Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/334

 326 MARCUS BRUTUS. showed that his aim was to have an easy slavery. "But our forefathers," said Brutus, " could not brook even gen- tle masters." Further he added, that for his own part he had not as yet fully resolved whether he should make war or peace ; but that as to one point he was fixed and settled, which was, never to be a slave ; that he wondered CicBro should fear the dangers of a civil war, and not be much more afraid of a dishonorable and infamous peace ; that the very reward that Avas to be given him for subverting Antony's tyranny was the privilege of es- tablishing Ca3sar as tyrant in his place. This is the tone of Brutus's first letters to Cicero. The city being now divided into two factions, some betaking themselves to Caesar and others to Antony, the soldiers sellmg themselves, as it were, by public outcry, and going over to him that would give them most, Brutus began to despair of anj good event of such pro- ceedings, and, resolving to leave Italy, passed by land through Lucania and came to Elea* by the sea-side. From hence it was thought convenient that Porcia should return to Eome. She was overcome with grief to part from Brutus, but strove as much as was possible to con- ceal it ; but, in spite of all her constancy, a picture which she found there accidentally betrayed it. It was a Greek subject, Hector parting from Andromache when he went to engage the Greeks, giving his young son Astyanax into her arms, and she fixing her eyes upon him. When she looked at this piece, the resemblance it bore to her own condition made her burst into tears, and several times a day she went to see the picture, and wept before it. Upon this occasion, when Acilius, one of Brutus's friends, repeated out of Homer the verses, where Andro- mache speaks to Hector : — • Velia, called Elea in Greek, a little south of Paastum.