eir principal city. The Xanthians made the same brave resistance which
they had offered five hundred years before to the Persian invaders. They
burned their city and put themselves to death rather than submit. Brutus
wept over their fate and abstained from further exactions. But Cassius
showed less moderation; from the Rhodians alone, though they were allies
of Rome, he demanded all their precious metals. After this campaign of
plunder, the two chiefs met at Sardis and renewed the altercations which
Cicero had deplored in Italy. It is probable that war might have broken
out between them had not the preparations of the triumvirs waked them
from their dream of security. It was as he was passing over into Europe
that Brutus, who continued his studious habits amid all disquietudes,
and limited his time of sleep to a period too small for the requirements
of health, was dispirited by the vision which Shakespeare, after
Plutarch, has made famous. It was no doubt the result of a diseased
frame, though it was universally held to be a divine visitation. As he
sat in his tent in the dead of night, he thought a huge and shadowy form
stood by him; and when he calmly asked, "What and whence art thou?" it
answered, or seemed to answer: "I am thine evil genius, Brutus: we shall
meet again at Philippi."

Meantime Antony's lieutenants had crossed the Ionian Sea and penetrated
without opposition into Thrace. The republican leaders found them at
Philippi. The army of Brutus and Cassius amounted to at least eighty
thousand infantry, supported by twenty thousand horse; but they were
ill-supplied with experienced officers. For M. Valerius Messalla, a
young man of twenty-eight, held the chief command after Brutus and
Cassius; and Horace, who was but three-and-twenty, the son of a
freedman, and a youth of feeble constitution, was appointed a legionary
tribune. The forces opposed to them would have been at once overpowered
had not Antony himself opportunely arrived with the second corps of the
triumviral army. Octavian was detained by illness at Dyrrhachium, but he
ordered himself to be carried on a litter to join his legions. The army
of the triumvirs was now superior to the enemy; but their cavalry,
counting only thirteen thousand, was considerably weaker than the force
opposed to it. The republicans were strongly posted upon two hills, with
intrenchments between: the camp of Cassius upon the left next the sea,
that of Brutus inland on the righ