Marcus Junius Brutus

Marcus Junius Brutus was born in 85 BC into an aristocratic plebeian family that traced its lineage to Lucius Junius Brutus, the legendary founder who expelled the Etruscan kings and established the Roman Republic in 509 BC. Educated in Stoic and Platonic philosophy in Athens, Brutus was widely respected across Rome for his philosophical integrity, eloquence, and personal sobriety.

Despite having opposed Julius Caesar during the Roman Civil War, Brutus was pardoned by Caesar, appointed governor of Cisalpine Gaul, and named urban praetor. However, as Caesar assumed the title of perpetual dictator (dictator perpetuo), Brutus was convinced by Gaius Cassius Longinus that Caesar was destroying the ancestral liberties of the Republic. On the Ides of March (March 15), 44 BC, Brutus and the 'Liberatores' assassinated Caesar in the Theatre of Pompey, inspiring Shakespeare’s tragic dramatization and the immortal line, 'Et tu, Brute?'.

Forced into exile in the east as Mark Antony and Octavian seized power, Brutus and Cassius assembled an army to restore the Republic. At the Battle of Philippi in Macedonia, following the defeat of his legions, Brutus chose suicide by falling upon his sword on October 23, 42 BC. Mark Antony famously wrapped Brutus’s body in his own purple cloak, calling him 'the noblest Roman of them all.'