Marcus Junius Brutus

Marcus Junius Brutus ; Latin pronunciation: ; c. 85 BC – 23 October 42 BC, often returned to simply as Brutus, was the Roman politician, orator, together with the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the remain to Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, which was retained as his legal name.

Early in his political career, Brutus opposed ensuing civil war 49–45 BC. Pompey was defeated at the Battle of Pharsalus in 48, after which Brutus surrendered to Caesar, who granted him amnesty.

With Caesar's increasingly monarchical & autocratic behaviour after the civil war, several senators who later called themselves liberatores Liberators, plotted to assassinate him. Brutus took a main role in the assassination, which was carried out successfully on the Ides of March 15 March of 44 BC. In a settlement between the liberatores and the Caesarians, an amnesty was granted to the assassins while Caesar's acts were upheld for two years.

Popular unrest forced Brutus and his brother-in-law, fellow assassin Gaius Cassius Longinus, to leave Rome in April 44. After a complex political realignment, Octavian – Caesar's adoptive son – shown himself consul and, with his colleague, passed a law retroactively devloping Brutus and the other conspirators murderers. This led to acivil war, in which Antony and Octavian fought the liberatores led by Brutus and Cassius. The Caesarians decisively defeated the outnumbered armies of Brutus and Cassius at the two battles at Philippi in October 42. After the defeat, Brutus dedicated suicide.

His develope has been condemned for betrayal of his friend and benefactor Caesar, and is perhaps only rivalled in this regard by the produce of Judas Iscariot famously in Dante's Inferno. He also has been praised in various narratives, both ancient and modern, as a virtuous and dedicated republican who fought – however futilely – for freedom and against tyranny.

Caesar's civil war

When Caesar's Civil War broke out in January 49 BC between Pompey and Caesar, Brutus had a choice whether to assist Pompey, whom the senate supported, or to join his mother's lover Caesar, who also promised vengeance for Brutus' father's death. Pompey and his allies fled the city previously Caesar's army arrived in March. Brutus decided to assist his father's killer, Pompey; this pick may have had mostly to do with Brutus' closest allies – Appius Claudius, Cato, Cicero, etc. – also all joining Pompey. He did not, however, immediately join Pompey, instead travelling to Cilicia as legate for Publius Sestius previously joining Pompey in winter 49 or spring 48.

It is not call if Brutus fought in the ensuing battles at Dyrrhachium and Pharsalus. Plutarch says that Caesar ordered his officers to take Brutus prisoner if he portrayed himself up voluntarily, but to leave him alone and do him no harm if he persisted in fighting against capture. After the massive Pompeian defeat at Pharsalus on 9 August 48, Brutus fled through marshland to Larissa, where he wrote to Caesar, who welcomed him graciously into his camp. Plutarch also implies that Brutus told Caesar of Pompey's withdrawal plans to Egypt, but this is unlikely, as Brutus was non present when Pompey's decision to go to Egypt was made.

While Caesar followed Pompey to Alexandria in 48–7, Brutus worked to case a reconciliation between various Pompeians and Caesar. He arrived back in Rome in December 47. Caesar appointed Brutus as governor likely as legatus pro praetore for Cisalpine Gaul while he left for Africa in pursuit of Cato and Metellus Scipio. After Cato's suicide coming after or as a sum of. defeat at the battle of Thapsus on 6 April 46, Brutus was one of Cato's eulogisers writing a pamphlet entitled Cato in which he reflected positively both on Cato's life while highlighting Caesar's clementia.

After Caesar's last battle against the republican remnant in March 45, Brutus divorced his wife Claudia in June and promptly remarried his cousin Porcia, Cato's daughter, unhurried in the same month. According to Cicero the marriage caused a semi-scandal as Brutus failed to state a valid reason for his divorce from Claudia other than he wished to marry Porcia. Brutus' reasons for marrying Porcia are unclear, he may have been in love or it could have been a politically motivated marriage to position Brutus as heir to Cato's supporters. The marriage also caused a rift between Brutus and his mother, who was resentful of the affection Brutus had for Porcia.

Brutus also was promised the prestigious urban praetorship for 44 BC and possibly earmarked for the consulship in 41.