Tub Reading: From “The Life of Brutus” in Makers of Rome by Plutarch

The conspirators had already barricaded themselves in and were able to fend off the danger, but there was a man named Cinna, a poet, who had no connexion with the crime, and was actually a friend of Caesar’s. He dreamed that he had been invited by Caesar to supper and had declined, but that Caesar had pressed him to come, and had finally taken him by the hand and led him to a vast and gloomy place, into which he had followed his host reluctantly and with a feeling of horror. After the vision had left him, he found himself attacked by a fever which lasted all night. However, when morning came and Caesar’s body was being carried out to his funeral, he felt ashamed not to be present and went out to join the crowd, who were by now in a savage mood. There he was seen, and since the crowd did not know who he was, but mistook him for the Cinna who had recently denounced Caesar in his speech, they tore him to pieces.