BRUTUS, MARCUS JUNIUS

born 85 BC died 42, near Philippi, Macedonia [now in Greece] also called Quintus Caepio Brutus a leader of the conspirators who assassinated the Roman dictator Julius Caesar in March 44 BC. The son of Marcus Junius Brutus (d. 77), he acquired the alternative name Quintus Caepio through adoption by his uncle, Quintus Servilius Caepio. Brutus joined Pompey's army on the outbreak of the Civil War between Pompey and Caesar in 49. He was pardoned by Caesar after Pompey's death the next year, and Caesar appointed him governor of Cisalpine Gaul in 46 and city praetor in 44. Nevertheless, Brutus resented Caesar's autocratic rule and longed for the restoration of republican government. Hence he joined Gaius Cassius Longinus' plot to murder Caesar. Brutus' prestige attracted several dozen other senators to the cause. Five months after the assassination, Brutus and Cassius were forced by the Caesarian commander Mark Antony to leave Rome for Macedonia, where they raised an army against him. In February 43 the Senate granted them supreme command in the East. Brutus defeated the Caesarians under Octavian (later the emperor Augustus) in the first engagement of the Battle of Philippi, but his army was crushed by Antony and Octavian in a second encounter three weeks later (Oct. 23, 42). Recognizing that the republican cause was lost, he committed suicide. Although Brutus was admired by his contemporaries for his dignity and idealism, he was extortionate and cruel in his financial dealings with provincials. William Shakespeare's portrayal of Brutus in the play Julius Caesar is flattering. A Stoic, Brutus wrote a number of philosophical treatises and other literary works, none of which has survived. Only two of the nine books of his correspondence with the famed orator Cicero are extant.