Brutus

After this, the subjects of Caesar’s will and of his burial came up for discussion. Antony demanded that the will should be read publicly, and that the body should be carried forth to burial, not secretly, nor without honours, lest this also should exasperate the people. Cassius, indeed, vehemently opposed these measures, but Brutus yielded and agreed to them, thus making a second mistake, as it was thought.

For by sparing Antony’s life as he had done he incurred the charge of raising up against the conspirators a bitter and formidable foe; and now, in allowing Caesar’s funeral rites to be conducted as Antony demanded, he committed a fatal error.

For, in the first place, when it was found that the will of Caesar gave to every single Roman seventy-five drachmas, and left to the people his gardens beyond the Tiber, where now stands a temple of Fortune, an astonishing kindliness and yearning for Caesar seized the citizens;

and in the second place, after Caesar’s body had been brought to the forum, Antony pronounced the customary eulogy, and when he saw that the multitude were moved by his words, changed his tone to one of compassion, and taking the robe of Caesar, all bloody as it was, unfolded it to view, pointing out the many places in which it had been pierced and Caesar wounded.

All further orderly procedure was at an end, of course; some cried out to kill the murderers, and others, as formerly in the case of Clodius the demagogue,[*](Clodius was killed in a street-brawl with Milo, 52 B.C. Cf. Cicero, xxv. 1. ) dragged from the shops the benches and tables, piled them upon one another, and thus erected a huge pyre;