Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/343

Rh Now when they were at Smyrna, Brutus desired of Cassius that he might have part of the great treasure that he had heaped up, hecause all his own was expended in furnishing out such a fleet of ships as was sufficient to keep the whole interior sea in their power. But Cas- sius's friends dissuaded him from this ; " for," said they, " it is not just that the money which you with so much parsimony keep and with so much envy have got, should be given to him to be disposed of in making hiniself popular, and gainmg the favor of the soldiers." Notwithstanding this, Cassius gave him a third part of all that he had ; and then they parted each to their several commands. Cassius, having taken Rhodes, behaved himself there with no clemency ; though at his first entry, when some had called him lord and king, he answered, that he was neither king nor lord, but the destroyer and punisher of a king and lord. Brutus, on the other part, sent to the Lycians to demand from them a supply of money and men ; but Naucrates, their popular leader, persuaded the cities to resist, and they occupied several little mountains and hills, with a design to hinder Brutus's passage. Brutus at first sent out a party of horse, which, surprising them as they were eating, killed six hundred of them ; and afterwards, having taken all their small towns and villages round about, he set all his prisoners free without ransom, hoping to win the whole nation by good-will. But they continued obstinate, taking in anger what they had suffered, and despising his goodness and human- ity J until, having forced the most warlike of them into the city of Xanthus, he besieged them there. They endeavored to make their escape by swimming and div- ing through the river that flows by the town, but weie taken by nets let down for that pvirpose in the channel,