[Footnote 92: Plutarch is read for his matter, rather than for his style. In style as well as for the time in which he lived, he does not belong to the classical writers of Greece. For this reason he may be read in English almost as satisfactorily as in his own language. He is described by Mahaffy as a pure and elevating writer, full of precious information and lofty in his moral tone.] [Footnote 93: From "The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Compared together by that Grave, Learned Philosopher and Historiographer Plutarch of Chaeronea." Translated by Sir Thomas North. North was born about 1535, his translation being first published in 1579. Written throughout in the best prose of the Elizabethan period, North's version will always have another and very special interest as the store house from which Shakespeare obtained his knowledge of antiquity. It has been asserted that to this book we really owe the existence of "Julius Caesar," "Coriolanus," and "Antony and Cleopatra." In "Coriolanus" whole speeches have been taken bodily from North, while in "Antony and Cleopatra" North's diction has been closely followed. North did not translate from the original Greek, but from an old French version by James Amyot, Bishop of Auxerre in the times of Henry II of England. The selections here given are printed with the original punctuation, etc., preserved as specimens of the style of the period.] [Footnote 94: This and the province of Cilicia lay in the eastern part of Asia Minor.] [Footnote 95: Antipater was a general of Macedonia under Philip and Alexander the Great and became Regent in 334.] II THE ASSASSINATION OF CAESAR[96] (44 B.C.) But Brutus in many other things tasted of the benefit of Caesar's favor in anything he requested.[97] For if he had listed, he might have been one of Caesar's chiefest friends, and of greater authority and credit about him. Howbeit Cassius' friends did dissuade him from it[98] (for Cassius and he were not yet reconciled together sithence their first contention and strife for the Praetorship), and prayed him to beware of Caesar's sweet enticements, and to fly his tyrannical favors: the which they said Caesar gave him, not to honor his virtue, but to weaken his constant mind, framing it to the bent of his bow. Now Caesar on the other side did not trust him overmuch, nor was not without tales brought unto him against him: howbeit he feared his great mind, authority, and friends. Yet on the other side also, he trusted his good-nature, and fair conditions. For, intelligence being brought him one day, that Mark Antony and Dolabella did conspire against him: he answered, That these fat long-haired men made him not afraid, but the lean and whitely-faced fellows, meaning that, by Brutus and Cassius.