the murder was feeble and uncertain; and it was also as illegal as the usurpation of Cæsar. "He left Rome as prætor without the permission of the Senate; he took possession of a province which, even according to Cicero's testimony, had been assigned to another; he arbitrarily passed beyond the boundaries of his province, and set his effigy on the coins." (Drumann.) He attacked the Bessi in order to give his soldiers booty, and he plundered Asia to get money for the conflict against Cæsar and Antonius, for the mastery of Rome and Italy. The means that he had at his disposal show that he robbed without measure and without mercy; and never was greater tyranny exercised over helpless people in the name of liberty than the wretched inhabitants of Asia experienced from Brutus the "Liberator" and Cassius "the last of the Romans." But all these great resources were thrown away in an ill-conceived and worse executed campaign.

Temperance, industry, and unwillingness to shed blood are noble qualities in a citizen and a soldier; and Brutus possessed them. But great wealth gotten by ill means is an eternal reproach; and the trade of money-lending, carried on in the names of others, with unrelenting greediness, is both avarice and hypocrisy. Cicero, the friend of Brutus, is the witness for his wealth, and for his unworthy means to increase it.