BRUTUS, MARCUS JUNIls. 



BRUYERE, JEAN LA. 



eojoytd hk confidence, an! bow extensive was the influence which be 

 msfelsjiii. On UM ides of March, when all thingi were prepared for 

 the MSMauation, the plot wu Marly frustrated by an announcement 

 from CBM that be ahould not attend the meeting of the senate, being 

 deterred by tome evil dreaou which had visited both himwlf and hii 

 wife Calpurnia, and by indisposition. D. Brutus was employed to 

 dissuade him from this inopportune revolution, and he succeeded by 

 ridiculing the soothsayers, by ihowing Cttear that the senators 

 assembled by hit orders would 'think themselves insulted if they were 

 dismissed on pretext* so frivolous, and abore all by assuring him that 

 it waa intended on that day to nominate him king of all the province* 

 out of Italy.' and to decree that he might wear a crown except within 

 the lirnita of Italy. (Plutarch, ' Cawar,' Ixir.) 



The affvction which the murdered Dictator bore to Decimua Brutua 

 was exhibited in his will, in which he named that falae friend among 

 other penoni to inherit hi fortune in case of the failture of direct 

 heir*. Cteaar alao had appointed him commander of hit cavalry, coniol 



for the succeeding year A.C.C. 711, and governor of Cisalpine Gaul, in 

 which proviooe Brutus attempted to maintain himself on the banish- 

 ment of the conspirators. The newly-raiaed legions by which ho hoped 

 to support bis authority were chiefly framed of gladiators, who gradu- 

 ally deserted ; till Brutus, fearful of being left alone, after having been 

 defeated at Mutina, endeavoured to make his way to the army in Greece. 

 For this purpose he disguised himself in the habit of a Oaul, and 

 attempted to pass through Aquileia to Illyrioum. Although well 

 acquainted with the language of the country which he traversed, he 

 fell into the hands of some banditti. Having inquired of his captors 

 to which of the Gaulish princes the district in which he had been 

 taken belonged, and having heard that it was ruled by Camillua, a 

 chieftain whom he had formerly obliged, he entreated to be led to his 

 presence. Camillas received him with apparent goodwill, and rebuked 

 the robbers for having injured so great a man ; but to Antonius, whom 

 he secretly informed of his capture, he employed far different language. 

 Antonins, affecting compassion, refused to see the prisoner, and ordered 

 Camillus to put him to death, and to send him his head. (Appian, 

 ' De Belli* Civilibus,' iii. ad fin.) 



BRUTUS, MARCUS JULIUS, son of Marcus Junius Brutus by 

 Servilia, suiter of Cato of Utica, was born at Home A.U.C. 668, ac. 86. 

 He was traditionally descended from Lucius Junius, the expeller of 

 the Tarquins, a descent asserted by himself in a medal commemorating 

 the assassination of Julius CiCar, but which is denied by Dionysius of 

 Halicarnaasus. A passage in the first Philippic of Cicero (c, 6) corro- 

 borates this origin by stating that the expeller of kings, L. Brutus, has 

 propagated his stock through 500 years, in order that a descendant 

 might emulate his virtue by again freeing Rome from regal domination. 

 But this allusion, which suited the purpose of Cicero, is only a rhetorical 

 flourish. Plutarch, in the beginning of his life of M. J. Brutus, assumes 

 his descent from the first Brutus, conformably to his practice in such 

 eases, without troubling himself as to the credibility of the fact He 

 is sometimes called Q. Caopio Brutus both by Cicero and Dion Casaius, 

 and also on several of his medals, where ' Q. Caepio Brutus Procos.' 

