| GRECIANS AND ROMANS | |
| | |
| thinges as they brought. Nowe when the fire had gotten | MARCUS |
| into all the partes of the citie, and that the flame burnt | BRUTUS |
| bright in every place: Brutus beeing sorye to see it, gotte | |
| uppon his horse, and rode rownde about the walles of | |
| the citie, to see if it were possible to save it, and helde uppe his | |
| handes to the inhabitants, praying them to pardon their | |
| citye, and to save them selves. Howbeit they woulde not | |
| be perswaded, but did all that they coulde possible to cast | |
| them selves away, not onely men and women, but also litle | |
| children. For some of them weeping and crying out, did | |
| cast them selves into the flre: others headlong throwing | |
| them selves downe from the walles, brake their neckes: | |
| others also made their neckes bare, to the naked swordes of | |
| their fathers, and undid their clothes, praying them to kill | |
| them with their owne handes. After the citye was burnt, they | |
| founde a woman hanged uppe by the necke, holding one of | |
| her children in her hande deade by her, hanged uppe also: | |
| and in the other hande a burning torche setting fire on her | |
| house. Some woulde have had Brutus to have seene her, | |
| but he woulde not see so horrible and tragicall a sight: but | |
| when he heard it, he fell a weeping, and caused a Herauld | |
| to make proclamation by sownd of trompet, that he woulde | |
| give a certaine summe of money, to every souldier that | |
| coulde save a Xanthian. So there were not (as it is reported) | |
| above fiftye of them saved, and yet they were saved against | |
| their willes. Thus the Xanthians having ended the revolu- | |
| tion of their fatall destinie, after a longe continuance of | |
| tyme: they did through their desperation, renue the memorie | |
| of the lamentable calamities of their Auncestors. Who in | |
| like manner, in the warres of the Persians, did burne their | |
| citie, and destroyed them selves. Therefore Brutus likewise | |
| beseeging the citie of the Patareians, perceyving that they | |
| stowtly resisted him: he was also affrayde of that, and could | |
| not well tell whether he should give assault to it, or not, | |
| least they woulde fall into the dispayre and desperation of | |
| the Xanthians. Howbeit having taken certaine of their | |
| women prisoners, he sent them backe agayne, without pay- | |
| ment of ransome. Nowe they that were the wives and | |
| Daughters of the noblest men of the citie, reporting unto | |
| 213 | |