Brutus

I know that woman’s nature is thought too weak to endure a secret; but good rearing and excellent companionship go far towards strengthening the character,

and it is my happy lot to be both the daughter of Cato and the wife of Brutus. Before this I put less confidence in these advantages, but now I know that I am superior even to pain.

Thus having spoken, she showed him her wound and explained her test; whereupon Brutus, amazed, and lifting his hands to heaven, prayed that he might succeed in his undertaking and thus show himself a worthy husband of Porcia. Then he sought to restore his wife.

A meeting of the senate having been called, to which it was expected that Caesar would come, they determined to make their attempt there; for they could then gather together in numbers without exciting suspicion, and would have all the best and foremost men in one place, who, once the great deed was done, would straightway espouse the cause of liberty.

It was thought, too, that the place of meeting was providentially in their favour; for it was one of the porticoes about the theatre, containing a session-room in which stood a statue of Pompey.

This statue the city had erected in his honour when he adorned that place with the porticoes and the theatre.[*](Cf. Pompey, xl. 5. ) Hither, then, the senate was summoned about the middle of March[*](March 15, 44 B.C.) (the Romans call the day the Ides of March), so that some heavenly power seemed to be conducting Caesar to Pompey’s vengeance.

When the day came, Brutus girt on a dagger, to the knowledge of his wife alone, and went forth, while the rest assembled at the house of Cassius and conducted his son, who was about to assume what was called the toga virilis, down to the forum.

Thence they all hastened to the portico of Pompey and waited there, expecting that Caesar would straight-way come to the meeting of the senate.