Marcus Junius Brutus
Marcus Junius Brutus was a Roman politician, orator, and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the name Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, which was retained as his legal name. He is often referred to simply as Brutus.
Early in his political career, Brutus opposed Pompey, who was responsible for Brutus' father's death. He also was close to Caesar. However, Caesar's attempts to evade accountability in the law courts put him at greater odds with his opponents in the Roman elite and the senate. Brutus eventually came to oppose Caesar and sided with Pompey against Caesar's forces during the ensuing civil war. Pompey was defeated at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48, after which Brutus surrendered to Caesar, who granted him amnesty.
With Caesar's increasingly monarchical and autocratic behaviour after the civil war, several senators who later called themselves liberatores plotted to assassinate him. Brutus took a leading role in the assassination, which was carried out successfully on the Ides of March of 44 BC. In a settlement between the liberatores and the Caesarians, an amnesty was granted to the assassins while Caesar's acts were upheld for two years.
Popular unrest forced Brutus and his brother-in-law, fellow assassin Gaius Cassius Longinus, to leave Rome in April 44. After a complex political realignment, Octavian – Caesar's adopted son – made himself consul and, with his colleague, passed a law retroactively making Brutus and the other conspirators murderers. This led to a second civil war, in which Mark Antony and Octavian fought the liberatores led by Brutus and Cassius. The Caesarians decisively defeated the outnumbered armies of Brutus and Cassius at the two battles at Philippi in October 42. After the defeat, Brutus took his own life.
His name has become a synonym and byword for "betrayal" or "traitor" in most languages of Europe. His condemnation for betrayal of Caesar, his friend and benefactor, is perhaps rivalled only by the name of Judas Iscariot, with whom he is portrayed in Dante Alighieri's Inferno. He also has been praised in various narratives, both ancient and modern, as a virtuous and committed republican who fought – however futilely – for freedom and against tyranny.
Early life
Marcus Junius Brutus belonged to the illustrious plebeian gens Junia. Its semi-legendary founder was Lucius Junius Brutus, who played a pivotal role during the overthrow of Tarquinius Superbus, the last Roman king, and was afterward one of the two first consuls of the new Roman Republic in 509 BC, taking the opportunity also to have the people swear an oath never to have another king in Rome.Brutus was born late in 85 BC. His homonymous father was tribune of the plebs in 83 BC, but he was targeted by Sulla during his proscription. He later served as legate in the rebellion of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and was killed by Pompey in 77. He had married Servilia of the Servilii Caepiones who was the half-sister of Cato the Younger, and later Julius Caesar's mistress. Some ancient sources refer to the possibility of Caesar being Brutus's real father, despite Caesar being only fifteen years old when Brutus was born. Ancient historians were sceptical of this possibility, and the theory is largely rejected by modern scholars as chronologically improbable.
As a result of his father's proscription, Brutus could not start a political career. Around 59, this restriction was lifted by Brutus's posthumous adoption by one of his relatives, Quintus Servilius Caepio; he was therefore known officially as Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, though he hardly used his legal name. In 59, when Caesar was consul, Brutus also was implicated by Lucius Vettius in the Vettius affair as a member of a conspiracy plotting to assassinate Pompey in the forum. Vettius was detained for admitting possession of a weapon within the city, and quickly changed this story the next day, dropping Brutus's name from his accusations.
Brutus's first appearance in public life was as an assistant to Cato, when the latter was appointed by the senate acting at the bequest of Publius Clodius Pulcher, as governor of Cyprus in 58. According to Plutarch, Brutus was instrumental in assisting the administration of the province ; his role in administering the province, however, has "almost certainly been exaggerated".
''Triumvir monetalis''
In 54 BC, Brutus served as triumvir monetalis, one of the three men appointed annually for producing coins, even though only another colleague is known: Quintus Pompeius Rufus. Moneyers in Brutus's day frequently issued coins commemorating their ancestors; Pompeius Rufus thus put the portraits of his two grandfathers on his denarii. Brutus, like his colleague, designed a denarius with the portraits of his paternal ancestor Lucius Junius Brutus and maternal ancestor Gaius Servilius Ahala, both of whom were widely recognised in the late Republic as defenders of liberty. He also made a second type featuring Libertas, the goddess of liberty, and Lucius Brutus. These coins show Brutus's admiration for the tyrannicides of the early republic, already mentioned by Cicero as early as 59 BC. In addition, Brutus's denarii and their message against tyranny participated in the propaganda against Pompey and his ambitions to rule alone or become dictator.Cilicia
Brutus married Appius Claudius Pulcher's daughter Claudia, likely in 54 during Pulcher's consulship. He was elected as quaestor in 53. Brutus then travelled with his father-in-law to Cilicia, likely as proquaestor, during the latter's proconsulship in the next year. While in Cilicia, he spent some time as a money-lender, which was discovered two years later when Cicero was appointed proconsul between 51 and 50 BC. Brutus asked Cicero to help collect two debts which Brutus had made: one to Ariobarzanes, the king of Cappadocia, and one to the town of Salamis. Brutus's loan to Ariobarzanes was bundled with a loan also made by Pompey and both received some repayment on the debt.The loan to Salamis was more complex: officially, the loan was made by two of Brutus's friends, who requested repayment at 48 per cent per annum, which was far in excess of Cicero's previously imposed interest cap of 12 per cent. The loan dated back to 56, shortly after Brutus returned to Rome from Cyprus. Salamis had sent a delegation asking to borrow money, but under the lex Gabinia it was illegal for Romans to lend to provincials in the capital, but Brutus was able to find "friends" to loan this money on his behalf, which was approved under his influence in the senate. Because the lex Gabinia also invalidated such contracts, Brutus also had his contract – officially his friends' contract – confirmed by the senate. One of Brutus's friends in whose name the debt was officially issued, Marcus Scaptius, was in Cilicia during Cicero's proconsulship using force to coerce repayment, which Cicero stopped; Cicero, not seeking to endanger his friendship with Brutus, but also disappointed and angry at Brutus's mischaracterisation of the loan and the exorbitant interest rate attached, was persuaded by Scaptius to defer a decision on the loan to the next governor.
