Who is brutus in julius caesar

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Marcus Brutus

Brutus is a noble Roman, descended from the Brutus who liberated Rome from the tyrannical monarchy of the Tarquins. 

He is greatly honored for his lineage and personal nobility by the people of Rome, and Caesar is particularly shocked to find him among those stabbing him to death. A logician, he is able to talk himself into anything, including the murder of Caesar, while never noticing how his logic forever betrays him. He desperately attempts to keep the conspiracy honorable, neither requiring an oath nor murdering anyone other than Caesar. Believing that everyone will be swayed by good logical argument, he thinks that the people of Rome will approve of the nobility of their act. He offers the mob of plebeians a prose logic-chopping to explain his acts, and at first carries the day, but Antony’s open emotionalism quickly overturns this. He falls out with Cassius during the war over misunderstandings about money, but is reconciled to him. He still offers strong logical reasons for bad decisions that will in the end cost them the war. He loves and admires his wife, a being at least as stoical and honorable as he. He plays the part of the stoical Roman well: when Messala brings him news of Portia’s death, he does not let on that he is already aware of it, leaving the messenger to wonder at the strength of his response. He disapproves of his father-in-law Cato’s suicide, but resolves to do the same if need be to avoid being captured. He is fond of his servants and treats them well, and enjoys music. At first frightened by Caesar’s ghost, he takes heart again, but its second appearance to him, at the battle of Philippi, convinces him that his life is at an end. Needing assistance to end his own life, he has a very difficult time finding anyone willing to help him. None of his old friends will, only a soldier he barely knows. In death, he is admired as being the only one of the conspirators to have joined in the deed for an idealistic reason.

(Click the character infographic to download.)

One of the conspirators, Brutus is supposed to be Julius Caesar's BFF but he ends up stabbing his so-called pal in the back, literally and figuratively. Does this make Brutus a villain worthy of a Lemony Snicket novel? Not necessarily, but we'll let you decide.

Biggest Backstabber Ever or Roman Hero?

Brutus' decision to stab Caesar in the back isn't an easy one. He has to choose between his loyalty to the Roman Republic and his loyalty to his friend, who seems like he could be heading toward tyrant status. When Brutus hears how the commoners are treating Caesar like a rock star, he's worried for Rome:

BRUTUSWhat means this shouting? I do fear the peopleChoose Caesar for their king.CASSIUS                                                 Ay, do you fear it?Then must I think you would not have it so. BRUTUS

I would not, Cassius, yet I love him well.

Even though Brutus "love[s]" Caesar "well," he also fears that his friend will be crowned king, which goes against the ideals of the Roman Republic.

After killing his pal and washing his hands in his blood, Brutus defends his actions:

If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say that Brutus' love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved

Rome more.

OK, fine – we believe Brutus when he says it was hard for him to murder Caesar. But does his sense of patriotism really justify killing a friend and a major political leader? It turns out that this is one of the most important questions in the play, and there aren't any easy answers.

Great-Grandfather of Macbeth and Hamlet

When we first meet Brutus, it becomes clear that he's the play's most psychologically complex character. Check out his response when Cassius asks him what's bothering him:

Cassius,Be not deceived. If I have veiled my look,I turn the trouble of my countenanceMerely upon myself. Vexèd I amOf late with passions of some difference,Conceptions only proper to myself,Which give some soil, perhaps, to my behaviors.But let not therefore my good friends be grieved(Among which number, Cassius, be you one)Nor construe any further my neglect,Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,

Forgets the shows of love to other men.

When Brutus says he's been at "war" with himself, we know he's pretty torn up about something. Is he worried about Caesar's growing power and what he'll probably have to do to stop him from becoming king? Probably. The rest of play traces Brutus' inner turmoil, which is why a lot of literary critics see Brutus as the great-grandfather of two of Shakespeare's later protagonists: Hamlet (the moodiest teenager in literature) and the introspective Macbeth. This speech also says a lot about Brutus' character. When Cassius asks him why he's been so upset lately, Brutus' first priority is to apologize to his pal for being so moody and neglectful of their relationship. Obviously friendship is very important to Brutus.

The Noblest Roman of Them All?

There's a reason Antony calls Brutus the "noblest Roman" (meaning most honorable): he stands up for what he believes in, risks his life for Rome, and doesn't seem to be concerned with personal gain. Yet for all of Brutus' good qualities, his troubles stem from his decision to murder a man and his misjudgment about the consequences. Brutus' defining traits are still up for discussion: is he more naïve than noble, more callous than considerate? Brutus' honor convinces him that they shouldn't dispose of Antony when the other men want to, and his trust in Antony's honor leads him to believe Antony's funeral speech will not be an invitation to riot. (Sadly mistaken.)

His final words are most telling – he doesn't die just to avenge Caesar, but instead leaves a complicated legacy: "Caesar, now be still: I kill'd not thee with half so good a will." This incantation acknowledges the debt Brutus owes to Caesar, and it admits that Brutus sees some of his own failings too – leading him to embrace his own death. It's not that Brutus didn't willingly kill Caesar. He's as committed to his own death now as he was to Caesar's then. Brutus commits an act of self-sacrifice with no pride or self-pity. He's humble about what he's done (both good and bad) and quietly accepting of his own fate.

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Brutus emerges as the most complex character in Julius Caesar and is also the play’s tragic hero. In his soliloquies, the audience gains insight into the complexities of his motives. He is a powerful public figure, but he appears also as a husband, a master to his servants, a dignified military leader, and a loving friend. The conflicting value systems that battle with each other in the play as a whole are enacted on a microcosmic level in Brutus’s mind. Even after Brutus has committed the assassination with the other members of the conspiracy, questions remain as to whether, in light of his friendship with Caesar, the murder was a noble, decidedly selfless act or proof of a truly evil callousness, a gross indifference to the ties of friendship and a failure to be moved by the power of a truly great man.

Brutus’s rigid idealism is both his greatest virtue and his most deadly flaw. In the world of the play, where self-serving ambition seems to dominate all other motivations, Brutus lives up to Antony’s elegiac description of him as “the noblest of Romans.” However, his commitment to principle repeatedly leads him to make miscalculations: wanting to curtail violence, he ignores Cassius’s suggestion that the conspirators kill Antony as well as Caesar. In another moment of naïve idealism, he again ignores Cassius’s advice and allows Antony to speak a funeral oration over Caesar’s body. As a result, Brutus forfeits the authority of having the last word on the murder and thus allows Antony to incite the plebeians to riot against him and the other conspirators. Brutus later endangers his good relationship with Cassius by self-righteously condemning what he sees as dishonorable fund-raising tactics on Cassius’s part. In all of these episodes, Brutus acts out of a desire to limit the self-serving aspects of his actions; ironically, however, in each incident he dooms the very cause that he seeks to promote, thus serving no one at all.

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