Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/311

MARCUS BRUTUS. 303 family of Seivilius Ahala, who, when Spurius Maeliug worked the people into a rebellion and designed to make himself king, taking a dagger under his arm, went forth into the market-place, and, upon pretence of havinf some private business with him, came up close to him, and, as he bent his head to hear what he had to say, struck him with his dagger and slew him. And thus much, as concerns his descent by the mother's side, is con- fessed by all ; but as for his father's family, they who for Caesar's murder bore any hatred or ill-will to Brutus say that he came not from that Brutus who expelled the Tar- quins, there being none of his race left after the execu- tion of his two sons ; but that his ancestor was a plebeian, son of one Brutus, a steward, and only rose in the latest times to office or dignity in the commonwealth. But Posi- donius the philosopher writes that it is true indeed what the history relates, that two of the sons of Brutus who were of men's estate were put to death, but that a third, yet an infant, was left alive, from whom the family was propaga- ted down to Marcus Brutus ; and further, that there were several famous persons of this house in his time whoso looks very much resembled the statue of Junius Brutus. But of this subject enough. Cato the philosopher was brother to Servilia, the mother of Brutus, and he it was whom of all the Romans his nephew most admired and studied to imitate, and he afterwards married his daughter Porcia. Of all the sects of the Greek philosophers, though there was none of which he had not been a hearer and in which he had not made some proficiency, yet he chiefly esteemed the Platonists ; and, not much approving of the modern and middle Academy, as it is called, he applied himself to the study of the ancient. He was all his lifetime a great admirer of Antiochus of the city of Ascalon, and took his brother Aristus into his own house for his friend and companion,