Decimus Junius Brutus

“ Therefore, those men who are both the most certain and at the same time the most energetic defenders of the acts of Caesar, are waging war for the safety of Decimus Brutus; and they are followed by the veterans. For they see that they must fight to the uttermost for the freedom of the Roman people, not for their own advantages. What reason, then, is there why the army of Marcus Brutus should be an object of suspicion to those men who with the whole of their energies desire the preservation of Decimus Brutus? ”

“ CICERO TO ATTICUS, GREETING.
Tusculum, June 5 or 6, B.C. 44 What an affectionate letter from Brutus! And what hard luck that you cannot go to him! But what am I to say? That they should accept the other party's favours? That were the depth of shame. That they should try some new move? They dare not, and now they cannot. Well, suppose I advise them to keep quiet and they do, who can guarantee their safety? Indeed, if anything unpleasant happens to Decimus, what sort of life shall we lead, even if no one molests us? It is a sad disgrace not to preside at the games. ”

“ But as long as the consulship was not open to the plebeians, no Junius occurs among the consuls. In the earlier times of the republic a tribune of the people, one L. Brutus, is mentioned, who plays a prominent part as the framer of an important plebiscitum in the trial of Coriolanus (in Dionysius also, at the time of the secessio, which is a falsification) . This Brutus is a real person; but just like the whole story of Coriolanus, he belongs to quite a different period. ”

“ I have noticed, O conscript fathers, that some people have said before now, that even Brutus is too much extolled by me, that Cassius is too much extolled; and that by this proposition of mine absolute power and quite a principality is conferred upon Cassius. Whom do I extol? Those who are themselves the glory of the republic. What? have I not at all times extolled Decimus Brutus whenever I have delivered my opinion at all? Do you then find fault with me? or should I rather praise the Antonii, the disgrace and infamy not only of their own families, but of the Roman name? ”

“ For as in the conduct of almost every affair slowness and procrastination are hateful, so above all things does this war require promptness of action. We must assist Decimus Brutus; we must collect all our forces from all quarters; we cannot lose a single hour in effecting the deliverance of such a citizen without wickedness. Was it not in his power, if he had considered Antonius a consul, and Gaul the province of Antonius, to have given over the legions and the province to Antonius? ”

“ Caesar for this reason was so long in coming that the conspirators feared there might be a postponement (a rumor circulated, indeed, that he would remain at home that day) , and their plot thus fall through and they themselves be detected. Therefore they sent Decimus Brutus, as one appearing to be a devoted friend, to secure his attendance. This man made light of Caesar's scruples and by adding that the senate was extremely anxious to behold him, persuaded him to go forward. At this an image of his which he kept set up in the vestibule fell of its own accord and was shattered to pieces. ”

“ We mention this tragedy because it is certainly the finest of Lee's, and perhaps one of the most moving plays in our language. Junius Brutus engages in the just defence of the injured rights of his country, against Tarquin the Proud; he succeeds in driving him out of Rome. His son Titus falls in love, and interchanges vows with the tyrant's daughter; his father commands him not to touch her, nor to correspond with her; he faithfully promises; but his resolutions are baffled by the insinuating and irresistible charms of Teraminta; he is won by her beauties ”

“ Son and slave were almost the same word with the Romans; and your genuine old Roman made little ado about cutting off the head of one of his boys, perhaps for doing something of a praiseworthy nature. Old Junius Brutus was doubly favored by Fortune, for he was enabled to kill two of his sons in the name of Patriotism, and thereby to gain a reputation for virtue that endures to this day,—though, after all, he was but the first of the brutes. The Romans kept up the paternal rule for many ages, and theoretically it long survived the Republic. ”

“ At first a few men started the conspiracy, [77] but afterwards many took part, more than are remembered to have taken part in any earlier plot against a commander. They say that there were more than eighty who had a share in it. [78] Among those who had the most influence were: Decimus Brutus, a particular friend of Caesar, Caius Cassius, and Marcus Brutus, second to none in the estimation of the Romans at that time. ”

