wounded hand, a request which his attendants heard with delight, as it seemed to indicate a resolve to live.  He again sent to inquire about his friends and expressed his regret at the rough weather which they seemed likely to have.  The birds were now beginning to twitter at the approach of dawn, and he fell into a short sleep.  The freedman now returned with news that the harbor was quiet.  When he found himself again alone, he stabbed himself with the sword, but the blow, dealt as it was by the wounded hand, was not fatal.  He fell fainting on the couch, knocking down a counting board which stood near, and groaning.  His son with others rushed into the chamber, and the physician, finding that the wound was not mortal, proceeded to bind it up.  Cato, recovering his consciousness, thrust the attendants aside, and tearing open the wound, expired.

If the end of Cato’s life was its noblest part it is still more true that the fame of Brutus rests on one memorable deed.  He was known, indeed, as a young man of promise, with whose education special pains had been taken, and who had a genuine love for letters and learning.  He was free, it would seem, from some of the vices of his age, but he had serious faults.  Indeed the one transaction of his earlier life with which we happen to be well acquainted is very little to his credit.  And this, again, is so characteristic of one side of Roman life that it should be told in some detail.

Brutus had married the daughter of a certain Appius Claudius, a kinsman of the notorious Clodius, and had accompanied his father-in-law to his province, Cilicia.  He took the opportunity of increasing his means by lending money to the provincials.  Lending money, it must be remembered, was not thought a discreditable occupation even for the very noblest.  To lend money upon interest was, indeed, the only way of making an investment, besides the buying of land, that was available to the Roman capitalist.  But Brutus was more than a money-lender, he was an usurer; that is, he sought to extract an extravagantly high rate of interest from his debtors.  And this greed brought him into collision with Cicero.

A certain Scaptius had been agent for Brutus in lending money to the town of Salamis in Cyprus.  Under the government of Claudius, Scaptius had had every thing his own way.  He had been appointed to a command in the town, had some cavalry at his disposal, and extorted from the inhabitants what terms he pleased, shutting up, it is told us, the Senate in their council-room till five of them perished of hunger.  Cicero heard of this monstrous deed as he was on his way to his province; he peremptorily refused the request of Scaptius for a renewal of his command, saying that he had resolved not to grant such posts to any person engaged in trading or money-lending.  Still, for Brutus’ sake—­and it was not for some time that it came out that Brutus was the principal—­he would take care that the money should be paid.