 or ' Imp.' occurs. He owed this name apparently to hU adoption by 

 his maternal uncle, Q. Servilius Ctepio. On an unjust divorce from 

 his first wife, Appia Claudia, he married Portia, the widow of Bibuliis, 

 and daughter of his maternal uncle Cato, under whose inspection he 

 had been most carefully educated in philosophy and letters, after the 

 loaf of his father, who was put to death by Pompeius in the war 

 brtwern Mariua and Sylla. Plutarch says that he was acquainted with 

 all the Grecian systems of philosophy, but particularly attached to 

 . thoe of Plato's school. Afterwards, at least, he certainly adopted the 

 Stoical teneU and discipline. When Cato, D.C. 69, was appointed 

 under a law passed by the influence of Clodius to annex Cyprus to 

 the Roman empire, Brutus accompanied his uncle, and during his 

 residence in that Uland he appears to have been guilty of certain 

 pecuniary extortions by no means consistent with integrity, but 

 perhaps too much countenanced by the habits of the times. 



When the civil war broke out between Julius Cmar and Pompeius, 

 Brutus sacrificed his private resentment* to that which he believed to 

 be the better cause of the two, and appeared under the banners of the 

 latter. After the defeat of Pompeius at the battle of Pharsalia, Brutus 

 was particularly distinguished by the clemency of the conqueror, who 

 not only bestowed upon him personally his especial favour, but granted 

 pardon through his interference both to Cassius, who had married hU 



, 



r, and to Deiotarus, king of Galatia, for the Utter of whom Brutus 

 pleaded in a set oration. Scandal attributed these acts of grace to a 

 remembrance which Julius Ctessr entertained of a youthful intrigue 

 with Servilia, and a false report was circulated that Brutus was a 

 son of the dictator. But the words which Suetonius has put into the 

 mouth of Cgsar when he perceived Brutus among his assassin*, " And 

 are you among them, my son 1 " may be received as indicating affection 

 an I familiarity rather than as any acknowledgment of consanguinity. 

 Rrutus wan only fifteen years younger than Onar himnelf. 



When Cswar undertook his expedition Into Africa against Cato, he 

 committed to Brutus the government of Cisalpine Gaul, which was 

 administered with wisdom and humanity, and he afterwards preferred 

 him to Caseius in a rivalship for the post of Prater Urbanus. NoUith- 

 these distinguished favours, Brutus was one of the principal 

 on the Idee of March. Ho retired to Athenj when Marcus 



Antonius had produced a re-action in the people of Rome, where he 

 devoted himself partly to literature and partly to preparation for war. 

 In the end, Antonius and Ootavianus on oue side, and Brutus and 

 Cassius on the other, met at Philippi in Macedonia. The battle waa 

 fiercely contested, but ended in the total rout of the exiles ; and 

 ffaarlns. unwilling to survive his defeat, fell upon his own sword, 

 receiving as a eulogy from Brutus, when ho heard of the deed, that 

 he was " the lust of the Romans." 



Brutus, in a second battle fought not long afterwards, near the same 

 spot, obtained a partial victory; but perceiving himself surroun i.-.l 

 by a detachment of his enemy's soldiers, and in danger of being made 

 prisoner, he despaired of ultimate success ; and after more than ono 

 of the friends about him hod declined the painful duty, he delivered 

 the hilt of his sword to Strato, and throwing himself on its point, 

 expired in the forty-fourth year of his age. 



Of his works, which were much praised by contemporaries, it is not 

 certain that any have descended to us. His eulogy on Cato is certainly 

 lost ; some few letters in Greek, which are probably not genuine, have 

 been printed in the collections of Aldus, Cujacius, and H. Stevens. 

 He is also said to have made a kind of abstract or epitome of the 

 history of Polybius, of the annals of C. Fannius, and of the history of 

 L. Coslius Antipater. His Latin letters to Cicero have been characte- 

 rised by Markland as " silly barbarous stuff," which he " cannot read 

 without astonishment and indignation." Their authenticity, on the 

 other hand, is strongly supported by Conyers Middleton in answer to 

 an attack by Tunstall; but Kubnken expressed his opinion against 

 them, and also F. A. Wolff. 



