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34As for Brutus, he overcame in battle the combined army of the Lycians which met him near the border, and when it fled in a body into the camp, captured it without a blow; he won over the majority of the cities without a struggle, but Xanthus he besieged. 2Suddenly the inhabitants made a sortie, hurling fire upon his machines, and at the same time shooting their arrows and javelins, and he was brought into the greatest danger. Indeed, his forces would have been utterly destroyed had they not pushed their way through the very fire and unexpectedly attacked their assailants, who were light-armed. 3These they hurled back within the walls, and themselves rushing in along with them, they cast fire into some of the houses, striking terror into those who witnessed what was being done and giving those at a distance the impression that they had captured absolutely everything; thereupon the inhabitants of their own accord helped set fire to the rest, and most of them slew one another. 4Later Brutus came to Patara and invited the people to conclude an alliance; but they would not obey, for the slaves and the poorer portion of the free population, who had just received, the former their freedom and the latter remission of their debts, prevented their making terms. So at first he sent them the captive Xanthians, to whom many of them were related by marriage, in the hope that through these he might bring them around; 5but when they yielded none the more, in spite of his offering to each man his own kin as a free gift, he set up an auction block in a safe place under the very wall and bringing up the prominent Xanthians one at a time, auctioned them off, to see if by this means at least he could bring the people of Patara to terms. But when they would not even then come over to him, he sold only a few and let the rest go. 6And when the people inside saw this, they no longer held out, but forthwith attached themselves to his cause, regarding him as an upright man; and they were punished only by the imposition of a fine. The people of Myra also did likewise when Brutus captured their general at the harbour and then released him. And thus he secured the control of the other districts also in a short time.
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