[1] After this, the subjects of Caesar’s will and of his burial came up for discussion. Antony demanded that the will should be read publicly, and that the body should be carried forth to burial, not secretly, nor without honours, lest this also should exasperate the people. Cassius, indeed, vehemently opposed these measures, but Brutus yielded and agreed to them, thus making a second mistake, as it was thought.
[2] For by sparing Antony’s life as he had done he incurred the charge of raising up against the conspirators a bitter and formidable foe; and now, in allowing Caesar’s funeral rites to be conducted as Antony demanded, he committed a fatal error.
[3] For, in the first place, when it was found that the will of Caesar gave to every single Roman seventy-five drachmas, and left to the people his gardens beyond the Tiber, where now stands a temple of Fortune, an astonishing kindliness and yearning for Caesar seized the citizens;
[4] and in the second place, after Caesar’s body had been brought to the forum, Antony pronounced the customary eulogy, and when he saw that the multitude were moved by his words, changed his tone to one of compassion, and taking the robe of Caesar, all bloody as it was, unfolded it to view, pointing out the many places in which it had been pierced and Caesar wounded.
[5] All further orderly procedure was at an end, of course; some cried out to kill the murderers, and others, as formerly in the case of Clodius the demagogue,
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dragged from the shops the benches and tables, piled them upon one another, and thus erected a huge pyre;
[6] on this they placed Caesar’s body, and in the midst of many sanctuaries, asylums, and holy places, burned it.
[7] Moreover, when the fire blazed up, people rushed up from all sides, snatched up half-burnt brands, and ran round to the houses of Caesar’s slayers to set them on fire.
These men, indeed, having previously barricaded themselves well, repelled the danger;
These men, indeed, having previously barricaded themselves well, repelled the danger;
[8] but there was a certain Cinna, a poet, who had no share in the crime, but was actually a friend of Caesar’s.
[9] This man dreamed that he was invited to supper by Caesar and declined to go, but that Caesar besought and constrained him, and finally took him by the hand and led him into a yawning and darksome place, whither he followed unwilling and bewildered.
[10] After having this vision, he fell into a fever which lasted all night; but in the morning, nevertheless, when the funeral rites were held over Caesar’s body, he was ashamed not to be present, and went out into the crowd when it was already becoming savage.
[11] He was seen, however, and being thought to be, not the Cinna that he really was, but the one who had recently reviled Caesar before the assembled people, he was torn in pieces.
Brutus. Plutarch. Cambridge, MA. 1918.
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