When Brutus and Cassius were about to leave Asia for their Mace- 

 donian campaign, it is said that an apparition admonished Brutus of 

 his approaching fate. Brutus was of a spore habit, abstemious in diet 

 and in sleep. One night, when he was overcome by watching, and was 

 reading alone in his tent by a dim light at a late hour, while the whole 

 army around him lay wrapped in sleep and silence, he thought iio 

 perceived something enter his tent, and taw " a horrible and monstrous 

 spectre standing silently by his side. 'Who art thou?' said he, boldly; 

 'art thou God or man, and what is thy business with me?' The 

 spectre answered, ' I am thy evil genius, Brutus : thou wilt see me at 

 Philippi!' To which he calmly replied, Til meet thoe there.' 

 When the apparition was gone he called his servants, who told him 

 that they had neither heard any noise nor seen any vision." )!> 

 communicated his adventure on the next morning to Cagaius, who 

 professed the philosophy of Epicurus, and argued on the principles of 

 his sect against the existence of such beings as demons and spirits ; 

 or, admitting their existence, denied that it was probable they should 

 assume a human shape or voice, or have any power to affect us ; in 

 fine, he attributed the whole incident to sleeplessness and fatigue, 

 which, as he justly remarked, suspend and pervert the regular func- 

 tions of the mind. On the night before the second battle, " they say," 

 continues Plutarch, " that the spectre again appeared and assumed it 

 former figure, but vanished without speaking." 



Plutarch remarks that there is a diversity in the statements respect- 

 ing the death of Portia; that Nicolaus the philosopher and Valerius 

 Moximus affirm that, being prevented from suicide by the constant 

 vigilance of friends who surrounded her couch, she snatched aom 

 burning embera from the fire, and held them in her mouth till she was 

 suffocated. If however we admit the authenticity of a letter attributed 

 to Brutus, this account must be a fabrication ; for he laments in it 

 the death of Portia during his own lifetime, describes her distemper, 

 and praises her conjugal affection. 



Voltaire wrote a tragedy, ' La Mort de Censor,' from which, contrary 

 to the usage of the stage, he excluded all female characters. HU plot 

 is founded on an hypothesis which we have shown to be false, that 

 Brutus was the son of Csosar. 



(Plutarch, Brutui; Appian, lib. 15, 16 ; Cicero, Lcltert and Orationi; 

 Dion Casaius.) 



BRUYEHK, JEAN LA, was born in 1644, near Dourdon in Nor- 

 mandy. Of his early life scarcely anything is known. After filling 

 the office of treasurer of France at Caen he removed to Paris. He 

 was appointed teacher of history to the Due de Bourgogne, under 



i the direction of Bossuet, and passed the remainder of his life in 



: the service of his pupil, in the quality of homme de lettres.' In 

 1687 he published his work entitled ' Characters,' was admitted into 

 the French Academy on the 15th of Juno 1693 ; and died of apoplexy 



, at Versailles on the 10th of May 169G. 



He is represented by the Abbe" d'Olivct as a philosopher whose 

 happiness consisted in passing a life of tranquillity, surrounded by 

 hi* friends and his books, in the choice of both of which he showed 

 considerable judgment. He was polished in hU manners, but reserved 

 in his conversation, and free from pretension of every kind. 



Of all I .a lirujcre's friends, Bossuet, to whom ho had attached him- 

 rlf from a sense of gratitude, sympathised with him the least in 



' character. It was, no doubt, gratitude to his friend that l>. 

 him into the weakness of using hia pen in favour of the Biahop of 

 Mdaux against Fc'nc'lon in the absurd affair of ' Quietism.' Upon this 



. theological controversy he left ome ' Dialogues ; ' and if we cannot 

 wholly excuse him for having written them, we must admit that be 

 showed his good sense by not publishing them. They were however 

 published three years after La Bruyere's death by Louis Dupin. 



