Kitap 4
17.134
Against all these virtues and merits must be set down the crime against Caesar, which was not an ordinary or a small one, for it was committed unexpectedly against a friend, ungratefully against a benefactor who had spared them in war, and nefariously against the head of the state, in the senate-house, against a pontiff clothed in his sacred vestments, against a ruler without an equal, who was most useful above all other men to Rome and its empire. For these reasons Heaven was incensed against them and often forewarned them of their doom. When Cassius was performing a lustration for his army his lictor presented his garland wrong side up. A gilded statue of Victory dedicated to Cassius fell down. Many birds hovered over his camp, but uttered no sound,Dion Cassius (xlvii. 40) favors us with a long chapter, full of prodigies bearing upon the battles of Philippi. The prodigy of the birds is thus described: But that which especially indicated to Brutus and Cassius their ruin, so that it was plain to their adversaries, was the great number of vultures and other carrion-eating birds that soared above them only, and looked down at them screaming and squeaking in a fearful and awe-inspiring way. Florus (iv. 7) mentions the same phenomenon: Birds accustomed to feed on dead bodies flew around the camp as though it were already their own. and swarms of bees continually settled upon it. While Brutus was celebrating his birthday at Samos it is said that in the midst of the feast, although not a ready man with such quotations, he shouted out this verse without any apparent cause: — A cruel fate O’ertakes me, aided by Latona’s son.ἀλλά με μοἶρ’ ὀλοὴ καὶ Λητοῦς ἔκτανεν υἱός: the dying words of Patroclus.
17.134
Iliad, xvi. 849. Bryant’s translation.
