feebleness of the warmth which penetrated it, and the fruits withered and fell off when they were half ripened and imperfect on account of the coldness of the atmosphere.  But chief of all, the phantom that appeared to Brutus showed that Caesar’s murder was not pleasing to the gods; and it was after this manner.  When Brutus was going to take his army over from Abydus[620] to the other continent, he was lying down by night, as his wont was, in his tent, not asleep, but thinking about the future; for it is said that Brutus of all generals was least given to sleep, and had naturally the power of keeping awake longer than any other person.  Thinking that he heard a noise near the door, he looked towards the light of the lamp which was already sinking down, and saw a frightful vision of a man of unusual size and savage countenance.  At first he was startled, but observing that the figure neither moved nor spoke, but was standing silent by the bed, he asked him who he was.  The phantom replied, “Thy bad daemon, Brutus; and thou shalt see me at Philippi.”  Upon which Brutus boldly replied, “I shall see;” and the daemon immediately disappeared.  In course of time having engaged with Antonius and Caesar at Philippi, in the first battle he was victorious, and after routing that part of the army which was opposed to him he followed up his success and plundered Caesar’s camp.  As he was preparing to fight the second battle, the same phantom appeared again by night, without speaking to him, but Brutus, who perceived what his fate was, threw himself headlong into the midst of the danger.  However he did not fall in the battle, but when the rout took place, he fled to a precipitous spot, and throwing himself with his breast on his bare sword, a friend also, as it is said, giving strength to the blow, he died.[621] FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 435:  It has been remarked by Niebuhr (Lectures on the History of Rome, ii. 33) that the beginning of the Life of Caesar is lost.  He says, “Plutarch could not have passed over the ancestors, the father, and the whole family, together with the history of Caesar’s youth, &c.”  But the reasons for this opinion are not conclusive.  The same reason would make us consider other lives imperfect, which are also deficient in such matters.  Plutarch, after his fashion, gives incidental information about Caesar’s youth and his family.  I conceive that he purposely avoided a formal beginning; and according to his plan of biography, he was right.  Niebuhr also observes that the beginning of the Life of Caesar in Suetonius is imperfect; “a fact well known, but it is only since the year 1812, that we know that the part which is wanting contained a dedication to the praefectus praetorio of the time, a fact which has not yet found its way into any history of Roman Literature.”  It is an old opinion that the Life of Caesar in Suetonius is imperfect.  The fact that the dedication alone is wanting, for so Niebuhr appears to mean, shows that the Life is not incomplete, and there is no reason for thinking that it is.