Marcus Junius Brutus

Marcus Junius Brutus (85 BC – 42 BC), or Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, was a Roman senator of the late Roman Republic. He is best known in modern times for taking a leading role in the assassination conspiracy against the dictator Julius Caesar.

Life

Brutus was the son of Marcus Iunius Brutus, a legate to Pompey the Great, and Servilia Caepionis, the half-sister of Cato the Younger and mistress of Julius Caesar. Some sources refer to the possibility of Caesar being his real father , but this is unlikely since Caesar was fifteen years old at the time of Brutus' birth and the affair with his mother started some ten years later. Brutus' uncle Quintus Servilius Caepio adopted him when he was a young man and Brutus was known as Q. Servilius Caepio Brutus for an unknown period of time.

Brutus held his uncle Cato in high regard and his political career started when he became an assistant to Cato, during his governorship of Cyprus . During this time, he enriched himself by lending money at high rates of interest. He returned to Rome a rich man, where he married a woman named Claudia Pulchra . From his first appearance in the Senate, Brutus aligned with the Optimates (the conservative faction) against the First Triumvirate of Marcus Licinius Crassus, Pompey, and Caesar. He had every reason to hate Pompey, who had had his father murdered in 77 BC, during the proscriptions by Sulla.

When civil war broke out in 49 BC between Pompey and Caesar, Brutus followed his old enemy and present leader of the Optimates, Pompey. When the Battle of Pharsalus began, Caesar ordered his officers not to kill Brutus in battle but to spare him and take him prisoner if he gave himself up voluntarily, and if he persisted in fighting against capture, to let him alone and do him no violence . After the disaster of the battle of Pharsalus, Brutus wrote to Caesar with apologies and Caesar immediately forgave him. Caesar accepted him into his inner circle and made him governor of Gaul when he left for Africa in pursuit of Cato and Metellus Scipio. In 45 BC, Caesar nominated him to be a praetor. Also, in June 45 BC, Brutus divorced his wife Claudia and re-married to his first cousin, Porcia Catonis, the quiet young daughter of Cato.

Around this time many of the Roman senators began to fear Caesar's growing power in the senate following his appointment as dictator for life . Even Caesar's friends began to turn against him and Brutus was one of them. However, Brutus was pressured into joining the conspiracy against Caesar by the other senators and he also discovered messages written on the busts of his ancestors . Brutus agreed, influenced by the fact that he was Cato's nephew and Porcia's husband, he finally decided to attack Caesar in 44 BC . His wife Porcia was the only woman privy to the plot.

In 44 BC, on the Ides of March, the conspirators planned to carry out the plot. Caesar delayed because his wife tried to convince him not to go to the senate because of a dream of ill omens and the conspirators feared the plot had been found out . Yet Brutus still remained waiting for him at the senate and allegedly still chose to remain even when a messenger brought him news that Porcia was taken ill . When Caesar finally did come to the Senate, they attacked him. Publius Servilius Casca was allegedly the first to attack Caesar with a blow to the shoulder and Caesar managed to block the hand . However, upon seeing Brutus was with the conspirators, he covered his face with the toga and resigned himself to the dagger-strokes . The conspirators attacked in such numbers that they even wounded one another. Brutus is said to have been wounded in the hand .

Aftermath

After the assassination of Julius Caesar, Marcus Brutus was approached with a compromise. If Julius Caesar was declared a tyrant, then all of Caesars' appointments to the senate were null and void. This meant that Brutus would no longer be a senator and elections would have to be held. Conversely, if he agreed to recognize and honor Caesar's will, he and the other assassins would be granted amnesty and retain their positions. Brutus accepted the offer and Julius Caesar was not declared a tyrant. Part of the offer was that Brutus had to leave Rome, which he did. After leaving Rome, Brutus lived in Crete from 44 to 42 BC.

In 42 BC, after Octavian received his consulship from the Roman Senate, one of his first actions was to have the people that had assassinated Julius Caesar declared murderers and enemies of the state. This marked Brutus as a murderer of Julius Caesar . Marcus Tullius Cicero, angry at the actions of Octavian, wrote a letter to Brutus explaining that the forces of Octavian and Antony were divided. Antony had laid siege to the province of Gaul, where he wanted a governorship. In response to this siege, Octavian rallied his troops and fought a series of battles in which Antony was defeated . Upon hearing that neither Antony nor Octavian had an army big enough to defend Rome, Brutus rallied his troops, which totaled about seventeen legions. When Octavian heard that Brutus was on his way to Rome, he made peace with Antony.[2] Together their armies, which totaled about nineteen legions marched to meet Brutus and Cassius. The following battles are known as the Battle of Philippi. The first battle, known as the First Battle of Philippi was fought on October 3, 42 BC, in which Brutus managed to defeat Octavian's forces although Cassius was defeated by Antony's forces. The Second Battle of Philippi was fought on October 23, 42 BC.

