Tango01 | 03 Jan 2017 4:29 p.m. PST |
"He was part of a conspiracy that had the intention to cause a dictator (Caesar) to end his reign. It wasn't personal, but the way he went about killing him was overkill. His goal was to get rid of a dictator and he did just that. So… was Brutus a villain or hero? Do you think he was mistakenly vilified or was he dishonorable towards Rome and everyone around him?" From here link Well… he had a splendid reputation for integrity in Rome … not the same with Caesar… he believed in the Senate and not in a Tyran…imho he was a tragic hero … Amicalement Armand |
thorr666 | 03 Jan 2017 5:10 p.m. PST |
Depends on which end of the knife you were on |
USAFpilot | 03 Jan 2017 5:15 p.m. PST |
Based upon the reading of Shakespeare's play when I was in high school, the character Brutus was portrayed as a tragic hero. Now, a few decades later I now think of him as a villain. Ceasars assassination led to a chain of events which eventually led to the very thing Brutus was trying to prevent, absolute rule by one man. Ceasar was murdered because of an idea. Brutus was an idealist. I find as I get older that idealists are the most dangerous people in the world. No one can truly predict the future. Try to live a good and moral life, and the first part of that may be to do no evil. |
KTravlos | 03 Jan 2017 5:29 p.m. PST |
The Republic needed reform. Not the type Caesar was bringing. But Brutus and his faction was also blind to that need. Both are villains. |
Who asked this joker | 03 Jan 2017 6:19 p.m. PST |
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HangarFlying | 03 Jan 2017 6:42 p.m. PST |
Too bad OP deleted his post. |
piper909 | 04 Jan 2017 12:00 a.m. PST |
I never bought into the "heroic defender of the Republic" line. Seems to me that Brutus was either an amoral opportunist OR supremely deluded. Either way, he betrayed a trust (not exactly an honorable action) and he and his fellow conspirators removed the most capable Roman leader of his generation and replaced him with anarchy that, luckily for civilization, did NOT ultimately fragment the Roman world like the Hellenistic one before, with uncalculable loss to posterity. |
Who asked this joker | 04 Jan 2017 9:43 a.m. PST |
he and his fellow conspirators removed the most capable Roman leader of his generation He did make himself "Consul for life." That, in the eyes of the Republic was a bozo no-no. They hated kings/emperors/overlords and all that came with it. Of course, then we have Octavian (AKA Caesar Augustus) who became, essentially, consul for life. |
Chazzmak | 04 Jan 2017 1:53 p.m. PST |
Not everyone involved in the assassination would have been an idealist. More likely the majority were political opportunists. The mists of time have clouded the real story. Perhaps the plotters needed an "idealist" with Brutus' popularity to front the assassination. Perhaps he was neither a villain or a hero, just a sap. |
TKindred | 04 Jan 2017 2:09 p.m. PST |
Villain, plain and simple. |
Marcus Brutus | 04 Jan 2017 3:02 p.m. PST |
Dictator in the Roman Republic was an office used in emergency situations. So it had a legal/political element that our use today doesn't quite capture. A Dictator had imperium that was not subject to challenge like a Consul's could be. The Dictator was not even subject to veto of the Tribunes. Caesar's big miscalculation was having himself made Dictator for life. That was a revolutionary unconstitutional act on his part and offended Roman sensibilities. In this sense Brutus must considered a champion and hero of constitutional government. Interestingly, Augustus was always careful to follow the constitutional order. His imperium was always time limited and reauthorized by the Senate and the relevant comitias. His primary authority came from his function and imperium as Pro Consul (which gave him authority over the army) and his being a permanent member of the Tribunes (which allowed him to veto all legislation coming through any of the various assemblies.) |
Benvartok | 04 Jan 2017 4:51 p.m. PST |
Absolute hero and apart from my wife's veto (more powerful than a tribune) would have been the first borns name! |
piper909 | 04 Jan 2017 6:51 p.m. PST |
Fascinating variety of views! Even after the passage of centuries, Caesar and Brutus and the turmoil of ancient Rome can still provoke debate and discussion. And people -- OTHER people -- think history is dull and dead! |
DukeWacoan | 04 Jan 2017 9:37 p.m. PST |
