Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/339

 MARCUS BRUTUS. - 331 Antony, and having driven his competitor out of Italy, had begun himself to be very formidable, suing for the con- sulship contrary to law, and maintaining large bodies of troops of which the commonwealth had no manner of need. And then, perceiving that the senate, dissatisfied with his proceedings, began to cast their eyes abroad upon Brutus, and decreed and confirmed the govern- ment of several provinces to him, he had taken the alarm. Therefore despatching messengers to Antony, he desired that there might be a reconciliation, and a friendship between them. Then, drawing aU his forces about the city, he made himself be chosen consul, though he was but a boy, being scarce twenty years old, as he himself writes in his memoirs. At his- first entry upon the cQnsulship he immediately ordered a judicial process to be issued out against Brutus and his accomjjlices for having murdered a principal man of the city, holding the highest magistracies of Eorae, mthout being heard or condemned ; and appointed Lucius Cornificius to accuse Brutus, and Marcus Agrippa to accuse Cassius. None appearing to the accusation, the judges were forced to pass sentence and condemn them both. It is reported, that when the crier from the tribunal, as the custom was, with a loud voice cited Brutus to appear, the people groaned audibly, and the noble citizens hung down their heads for grief Publius Silicius was seen to burst out into tears, which was the cause that not long after he was put down in the list of those that were proscribed. After this, the three men, Ccesar, Antony, and Lepidus, being perfectly reconciled, shared the prov- inces among themselves, and made up the catalogue of prosci'iption, wherein were set those that were designed for slaughter, amounting to two hundred men, in which number Cicero was slain. This news being brought to Brutus in Macedonia, he