Brutus

Marcus Junius Brutus (around 85 - 42 B.C.) was a protégé of Julius Caesar and among those who killed him in at the Senate house in Rome on the Ides of March, 44 B.C.. Some ancient sources report that Brutus was the illegitimate son of Julius Caesar and his mistress Servilia. Caesar is commonly said to have gasped as he died: Tu quoque, Brute, fili mi or Et tu, Brute ("You, too, Brutus, my son?" or "You, too, Brutus?").

Brutus was a descendant of Lucius Junius Brutus who, in 509 B.C. in the aftermath of the rape of Lucretia, drove out the last king of Rome, Tarquin the Proud, and thereby founded the Roman Republic. The leaders of the assassination of Caesar cast Brutus as a faithful follower of family tradition by portraying Caesar as seeking the title king and royal authority.

See also:

• battle of Philippi

Later Evaluations of Brutus

Dante considered Brutus to be the epitome of shameful betrayal, and in his Inferno section of the Divine Comedy (Inferno, XXXIV, 64-67), portrayed Brutus being chewed, but never consumed, by Satan, along with Judas Iscariot and Cassius at the very lowest level of Hell.