WS ABC Part 13: Brutus - The Noblest Roman of them All?

WAS BRUTUS, AS MARK ANTHONY DESCRIBED HIM, "THE NOBLEST ROMAN OF THEM ALL?" or was he the greatest back-stabber who ever strolled across the Forum in Ancient Rome?

In many ways, Brutus, who full name was Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger, was similar in a way to Hamlet. Like the Danish prince, Brutus is an anti-hero, an idealist, an intellectual and a man racked by self-doubt. He is the foil for his brother-in-law Cassius, his restless, pragmatic and passionate friend who has to work on him to persuade him that to assassinate (word first used by WS in 'Macbeth') Caesar is morally right. Cassius succeeds in convincing Brutus that this dirty deed must be carried out for the benefit of Rome, and in the end Brutus agrees saying, "Let's carve him for a dish fit for the gods."  

However, Brutus is somewhat politically naive and soon after the assassination he makes his first big mistake. He allows Mark Antony to give what has become the most famous funeral oration in history beginning, "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears..." This speech acts as a trigger for the ensuing chaos that breaks out in Rome, eventually leading to the critical battle pf Philippi. Here Cassius kills himself after being defeated and Brutus after being haunted by the ghost of Caesar also commits suicide. It is at this point during the penultimate speech of the play that Antony describes Brutus as "the noblest Roman of them all."

    A classic painting depicting the assassination of Julius Caesar

But was he? For although he has to think hard about joining the conspiracy to kill Caesar, i.e. choosing between his loyalty to his friend Caesar or to his loyalty to the Roman Republic, in the end he comes down on the side of political assassination. Is he right? For it is Brutus's unbending idealism that is both his greatest virtue and his most fatal flaw. If Shakespeare had inserted a "To be or not to be..." type speech here at this point it would have been very relevant. 

James Mason as Brutus in the 1953 version of "Julius Caesar."

In other words, should Brutus' sense of patriotism overcome and justify the killing of a friend? This is a major question in the play and maybe, because Shakespeare was so against civil chaos Julius Caesar follows the true history of what really happened in 44 BCE and so he has Brutus die as well. (Remember, as shown in Henry V and Henry IV and elsewhere, our William didn't always stick to the historical truth!)

And as for the real Brutus of Ancient Rome, his father was killed by Caesar's early rival, Pompey, and Brutus' early political career started when he became an assistant to Cato, the governor of Cyprus. Brutus' first wife was called Claudia Pulchra but he divorced her to marry Cato's daughter, Porcia Catonis. Porcia was the only woman who knew anything about the plot to get rid of Caesar.

As for the assassination itself, Plutarch,  the Greek historian who probably supplied WS with much of his source material. states that Caesar, after seeing that Brutus was one of the conspirators, covered his face with his toga and resigned himself to being murdered. 

Plutarch also says that the conspirators were so numerous and so violent that they even stabbed each other and that Brutus was wounded in his hand and legs. Brutus was 43 years old when he ended his life after the battle of Philippi.

Next time I want to deal with Sir Toby Belch from "Twelfth Night."
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