Opposition to Pompey
In 52, in the aftermath of the death of his uncle-in-law, Publius Clodius Pulcher, he wrote a pamphlet, De Dictatura Pompei, opposing demands for Pompey to be made dictator, writing "it is better to rule no one than to be another man's slave, for one can live honourably without power but to live as a slave is impossible". He was in this episode more radical than Cato the Younger, who supported Pompey's elevation as sole consul for 52, saying "any government at all is better than no government". Soon after Pompey was made sole consul, Pompey passed the lex Pompeia de vi, which targeted Titus Annius Milo, for which Cicero would write a speech pro Milone. Brutus also wrote for Milo, writing pro T Annio Milone, in which he connected Milo's killing of Clodius explicitly to the welfare of the state and possibly also criticising what he saw as Pompey's abuses of power. This speech or pamphlet was very well received and positively viewed by later teachers of rhetoric.In the late 50s, Brutus was elected as a pontifex, one of the public priests in charge of supervising the calendar and maintaining Rome's peaceful relationship with the gods. It is likely that Caesar supported his election. Caesar had previously invited Brutus, after his quaestorship, to join him as a legate in Gaul, but Brutus declined, instead going with Appius Pulcher to Cilicia, possibly out of loyalty thereto. During the 50s, Brutus also was involved in some major trials, working alongside famous advocates like Cicero and Quintus Hortensius. In 50, he – with Pompey and Hortensius – played a significant role in defending Brutus's father-in-law Appius Claudius from charges of treason and electoral malpractice.
In the political crisis running up to Caesar's Civil War in 49, Brutus's views are mostly unknown. While he did oppose Pompey until 52, Brutus may have simply taken a tactical silence. Cicero's letters also indicate that Brutus may have been courted by Caesar – who is said to have spoken about avenging the death of Brutus's father – in the run-up to the civil war.
Caesar's civil war
When Caesar's Civil War broke out in January 49 BC between Pompey and Caesar, Brutus faced a choice between one or the other. Pompey and his allies fled the city before Caesar's army arrived in March. Brutus decided to support his father's killer, Pompey; this choice may have had mostly to do with Brutus's closest allies – Appius Claudius, Cato, Cicero, etc. – also all joining Pompey. He did not, however, immediately join Pompey, instead travelling to Cilicia as legate for Publius Sestius before joining Pompey in winter 49 or spring 48.It is not known whether Brutus fought in the ensuing battles at Dyrrhachium and Pharsalus. Plutarch says that Caesar ordered his officers to take Brutus prisoner if he gave himself up voluntarily, but to leave him alone and do him no harm if he persisted in fighting against capture. After the massive Pompeian defeat at Pharsalus on 9 August 48, Brutus fled through marshland to Larissa, where he wrote to Caesar, who welcomed him graciously into his camp. Plutarch also implies that Brutus told Caesar of Pompey's withdrawal plans to Egypt, but this is unlikely, as Brutus was not present when Pompey's decision to go to Egypt was made.
While Caesar followed Pompey to Alexandria in 48–47, Brutus worked to effect a reconciliation between various Pompeians and Caesar. He arrived back in Rome in December 47. Caesar appointed Brutus as governor for Cisalpine Gaul while he left for Africa in pursuit of Cato and Metellus Scipio. After Cato's suicide following defeat at the battle of Thapsus on 6 April 46, Brutus was one of Cato's eulogisers writing a pamphlet entitled Cato in which he reflected positively both on Cato's life while highlighting Caesar's clementia.
After Caesar's last battle against the republican remnant in March 45, Brutus divorced his wife Claudia in June and promptly remarried his cousin Porcia, Cato's daughter, late in the same month. According to Cicero the marriage caused a semi-scandal as Brutus failed to state a valid reason for his divorce from Claudia other than he wished to marry Porcia. Brutus's reasons for marrying Porcia are unclear, he may have been in love or it could have been a politically motivated marriage to position Brutus as heir to Cato's supporters, although Brutus still had good relations with Caesar at this point. Porcia did not get along with Brutus’s mother, Servilia, and Cicero stated that both were very open in their resentment for each other.
Brutus also was promised the prestigious urban praetorship for 44 BC and possibly earmarked for the consulship in 41.