22.5
As for himself, he had not as yet definitely decided, he said, either for war or for peace, but on one thing only was he determined, and that was not to be a slave;
22.6
and he was amazed, he said, that Cicero dreaded a civil war with all its perils, but was not afraid of a shameful and inglorious peace, and that, as a reward for driving Antony from the tyranny, he asked the privilege of making Octavius tyrant.
23.1
Thus, then, did Brutus express himself in his first letters to Cicero. But already one faction was forming about Octavius, and another about Antony, and the soldiers, as though for sale at auction, flocked to the highest bidder. Altogether despairing, therefore, of the state, Brutus determined to abandon Italy, and came by land through Lucania to Elea by the sea.
23.2
As Porcia was about to return thence to Rome, she tried to conceal her distress, but a certain painting betrayed her, in spite of her noble spirit hitherto.
23.3
Its subject was Greek, —Andromache bidding farewell to Hector; she was taking from his arms their little son, while her eyes were fixed upon her husband.
23.4
When Porcia saw this, the image of her own sorrow presented by it caused her to burst into tears, and she would visit it many times a day and weep before it.
23.5
And when Acilius, one of the friends of Brutus, recited the verses containing Andromache’s words to Hector, But, Hector, thou to me art father and honoured mother And brother; my tender husband, too, art thou,
