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Yet the brave clowns sent up cheer after cheer, and shouted words of encouragement and homely jests to each other, as though a battle were but some rough game which must as a matter of course be played out while there was a player left to join in it. 'Is Captain Clarke there? cried Decimus Saxon, riding up with his sword-arm flecked with blood.
Decimus Brutus, imperator and consul elect, a citizen born for the republic, denies that he is consul; Gaul denies it; all Italy denies it; the senate denies it; you deny it. Who then think that he is consul except a few robbers?
There are three roads to Mutina, a place which my mind longs to see, in order that I may behold as speedily as possible that pledge of freedom of the Roman people Decimus Brutus, in whose embrace I would willingly yield up my parting breath, when all my actions for the last many months, and all my opinions and propositions have resulted in the end which I proposed to myself.
And I notice, O conscript fathers, that there are some who favour this proposal: whose intention and design is, as they see that that will be a most glorious day for Decimus Brutus on which we return to our usual dress out of joy for his safety, to deprive him of this great reward, so that it may not be handed down to the recollection of posterity that the Roman people had recourse to the garb of war on account of the danger of one single citizen, and then returned to then gowns of peace on account of his safety.
The army, of course, were furious against the murderers; the Senate was terrified, and granted everything Antonius chose to ask, provided he would protect them, whereupon he begged for a guard for himself that he might be saved from Cæsar's fate, and this they gave him; while the fifteen murderers fled secretly, mostly to Cisalpine Gaul, of which Decimus Brutus was governor.
Caius Cassius, a tall, lean man, who had lately been made prætor, was the chief conspirator, and with him was Marcus Junius Brutus, a descendant of him who overthrew the Tarquins, and husband to Porcia, Cato's daughter, also another Brutus named Decimus, hitherto a friend of Cæsar, and newly appointed to the government of Cisalpine Gaul.
For the Roman people in crowds demanded at his hands the safety of Decimus Brutus with such unanimous outcries, that he was compelled to prefer it not only to any consideration of his own personal advantage, but even to his own necessities.
The murder of Caesar filled the measure of their crimes, and gave the last and necessary impulse to the closing act of the revolution. Thus the ides of March drew near. Caesar was to set out in a few days for Parthia. Decimus Brutus was going, as governor, to the north of Italy, Lepidus to Gaul, Marcus Brutus to Macedonia, and Trebonius to Asia Minor.
They wished, notwithstanding, even so to make known their presence to Decimus, that he might not in undue season make terms, and at first they tried sending signals from the tallest trees. But since he did not understand, they scratched a few words on a thin sheet of lead, and rolling it up like a piece of paper gave it to a diver to carry across under water by night.
Decimus saluted again, and withdrew, while his superior opened the roll in his hands, and with all apparent fixity and interest studied at the precepts and definitions of the grammar of Dionysius Thrax, the noted philologist. At the end of some minutes Quintus Drusus stood before him.
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