| LIVES OF THE NOBLE | | |
| | | |
MARCUS | shoulde kill them. But for the freemen, he sent them freely | |
BRUTUS | home, and said, that they were better prisoners with his | |
| enemies, then with him. For with them, they were slaves | |
| and servauntes: and with him, they were free men, and | |
| citizens. So when he saw that divers Captaines and his | |
| frendes did so cruelly hate some, that they would by no | |
Brutus | meanes save their lives: Brutus him selfe hid them, and | |
clemency and | secretlie sent them away. Among these prisoners, there was | |
curtesie. | one Volumnius a jeaster, and Sacculio a common player, of | |
| whom Brutus made no accompt at all. Howbeit his frends | |
| brought them unto him, and did accuse them, that though | |
| they were prisoners, they did not let to laugh them to | |
| scorne, and to jeast broadly with them. Brutus made no | |
| aunswere to it, bicause his heade was occupied otherwayes. | |
| Whereupon, Messala Corvinus sayd: that it were good to | |
| whippe them on a skaffold, and then to sende them naked, well | |
| whipped, unto the Captaines of their enemies, to shewe them | |
| their shame, to keepe suche mates as those in their campe, | |
| to play the fooles, to make them sport. Some that stoode by, | |
| laughed at his devise. But Publius Casca, that gave Iulius | |
| Caesar the first wounde when he was slaine, sayd then: It | |
| doth not become us to be thus merie at Cassius funeralls: and | |
| for thee, Brutus, thou shalt showe what estimacion thou | |
| madest of suche a Captaine thy compere, by putting to | |
| death, or saving the lives of these bloodes, who hereafter | |
| will mocke him, and defame his memorie. Brutus aunswered | |
| againe in choller: Why then doe you come to tell me of it, | |
| Casca, and doe not your selves what you thinke good? | |
| When they hearde him say so, they tooke his aunswere for | |
| a consent against these poore unfortunate men, to suffer | |
| them to doe what they thought good: and therefore they | |
| caried them away, and slue them. Afterwards Brutus per- | |
| formed the promise he had made to the souldiers, and gave | |
| them the two thowsand Drachmas a peece, but yet he first | |
| reproved them, bicause they went and gave charge upon the | |
| enemies at the first battell, before they had the word of | |
| battell geven them: and made them a new promise also, that | |
| if in the second battell they fought like men, he would geve | |
| them the sacke and spoyle of two cities, to wit, Thessalonica, | |
| 228 | |