Brutus: The Honourable Man Who Kills His Best Friend
First appears: Act 1, Scene 2
Brutus spends Act 1 being worked on and Act 2 convincing himself. Cassius throws letters through his window, appeals to his famous ancestor, and compares him to Caesar in ways designed to wound his pride. Brutus knows what is happening and joins the conspiracy anyway, on the basis that Caesar's future danger outweighs his present virtue.
His funeral speech in Act 3, Scene 2 is written in plain prose: logical, honest, and ultimately ineffective. He makes his argument and leaves, trusting the crowd to hold his conclusion while Antony speaks. That is his real mistake: he hands the audience to a man he knows is smarter in a crowd.
His ghost appears to him before the Battle of Philippi in Act 4, Scene 3, calling itself 'thy evil spirit.' He dies at Philippi by falling on his own sword. Antony calls him 'the noblest Roman of them all.' The play suggests he was also the most catastrophically wrong.
Key Scenes
Famous Quotes
“Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.”
Brutus — Act 3, Scene 2
“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”
Brutus — Act 4, Scene 3