Now when they were at Smyrna, Brutus desired of
Cassius that he might have part of the great treasure
that he had heaped up, hecause all his own was expended
in furnishing out such a fleet of ships as was sufficient to
keep the whole interior sea[1] in their power. But Cas-
sius's friends dissuaded him from this ; " for," said they,
" it is not just that the money which you with so much
parsimony keep and with so much envy have got, should
be given to him to be disposed of in making hiniself popular, and gainmg the favor of the soldiers." Notwithstanding this, Cassius gave him a third part of all that
he had ; and then they parted each to their several commands. Cassius, having taken Rhodes, behaved himself
there with no clemency ; though at his first entry, when
some had called him lord and king, he answered, that he
was neither king nor lord, but the destroyer and punisher
of a king and lord. Brutus, on the other part, sent to the
Lycians to demand from them a supply of money and
men ; but Naucrates, their popular leader, persuaded the
cities to resist, and they occupied several little mountains and hills, with a design to hinder Brutus's passage.
Brutus at first sent out a party of horse, which, surprising
them as they were eating, killed six hundred of them ;
and afterwards, having taken all their small towns and
villages round about, he set all his prisoners free without
ransom, hoping to win the whole nation by good-will.
But they continued obstinate, taking in anger what
they had suffered, and despising his goodness and human-
ity J until, having forced the most warlike of them into
the city of Xanthus, he besieged them there. They
endeavored to make their escape by swimming and div-
ing through the river that flows by the town, but weie
taken by nets let down for that pvirpose in the channel,
- ↑ The interior sea is the Mediterranean, for which, as a whole, the Greeks and Romans had no distinguishing name.
