Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/337

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MARCUS BRUTUS. 329 brought that Caius, the brother of Antony, having passed over from Italy, was marching on directly to join the forces that Vatinius commanded m Dyrrhachium and Apollonia, Brutus resolved to anticipate him, and to seize them first, and in all haste moved forwards with those that he had about him. His march was very difficult, through rugged places and in a great snow, but so swift that he left those that were to bring his provisions for the moi-ning meal a great way behind. And now, being very near to Dyrrhachium, with fatigue and cold he fell into the distemper called Bulimia. This is a disease that seizes both men and cattle after much labor, and especially in a great snow ; whether it is caused by the natural heat, when the body is seized with cold, being forced all inwards, and consuming at once all the nourish- ment laid in, or whether the sharp and subtUe vapor which comes from the snow as it dissolves, cuts the body, as it were, and destroys the heat which issues through the pores ; for the sweatings seem to arise from the heat meeting with the cold, and being quenched by it on the surface of the body. But this I have in another place discussed more at large. Brutus growing very faint, and there being none in the whole army that had any thing for him to eat, his servants were forced to have recourse to the enemy, and, going as far as to the gates of the city, begged bi'ead of the sentinels that were upon duty. As soon as they heard of the condition of Brutus, they came themselves, and brought both meat and drink along with them ; in return for which, Brutu.s, when he took the city, showed the greatest kindness, not to them only, but to all the inhabi- tants, for their sakes. Caius Antonius, in the mean time, coming to Apollonia, summoned all the soldiers that were near that city to join him there ; but finding that they nevertheless went all to Brutus, and suspecting that even