“ L. Junius Brutus, consul B.C. 509, was a Patrician, and his race was extinct in his two sons (Liv. ii. 1-4; Drumann, Junii, p. 1; Dion Cassius, xliv. 12; Dionys. Hal. Antiq. Rom. v. 18) .
[497] Servilia, the wife of M. Junius Brutus, the father of this Brutus, was the daughter of Livia, who was the sister of M. Livius Drusus, tribunus plebis B.C. 91. Livia married for her first husband M. Cato, by whom she had M. Cato Uticensis; for her second husband she had Q. Servilius Cæpio, by whom she became the mother of Servilia. ”

“ For when he had carried the consulship for a friend of his, against the pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent thereat, and began to speak great, Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect bade him be quiet; for that more men adored the sun rising, than the sun setting. With Julius Caesar, Decimus Brutus had obtained that interest as he set him down in his testament, for heir in remainder, after his nephew. ”

“ For what reason, when many have disliked to go out and take charge even of the offices that belonged to them, does he not only lay claim to Gaul, which pertains to him in not the slightest degree, but use force upon it because of its unwillingness? For what reason, when Decimus Brutus is ready to surrender to us himself and his soldiers and the cities, has this man not imitated him, instead of besieging and shutting him up? ”

“ Then Livius the high priest, to whom the Consul Decius had given over his lictors, bidding him take upon himself the command, cried aloud, "The Romans have conquered, being delivered from peril by the death of the Consul. The Gauls and the Samnites are the possession of Mother Earth and of the Gods of the dead. Decius is calling and drawing to him the army that he devoted to death together with himself; and the whole host of the enemy is full of madness and fear." ”

“ The barbarians, on the contrary, were inured to encounter in the bogs, their persons tall, their spears long, such as could wound at a distance.” In this morass the Roman army, after an ineffectual struggle, was irrecoverably lost; nor could the body of the emperor ever be found. Such was the fate of Decius, in the fiftieth year of his age; an accomplished prince, active in war and affable in peace; who, together with his son, has deserved to be compared, both in life and death, with the brightest examples of ancient virtue. ”

“ But as Apollo declared that he should be driven from his domain only when a dog should use human speech, he was inspired with confident hope, thinking that the oracle could never be fulfilled.
Now Lucius Junius was a son of Tarquin's sister; his father and brother Tarquin had killed. So he, fearing now for his own person, feigned stupidity, especially when he is of a distinguished family, becomes an object of suspicion to tyrants. And when once he had set out on this course, he acted his part with the greatest precision, and for that reason was also called Brutus ”

“ Surely the resistless power of fate, when it determines to reverse a man’s fortune, confounds his understanding!
LVIII The year that they perpetrated this deed, Brutus and Cassius were prætors, and Decimus Brutus consul elect. These, with the body of the conspirators, attended by a band of gladiators belonging to Decimus Brutus, seized on the Capitol. On this Mark Antony the consul convened the senate. Cassius had proposed that Antony should be killed at the same time with Cæsar, and that Cæsar’s will should be annulled ”

“ Rome ne peut souffrir commandement de Princes. The scene with the conspirators Stirling treats [Pg 41] very differently and much more freely. It had had, as we have seen, a peculiar history. In Muretus it was confined to Marcus Brutus and Cassius, in Grévin Decimus Brutus is added, in Garnier Decimus is retained and Marcus drops out. Alexander discriminates. He keeps one discussion for Marcus and Cassius, in so far restoring it to the original and more fitting form it had obtained from Muretus, though he transfers to Marcus some of the sentiments that Garnier had assigned to Decimus. ”

“ Toward the end of 44, Antony, who found the army deserting him for the young Octavius, left Rome, and hastened into northern Italy, to attack Decimus Brutus. Brutus was not strong enough to venture on a battle with him, and shut himself up in Mutina. Cicero continued to take the leading part in affairs at Rome, delivering the third and fourth Philippics in December, 44, and the ten others during the five months of the following year. The fourteenth was spoken in the Senate, when the fortunes of the falling republic seem to have revived. ”

