[-13-] These incidents persuaded him, especially as he had displayed hostility to Caesar from the start, to attack the leader, who had nevertheless shown himself later his benefactor.  He was also influenced by the fact that he was, as I stated, both nephew and son-in-law of Cato of Utica so-called.  And his wife Portia was the only woman, as they say, who had knowledge of the plot.  She encountered him in the midst of his meditation upon these very matters and enquired in what he was so absorbed.  When he made no answer, she suspected that she was distrusted on account of physical weakness, for fear she should reveal something even unwillingly under torture; hence she performed a noteworthy deed.  She secretly inflicted a deep wound in her thigh to test herself and see if she could endure painful treatment.  And when she found herself not overdistressed, she despised the wound, and came to him and said:  “You, my husband, though you trusted that my spirit would not utter a secret, nevertheless were distrustful of my body, and you acted in accordance with human reason.  But I have found that I can make even it keep silence.”  Having said this she disclosed her thigh and after making known the reason for what she had done, said:  “Tell me boldly now all that you are concealing, for to make me speak fire, lashes, and goads shall alike be powerless.  I was not born that kind of woman.  Therefore if you shall still distrust me, it is better for me to die than live.  If such be the case, let no one think me longer the daughter of Cato or your wife.”  Hearing this Brutus marveled; and he no longer hid anything from her but felt strengthened himself and related to her the whole story. [-14-] After this he obtained as an associate also Gaius Cassius, who had himself been preserved by Caesar and moreover honored with a praetorship; he was the husband of Brutus’s sister.  Next they proceeded to gather those who were of the same mind as themselves, and these proved to be not few in number.  There is no need of my giving a list of most of the names, for I might thus become wearisome, but I cannot omit Trebonius and Decimus Brutus, whom they also named Junius and Albinus.  For these joined in the plot against Caesar though they also had been greatly benefited by him,—­Decimus having been appointed consul for the second year and assigned to Hither Gaul.

[-15-] They came very near being detected by reason of the number of those concerned and by their delay.  Caesar, however, would not receive any information about such an undertaking and punished very severely those who brought any news of the kind.  Still, they stood in awe of him and put the matter off, fearing that although he had no guard they might be killed by the persons surrounding him at various times; and thus they ran the risk of being discovered and perishing.  Indeed, they would have suffered this fate, had they not been forced even against their will to hasten the plot.  A report went abroad, true or false