Shakespeare makes short work of chronology by putting this allusion into the mouth of Titus Lartius:
Thou wast a soldier
Even to Cato’s[253] wish, not fierce and terrible
Only in strokes; but, with thy grim looks, and
The thunder-like percussion of thy sounds,
Thou madest thine enemies shake, as if the world
Were feverous and did tremble.
(i. iv. 56.)
Occasionally even mistakes in North’s text or marginal notes, or in Shakespeare’s interpretation or recollection of what he had read, have passed into the play. Thus it has been shown[254] that North, owing to a small typographical error in the French, misunderstood the scope of Cominius’ offer to Marcius. Amyot says:
“Et en fin lui dit, que de tous les cheveaux prisonniers, et autres biens qui avoient esté pris et gaignés en grande quantité, il en choisist dix de chaque sorte à sa volonté, avant que rien en fust distribué, ni desparti aux autres.”