“ So they made these allotments, for the purpose of securing the strongest provinces themselves and giving others the impression that they were not striving for the whole. A further agreement was that they should cause assassinations of their enemies, that Lepidus after being appointed consul in Decimus's stead should keep guard over Rome and the remainder of Italy, and that the others should make an expedition against Brutus and Cassius. ”

“ Soon after, another general named Decius was chosen by the army on the German frontier, and Philip was killed in battle with him. Decius wanted to be an old-fashioned Roman; he believed in the gods, and thought the troubles of the empire came of forsaking them; and as the Parthians molested the East, and the Goths and Germans the North, and the soldiers seemed more ready to kill their Emperors than the enemy, he thought to win back prosperity by causing all to return to the old worship, and begun the worst persecution the Church had yet known. ”

“ A deep conspiracy was now laid against him, into which no less than sixty senators entered. They were still the more formidable, as the generality of them were of his [Pg. 229] own party; and, having been raised above other citizens, felt more strongly the weight of a single superior.
At the head of this conspiracy were Brutus, whose life Cæsar had spared after the battle of Pharsalia, and Cassius, who was pardoned soon after; both prætors for the present year. 5. Brutus made it his chief glory to have descended from that Brutus who first gave liberty to Rome. ”

“ He had broken the law of discipline, and he must die. His head was struck off amid the grief and anger of the army. The battle was bravely fought, but it went against the Romans at first. Then Decius, recollecting a vision which had declared that a consul must devote himself for his country, called on Valerius, the Pontifex Maximus, to dedicate him. He took off his armor, put on his purple toga, covered his head with a veil, and standing on a spear, repeated the words of consecration after Valerius, then mounted his horse and rode in among the Latins. ”

“ To which Cassius with some emotion answered, "But what Roman will suffer you to die? What, do you not know yourself, Brutus? Or do you think that those writings that you find upon your praetor's seat were put there by weavers and shopkeepers, and not by the first and most powerful men of Rome? From other praetors, indeed, they expect largesses and shows and gladiators, but from you they claim, as an hereditary debt, the extirpation of tyranny; they are all ready to suffer anything on your account, if you will but show yourself such as they think you are and expect you should be." ”

“ The people, maddened by the sight, hastily sought their arms, and while some guarded the gates, that none might carry the news to the king, the others followed Brutus to Rome. Here the story of the wickedness of Sextus and the self-sacrifice of Lucretia ran through the city like wildfire, and a multitude gathered in the Forum, where Brutus addressed them in fervent words. ”

“ They contain a good deal of recrimination: Brutus blaming Cicero for his dangerous elevation of Octavius, and conferring honours on him too profusely; Cicero censuring Brutus for having spared the life of Antony at the time of the conspiracy.
Now the point in dispute is, If these twenty-three letters be parts of the original eight books of the genuine correspondence of Cicero and Brutus, so often cited by Plutarch, Quintilian, and Nonius; or if they be the forgery of some monk or [pg 284] sophist, during the dark ages which elapsed between the time of Nonius and Petrarch. ”

“ There seems to me to be a very large amount of self-instruction possible, when one takes facts as the basis of his reasoning, investigates the nature of the former by the latter, and then proves his reasoning true by its correspondence with the facts.
The precise reason for Antony's besieging Decimus in Mutina was that the latter would not give up Gaul to him, but he pretended that it was because Decimus had been one of Caesar's assassins. ”

“ In the business of Appius, my concessions to Brutus are almost incalculable. I have no reason to distress myself. Brutus’ friends are men of straw, Matinius, and Scaptius, who is perhaps angry because he could not get troops to harry Cyprus as he had done before my time, or because he was not made a prefect, an office I have not granted to any man of business, not to C. Vennonius, my friend, nor to your friend M. Laenius. I have persevered in the course that I told you at Rome I should keep: but a man who refused to take his money, when he could, cannot grumble. ”