This was the posture of affairs when another sudden alteration was made upon the young Caesar's coming to Rome. He was son to the niece of Caesar, who adopted him, and left him his heir by his will. At the time when Caesar was killed, he was following his studies at Apollonia, where he was expecting also to meet Caesar on his way to the expedition which he had determined on against the Parthians;but, hearing of his death, he immediately came to Rome, and to ingratiate himself with the people, taking upon himself the name of Caesar, and punctually distributing among the citizens the money that was left them by the will, he soon got the better of Antony;and by money and largesses, which he liberally dispersed amongst the soldiers, he gathered together and brought over to his party a great number of those that had served under Caesar. Cicero himself, out of the hatred which he bore to Antony, sided with young Caesar; which Brutus took so ill that he treated with him very sharply in his letters, telling him that he perceived Cicero could well enough endure a tyrant, but was afraid that he who hated him should be the man; that in writing and speaking so well of Caesar, he showed that his aim was to have an easy slavery. "But our forefathers," said Brutus, "could not brook even gentle masters." Further he added, that for his own part he had not as yet fully resolved whether he should make war or peace; but that as to one point he was fixed and settled, which was, never to be a slave; that he wondered Cicero should fear the dangers of a civil war, and not be much more afraid of a dishonourable and infamous peace; that the very reward that was to be given him for subverting Antony's tyranny was the privilege of establishing Caesar as tyrant in his place. This is the tone of Brutus's first letters to Cicero.
The city being now divided into two factions, some betaking themselves to Caesar and others to Antony, the soldiers selling themselves, as it were, by public outcry, and going over to him that would give them most, Brutus began to despair of any good event of such proceedings, and, resolving to leave Italy, passed by land through Lucania and came to Elea by the seaside. From hence it was thought convenient that Porcia should return to Rome. She was overcome with grief to part from Brutus, but strove as much as was possible to conceal it; but, in spite of all her constancy, a picture which she found there accidentally betrayed it. It was a Greek subject, Hector parting from Andromache when he went to engage the Greeks, giving his young son Astyanax into her arms, and she fixing her eyes upon him. When she looked at this piece, the resemblance it bore to her own condition made her burst into tears, and several times a day she went to see the picture, and wept before it. Upon this occasion, when Acilius, one of Brutus's friends, repeated out of Homer the verses, where Andromache speaks to Hector:-"But Hector, you To me are father and are mother too, My brother, and my loving husband true."Brutus, smiling, replied, "But I must not answer Porcia, as Hector did Andromache:-"Mind you your loom, and to your maids give law.""For though the natural weakness of her body hinders her from doing what only the strength of men can perform, yet she has a mind as valiant and as active for the good of her country as the best of us." This narrative is in the memoirs of Brutus written by Bibulus, Porcia's son.
Brutus took ship from hence, and sailed to Athens, where he was received by the people with great demonstrations of kindness, expressed in their acclamation and the honours that were decreed him. He lived there with a private friend, and was a constant auditor of Theomnestus, the Academic, and Cratippus, the Peripatetic, with whom he so engaged in philosophical pursuits that he seemed to have laid aside all thoughts of public business, and to be wholly at leisure for study. But all this while, being unsuspected, he was secretly ****** preparations for war; in order to which he sent Herostratus into Macedonia to secure the commanders there to his side, and he himself won over and kept at his disposal all the young Romans that were then students at Athens. Of this number was Cicero's son whom he everywhere highly extols, and says that whether sleeping or waking he could not choose but admire a young man of so great a spirit and such a hater of tyranny.
At length he began to act openly, and to appear in public business, and, being informed that there were several Roman ships full of treasure that in their course from Asia were to come that way, and that they were commanded by one of his friends, he went to meet him about Carystus. Finding him there, and having persuaded him to deliver lip the ships, he made a more than usually splendid entertainment, for it happened also to be his birthday. Now when they came to drink, and were filling their cups with hopes for victory to Brutus and liberty to Rome, Brutus, to animate them the more, called for a larger bowl, and holding it in his hand, on a sudden, upon no occasion or forethought, pronounced aloud this verse:-"But fate my death and Leto's son have wrought."And some writers add that in the last battle which he fought at Philippi, the word that he gave to his soldiers was Apollo, and from thence conclude that this sudden unaccountable exclamation of his was a presage of the overthrow that he suffered there.
