| LIVES OF THE NOBLE | | |
| | | |
| MARCUS | out of Rome, they wrote: O, that it pleased the goddes | |
| BRUTUS | thou wert now alive, Brutus: and againe, that thou wert | |
| here amonge us nowe. His tribunall (or chaire) where he | |
| gave audience during the time he was Praetor, was full of | |
| suche billes: Brutus, thou art a sleepe, and art not Brutus | |
| in deede. And of all this, Caesars flatterers were the cause: | |
| who beside many other exceeding and unspeakeable honors | |
| they dayly devised for him, in the night time they did put | |
| Diadeames uppon the heades of his images, supposinge | |
| thereby to allure the common people to call him kinge, | |
| in steade of Dictator. Howebeit it turned to the contrarie, | |
| as we have wrytten more at large in Iulius Caesars life. | |
| Nowe when Cassius felt his frendes, and did stirre them | |
| up against Caesar: they all agreed and promised to take | |
| parte with him, so Brutus were the chiefe of their con- | |
| spiracie. For they told him, that so high an enterprise | |
| and attempt as that, did not so muche require men of man- | |
| hoode, and courage to drawe their swordes: as it stoode | |
| them uppon to have a man of suche estimacion as Brutus, | |
| to make everie man boldlie thinke, that by his onelie pre- | |
| sence the fact were holie, and just. If he tooke not this | |
| course, then that they shoulde goe to it with fainter hartes, | |
| and when they had done it, they shoulde be more fearefull: | |
| bicause everie man woulde thinke that Brutus woulde not | |
| have refused to have made one with them, if the cause had | |
| bene good and honest. Therefore Cassius considering this | |
| Cassius | matter with him selfe, did first of all speake to Brutus, since | |
| praieth | they grewe straunge together for the sute they had for the | |
| Brutus first, | Praetorshippe. So when be was reconciled to him againe, | |
| to help him | and that they had imbraced one an other: Cassius asked | |
| to put downe | him if he were determined to be in the Senate house, the | |
| the tyran. | first day of the moneth of Marche, bicause he heard say | |
| that Caesars frendes shoulde move the counsell that day, | |
| that Caesar shoulde be called king by the Senate. Brutus | |
| aunswered him he would not be there. But if we be sent | |
| for sayd Cassius: howe then? For my selfe then sayd | |
| Brutus, I meane not to holde my peace, but to withstande | |
| it, and rather dye then lose my libertie. Cassius being | |
| bolde, and taking holde of this worde: Why, quoth he, what | |
| 190 | |