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USAFpilot | 05 Jan 2017 11:20 a.m. PST |
Well stated Chazzmak, I tend to agree. I think those who view Brutus as hero, probably also believe that the ends justify the means. |
doug redshirt | 05 Jan 2017 1:29 p.m. PST |
Oh cares it was Roman aristocrats killing another Roman aristocrat. Nothing changes in history. The rich get richer and the poor do all the suffering. |
Jlundberg | 05 Jan 2017 1:42 p.m. PST |
Villain. Caesar was unique – with his natural death the Republic might have reset |
Sir Walter Rlyeh | 06 Jan 2017 9:06 a.m. PST |
Brutus was a Boni, literally a "Good Man". This was his political party. They were also called the Optimates. They were a party by, for, and of the aristocrats. There goal was to keep power in the hands of a small minority of ancient senatorial families. Caesar was from the Populares. His biggest concern was to get land to reward the retired veterans from his legions. The wealth source of the Boni was slave plantations so they were opposed to freeholder farms. The Optimates and Populares factions represented the two sides of the Roman Civil War that had been going on for years. |
Deuce03 | 09 Jan 2017 8:44 p.m. PST |
I'm pretty much convinced that Brutus acted in what he saw as the best interests of the Republic. Caesar was a proven danger to Republican institutions and it was clear his power was only going to grow. However it is if anything much more clear that the Republic Brutus considered himself an agent for was irreperably broken by the time he stuck the knife in Caesar and that ultimately it was unlikely to change anything except the manner of the Republic's death. As everyone is aware, the changing political situation had made Rome vulnerable to a series of strongmen who had variously dominated politics or outright controlled the government for pretty much half a century before Caesar's assassination. Ultimately he was pretty short-sighted: he lacked the vision of men like Pompey, Crassus, Augustus and Caesar himself who saw that the Republic-as-was was finished. So he attacked symptom, not cause, apparently forgetting that the deaths of men like the Gracchi, Cinna, Saturninus, Catiline and Clodius had ultimately done nothing to stem the tide of populist change, and further that real power now belonged to the generals who could best organise and command their men's loyalty. I think it's possible to argue however that Brutus's actions, while ultimately a failure in his intention to stop the accumulation of power into the hands of one man, did give the Republic a symbolic apotheosis under Augustus and Tiberius, whereas had Caesar lived he would likely have polished the Republic off properly within his own lifetime. But that's counterfactualism and therefore of limited value for discussion. Villain or hero? Hard to use such terms about real men in this sort of situation. I think it was a remarkable act of patriotism, in context, though Brutus lacked the determination and gravitas of a Cato which would have given him more credibility, having accepted Caesar's pardon in the first place. On a personal level, it was a monstrous betrayal, and one the memory of which has stained politics ever since. Few have been as magnanimous in victory as Caesar, possibly in part because they have Caesar's fate in mind. |
Mars Ultor | 12 Jan 2017 11:49 a.m. PST |
Well-said, Deuce. I'll add to that two things: first, according to Tom Holland (don't remember his sourcing on this, but HOlland's books are amateur historian level, though I think he did cite this point), Brutus was known for charging exorbitant interest on loans, almost to the point of robbery. There would have been many who respected his Junian name and would have held him up as a hero against tyranny, but I think that there would be many who knew him for his past history. Second, the "libertas" cry of the "Roman people" going back to the founding of the Republic was a motto of the aristocracy, the freedom of the aristocracy to rule in Rome vs. a king; not a promise to uphold the welfare of the poor citizen (who often got screwed throughout the Republic's entire history). Surely many poorer clients would have followed their patron's lead in this ideal. But since the 4th century, the richer plebians had long joined forces with the fading patrician families in order to dominate politics and the poor. It just got much worse during the late Republic. |