Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/93

 CICERO. 85 The terms of their mutual concessions were these ; tluit Caesar should desert Cicero, Lepidus his brother Paulus, and Antony, Lucius Caesar, his uncle b}- his mother's side. Thus they let their anger and fury take from them the sense of humanity, and demonstrated that no beast is more savage than man, when possessed with power answerable to his rage. Whilst these things were contriving, Cicero was with his brother at his country-house near Tusculum ; whence, hearing of the proscriptions, they determined to pass to Astura, a villa of Cicero's near the sea, and to take ship- ping from thence for Macedonia to Brutus, of whose strength in that province news had already been heard. They travelled together in their separate litters, over- whelmed with sorrow ; and often stopping on the way till their litters came together, condoled with one another. But Quintus was the more disheartened, when he reflected on his want of means for his journey ; for, as he said, he had brought nothing with him from home. And e';en Cicero himself had but a slender provision. It was judged, therefore, most expedient that Cicero should make what haste he could to fly, and Quintus retmn home to provide necessaries, and thus resolved, they mu- tually embraced, and parted with many tears. Quintus, within a few days after, betrayed bj" his ser- vants to those who came to search for him, was slain, together with his young son. But Cicero was can-ied to Astura, where, finding a vessel, he immediately went on board her, and sailed as far as Circaeum with a prosperous gale; but when the pilots resolved immediately to set sail from thence, whether fearing the sea, or not wholly distrusting the faith of Ctesar, he went on shore, and passed by land a hundred furlongs, as if he was going for Rome. But losing resolution and changing his mind, he again returned to the sea, and there spent the night in