- Edition: Julius Caesar
Life of Antony
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2020.
Antonius' cruelty unto Cicero.
After this plot was agreed upon between them, the soldiers that were thereabouts would have his friendship and league betwixt them confirmed by marriage, and that Caesar should marry Claudia, the daughter of Fulvia, Antonius, wife. This marriage also being agreed upon, they condemned 300 of the chiefest citizens of Rome to be put to death by proscription And Antonius also commanded them to whom he had given commission to kill Cicero, that they should strike off his head and right hand, with the which he had written the invective orations (called Philippides) against Antonius. So when the murtherers brought him Cicero's head and hand cut off, he be held them a long time with great joy, and laughed heartily, and that oftentimes, for the great joy he felt. Then when he had taken his pleasure of the sight of them, he caused them to be set up in an open place, over the pulpit for orations (where, when he was alive, he had often spoken to the people), as if he had done the dead man hurt, and not blemished his own for tune, strewing himself (to his great shame and infamy) a cruel man, and unworthy the office and authority he bore.
Lucius Caesar's life saved by his sister.
His uncle Lucius Caesar also, as they sought for him to kill him and followed him hard, fled unto his sister. The murderers coming thither, forcing to break into her chamber, she stood at her chamber-door with her arms abroad, crying out still: "You shall not kill Lucius Caesar, before you first kill me, that bare your captain in my womb." By this means she saved her brother's life.