Given the normal criteria of rank, status and privilege in the Roman Republic, Marcus Junius Brutus was a man who was destined for success in his life which spanned the decades between the end of the Italian war and the end of the Republic in the late 40s BC. He came from an old aristocratic family that could claim descent, through his mothers side, from the earliest generations of Romans who founded the Roman Republic in the late sixth century BC. He was highly educated in the most prestigious and leading philosophical schools and bythe leading rhetoricians of his day. He was, in addition, rather wealthy, and benefited greatly from the 'businesses' in which he was able to involve himself as an elite Roman senator who developed trading and business enterprises in the provinces of the empire. his immediate family background, however, was already scarred by the murderous nature of civil conflict in the Roman aristocracy. His father, also called M. Junius Brutus, had surrendered to Pompey at Mutina in 78 BC; Pompey had him killed, despite a personal promise of "safe-conduct." After his father's cruel execution Brutus, adopted and raised by his uncle, learned to detest tyranny (any form of arbitrary, autocratic rule).
Despite his family wealth and prestige, his education and abilities, his status as a senator, and his devotion to 'liberty', in the end, Brutus, no less than Sertorius before him, ended up a 'loser' -- a man whose public career, personal fortune, political position, and family were destroyed by the forces that were inexorably changing the face of the last generation of the Roman Republic.
Questions: Where does Brutus' political career progress seem to be 'normal' to you , and why? Where does he encounter problems in maintaining his political advancement and power, and why? What are the principal crises or turning points in his public life?
Discussion and Questions Copyright 1998-2000, Prof. Brent D. Shaw. Image copyright Classical Numismatic Group, Inc.