After the Second Battle of Philippi, in which Brutus was defeated, he fled into the near by hills with only about 4 legions. Knowing his army had been defeated and that he would be captured, Brutus committed suicide. His last words were allegedly "Yes, we must escape, but this time with our hands, not our feet" . As a show of respect, Mark Antony covered the body of Brutus with a purple garment or mantle. The body of Brutus was cremated, and his ashes were sent to his mother, Servilia Caepionis . His wife Porcia also committed suicide upon hearing of her husband's death . This is counter to the popular notion provided in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, which says Porcia Catonis committed suicide prior to Brutus' death. A debatable account from Nicolaus of Damascus supports this notion.

Chronology

• 85 BC – Brutus was born in Rome
• 58 BC – Assistant to Cato, governor of Cyprus
• 53 BC – Quaestorship in Cilicia
• 49 BC – Follows Pompey to Greece, during the civil war against Caesar
• 48 BC – Pardoned by Caesar
• 46 BC – Governor of Gaul
• 45 BC – Praetor
• 44 BC – Murders Caesar with other senators; goes to Athens
• 42 BC – Death
  • October 3 - First Battle of Philippi – Defeated Octavian, but Antony defeated Cassius, who committed suicide
  • October 23 - Second Battle of Philippi – His army was decisively defeated; Brutus escaped, but committed suicide soon after.

Brutus in popular culture

Influence

• The phrase Sic semper tyrannis! ("Thus always to tyrants!") is attributed to Brutus at Caesar's assassination. John Wilkes Booth is alleged to have shouted the phrase while leaping to the stage of Ford's Theater after assassinating Abraham Lincoln. The phrase is also the official motto of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
• John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, was inspired by Brutus. Booth's father Junius Brutus Booth was named for Brutus, and Booth (as Mark Antony) and his brother (as Brutus) had performed in a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in New York just six months before the assassination. Lamenting the negative reaction to his deed, Booth wrote in his journal on April 21, 1865, while on the run, "[W]ith every man's hand against me, I am here in despair. And why; For doing what Brutus was honored for ... And yet I for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew am looked upon as a common cutthroat."
• The well known phrase "Et tu, Brute?", meaning "You too, Brutus?" was said to be Caesar's last utterance. Most historians find this unlikely, however.

Fiction

• Dante considered Brutus to be the epitome of shameful betrayal, and in his Inferno section of the Divine Comedy (Inferno, XXXIV, 64-67), portrayed Brutus being chewed, but never consumed, by Satan, along with Judas Iscariot and Gaius Cassius Longinus at the very lowest level of Hell.
• Shakespeare has Mark Antony describe Brutus as "the noblest Roman of them all" in the final scene of Julius Caesar. In modern productions of this play he is commonly portrayed as honorably motivated and his action tyrannicide rather than murder.
• In the Masters of Rome novels of Colleen McCullough, Brutus is portrayed as a timid intellectual poseur who hates Caesar for personal reasons. Cassius and Trebonius use him as a figurehead because of his family connections. He appears in Fortune's Favourites, Caesar's Women, Caesar and The October Horse.
• A highly fictionalized Brutus is one of the prominent characters in the Emperor series by Conn Iggulden.
• Ides of March is an epistolatory novel by Thornton Wilder dealing with characters and events leading to, and culminating in, the assassination of Julius Caesar.
• In a parody of the Shakespeare play featured in Simpsons Comics, Brutus is portrayed by Waylon Smithers (as Caesar is portrayed by Mr. Burns). At one point, the conspirator played by Homer mistakenly addresses him as Bluto, in reference to the naming confusion of Popeye's nemesis.

Drama

• In Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, actors such as James Mason, Jason Robards and Richard Pasco have played the role of Marcus Brutus in television productions and films.
• In Julius Caesar he is portrayed by Ian Duncan.
• A fictionalised Marcus Junius Brutus appears in the 2005 television series Rome, played by Tobias Menzies.
• Marcus Brutus also appears in the highly fictionalised 2005 six-part mini series Empire played by James Frain.

Brutus family tree
Salonia (2) Cato the Elder Licinia (1) Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus Marcus Porcius Cato Licinianus Marcus Livius Drusus Marcus Porcius Cato (2) Livia Quintus Servilius Caepio (1) Marcus Livius Drusus Atilia (1) Cato the Younger Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus, adopted son Marcus Junius Brutus (1) Servilia Decimus Junius Silanus (2) Servilia Gnaeus Servilius Caepio Marcus Porcius Cato Porcia Marcus Junius Brutus† Junia Prima Junia Tertia Gaius Cassius Longinus x Junia Secunda Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (triumvir) Descendant of Pompey and Sulla son Manius Aemilius Lepidus Aemilia Lepida II
(1): 1st spouse (2): 2nd spouse †: assassin of Caesar
Notes:

External links

Information on Marcus Junius Brutus from www.Greektext.com

Media related to Marcus Junius Brutus at Wikimedia Commons