that his affairs were in the best state of fortune that he could wish;for that either he should overcome, and restore liberty to the people of Rome, or die, and be himself out of the reach of slavery;that other things being certain and beyond all hazard, one thing was yet in doubt, whether they should live or die free men. He adds further, that Mark Antony had received a just punishment for his folly, who, when he might have been numbered with Brutus and Cassius and Cato, would join himself to Octavius; that though they should not now be both overcome, they soon would fight between themselves.
And in this he seems to have been no ill-prophet.
Now when they were at Smyrna, Brutus desired of Cassius that he might have part of the great treasure that he had heaped up, because all his own was expended in furnishing out such a fleet of ships as was sufficient to keep the whole interior sea in their power. But Cassius's friends dissuaded him from this; "for," said they, "it is not just that the money which you with so much parsimony keep, and with so much envy have got, should be given to him to be disposed of in ****** himself popular, and gaining the favour of the soldiers."Notwithstanding this, Cassius gave him a third part of all that he had; and then they parted each to their several commands. Cassius, having taken Rhodes, behaved himself there with no clemency; though at his first entry, when some had called him lord and king, he answered that he was neither king nor lord, but the destroyer and punisher of a king and lord. Brutus, on the other part, sent to the Lycians to demand from them a supply of money and men, but Laucrates, their popular leader, persuaded the cities to resist, and they occupied several little mountains and hills with a design to hinder Brutus's passage. Brutus at first sent out a party of horse which, surprising them as they were eating, killed six hundred of them, and afterward, having taken all their small towns and villages round about, he set all his prisoners free without ransom, hoping to win the whole nation by good-will. But they continued obstinate, taking in anger what they had suffered, and despising his goodness and humanity;until, having forced the most warlike of them into the city of Xanthus, he besieged them there. They endeavoured to make their escape by swimming and diving through the river that flows by the town, but were taken by nets let down for that purpose in the channel, which had little bells at the top, which gave present notice of any that were taken in them. After that, they made a sally in the night, and seizing several of the battering engines, set them on fire; but being perceived by the Romans, were beaten back to their walls, and there being a strong wind, it carried the flames to the battlements of the city with such fierceness that several of the adjoining houses took fire. Brutus, fearing lest the whole city should be destroyed, commanded his own soldiers to assist and quench the fire.
But the Lycians were on a sudden possessed with a strange and incredible desperation; such a frenzy as cannot be better expressed than by calling it a violent appetite to die, for both women and children, the bondmen and the free, those of all ages and of all conditions strove to force away the soldiers that came in to their assistance from the walls; and themselves gathering together reeds and wood, and whatever combustible matter they found, spread the fire over the whole city, feeding it with whatever fuel they could, and by all possible means exciting its fury, so that the flame, having dispersed itself and encircled the whole city, blazed out in so terrible a manner that Brutus, extremely afflicted at their calamity, got on horseback and rode round the walls, earnestly desirous to preserve the city, and stretching forth his hands to the Xanthians, begged of them that they would spare themselves and save the town. Yet none regarded his entreaties, but, by all manner of ways, strove to destroy themselves; not only men and women, but even boys and little children, with a hideous outcry, leaped some into the fire, others from the walls, others fell upon their parents'
swords, baring their throats and desiring to be struck. After the destruction of the city, there was found a woman who had hanged herself with her young child hanging from her neck, and the torch in her hand with which she had fired her own house.
It was so tragical a sight that Brutus could not endure to see it, but wept at the very relation of it and proclaimed a reward to any soldier that could save a Xanthian. And it is said that an hundred and fifty only were found, to have their lives saved against their wills. Thus the Xanthians after a long space of years, the fated period of their destruction having, as it were, run its course, repeated by their desperate deed the former calamity of their forefathers, who after the very same manner in the Persian war had fired their city and destroyed themselves.
