Caesar, Julius | Richard A. Levin (essay date 1982)
Richard A. Levin (essay date 1982)
SOURCE: "Brutus: 'Noblest Roman of Them All'," in Ball State University Forum, Vol. XXIII, No. 2, Spring, 1982, pp. 15-25.
[In the following essay, Levin questions Brutus's status as the "noblest Roman," distinguishing him from the other conspirators, who slew Caesar out of envy, by his willingness to murder someone for whom he expressed friendship and love.]
In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good
words;
Witness the hole you made in Caesar's heart,
Crying, "Long live! hail, Caesar!"
Mark Antony, V.i.30-32
For a few readers of Julius Caesar, Brutus fully deserves the praise heaped on him by many characters during the play and by Mark Antony at the end:
This was the noblest Roman of them all.
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great...
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