Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/319

 MARCUS BRUTUS. 311 that it was a miserable spectacle even to their enemies to behold. And this, some say, was the chief provocation that stirred up Cassius to conspire against Cassar; but they are much in the wrong. For Cassius had from his youth a natural hatred and rancor against the whole race of ty- rants, which he showed when he was but a boy, and went to the same school with Faustus, the son of Sylla ; for, on his boasting himself amongst the boys, and extolling the sovereign power of his father, Cassius rose up and struck him two or three boxes on the ear; which when the guardians and relations of Faustus designed to inquire into and to prosecute, Pompey forbade them, and, sending for both the boys together, examined the matter himself. And Cassius then is reported to have said thus, " Come, then, Faustus, dare to speak here those words that pro- voked me, that I may strike you again as I did before." Such was the disposition of Cassius. But Brutus was roused up and pushed on to the under taking by many persuasions of his familiar friends, and letters and invitations from unknown citizens. For under the statue of his ancestor Brutus, that over- threw the kingly government, they wrote the words, "0 that we had a Brutus now!" and, "0 that Brutus were alive ! " And Brutus's own tribunal, on which he sate as praetor, was filled each morning with writings such as these : " You are asleep, Brutus," and, " You are not a true Brutus." Now the flatterers of Caesar were the oc- casion of all this, who, among other invidious honors which they strove to fasten upon Ctesar, crowned his statues by night with diadems, wishing to incite the peo- ple to salute him king instead of dictator. But quite the contrary came to pass, as I have more particularly related in the life of Csesar. When Cassius went about soliciting friends to engage