There was one woman who had for Cæsar a passionate attachment which was returned by him with an ardent and lasting affection in which political ambition played no part. This was Servilia, the half-sister of Cato and the mother of Marcus Brutus. Unfortunately, this lady's regard for her powerful lover did not carry with it the confidence and the friendship of her brother and her son. Modern writers, notably Froude and Baring Gould, strive to eliminate everything of an unworthy nature from the mutual affection which is known to have existed between Servilia and Cæsar; but their argument is devoid of historical proof. Much as we may be inclined to eradicate from the character of the great Roman everything that is unpleasant, it will not do to ignore or explain away every tittle of evidence that has been handed down by the ancient authorities on this subject. It may have been but the unfounded surmise of the gossips that it was a billet-doux from his sister which caused Cato to demand of Cæsar, during an acrimonious Senatorial debate, that he make known the contents of a note the latter had just received; nevertheless, we have it on the authority of Plutarch that Cæsar believed Brutus to be his own son. In this the great Imperator may very easily have been mistaken; but as to the fact that he had reason to believe in the possibility of such a thing, surely the conclusions of modern writers should have less weight than the plain statements of the ancient historians, which are the sole and only source of any knowledge whatsoever that we may have on the subject. It is true that slanderers were even coarser-minded and less restrained among the Romans of those days than they are in our own time; and among them Cicero was as preëminently conscienceless as he was clever. Hence, it is not necessary for us to take seriously his pun on the name of Servilia's daughter, when, remarking on the low price at which Servilia obtained some lands from Cæsar, he says: "Between ourselves, Tertia [or, a third] was deducted," intimating that the mother profited by her daughter's dishonor.