MARCUS BRUTUS. 323 enemy, so now, in suffering liiin to have the oi'dering of the funeral, he fell into a total and irrecoverable error. For first, it appearing by the will that Caesar had be- queathed to the Eoman people seventy-five drachmas a man, and given to the public his gardens beyond Tiber (where now the temple of Fortune stands), the whole city .was fired with a wonderful affection for him, and a ■passionate sense of the loss of him. And when the body was brought forth into the forum, Antony, as the cus- tom was, making a funeral oration in the praise of Caesar, and finding the multitude moved with his speech, passing into the pathetic tone, unfolded the bloody garment of Caesar, showed them in how many places it was pierced, and the number of his wounds. Now there was nothing to be seen but confusion ; some cried out to kill the mur- derers, others (as was formerly done when Clodius led the people) tore away the benches and tables out of the shops round about, and, heaping them all together, built a great funeral pile, and, having put the body of Caesar upon it, set it on fire, the spot where this was done being moreover surrounded with a great many temples and other consecrated places, so that they seemed to burn the body in a kind of sacred solemnity. As soon as the fire flamed out, the multitude, flocking in some from one part and some from another, snatched the brands that were half burnt out of the j^ile, and i-an about the city to fire the houses of the murderers of Caesar. But they, having beforehand well fortified themselves, re- pelled this danger. There was however a kind of poet, one Cinna, not at all concerned in the guilt of the conspiracy, but on the contrary one of Csesar's friends. This man dreamed that he was invited to supper by Caesar, and that he declined to go, but that Caesar entreated and pressed him to it very earnestly; and at last, taking him by the hand, led
Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/331
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