Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/365

MARCUS BRUTUS. 357 took Brutus in the rear, who all the while performed all that was possible for an expert general and valiant soldier, doing every thing in the peril, by counsel and by hand, that might recover the victory. But that which had been his superiority in the former fight was to his prejudice in this second. For in the first fight, that part of the enemy which was beaten was killed on the spot ; but of Cassius's soldiers that fled few had been slain, and those that escaped, daunted with their defeat, infected the other and larger part of the army with their want of spirit and their disorder. Here Marcus, the son of Cato, was slain, fighting and behaving himself with great bravery in the midst of the youth of the highest rank and greatest valor. He would neither fly nor give the least ground, but, still fighting and declaring who he was and naming his father's name, he fell upon a heap of dead bodies of the enemy. And of the rest, the bravest were slain in defending Brutus. There was in the field one Lucilius, an excellent man and a friend of Brutus, who, seeing some barbarian hoi'se taking no notice of any other in the pursuit, but gallop- ing at full speed after Brutus, resolved to stop them, though with the hazard of his life ; and, letting himself fall a little behind, he told them that he was Brutus. They believed him the rather, because he prayed to be carried to Antony, as if he feared Caesar, but durst trust him. They, oveijoyed with their prey, and thinking themselves wonderfidly fortunate, carried him along with them in the night, having first sent messengers to Antony of their coming. He was much pleased, and came to meet them ; and all the rest that heard that Brutus was taken and brought alive, flocked together to see him, some pitying his fortune, others accusing him of a mean- ness unbecoming his foi'mer glory, that out of too much love of life he would be a prey to barbarians. When they