Even in his time, Julius Caesar was in many ways larger than life, and because of his legacy as virtual founder of the Roman Empire, much of what was written about and by him during his life and immediately after his assassination was politically motivated. The fact that he was murdered on the Ides of March is universal knowledge, as is the name of his most famous assassin. Marcus Brutus has been history’s most notorious assassin since the Ides of March in 44 B.C., but aside from his conspiracy, the rest of his life is often overlooked, especially his role in the subsequent civil war. In fact, forces loyal to Brutus and the other main conspirator, Cassius, fought one of the biggest battles in Roman history against Octavian and Mark Antony at Philippi, and it was one that they very nearly won. However, by the end of the decisive battle, Brutus and Cassius had lost, and both had taken their own lives. After Octavian rose to power by defeating Antony in yet another civil war, he was able to establish himself as Augustus, and the Republic that Caesar’s assassins had hoped to save was truly finished.
Naturally, Augustus’s victories ensured that Brutus was mostly despised during his reign, and Brutus’ negative reputation persevered over the centuries, but in more modern times, Brutus has undergone something of a rehabilitation. As Western political thought shifted away from the Divine Right of Kings and towards democracy, Brutus began to be viewed in a far more sympathetic light. In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar itself, Brutus is praised as the best of the conspirators because his motives were described not as being for personal gain but a genuine desire to act for the good of the Republic, however misguided. Later, he became viewed as something of a populist hero, the man who had stood up in defense of a democratic government against a tyrant who wished to seize power for himself alone.
