[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 Caesar;
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, "This was a man!"
[New Arden Julius Caesar, ed. T. Dorsch, 1955,
 V.v.68-75]

Many readers have qualified admiration for Brutus. They too can find support in this speech: although Antony uses superlatives, he is eulogizing a dead man, and may therefore exaggerate. Brutus's flaws have been variously described. For some critics, he has the short-comings of the idealist or the liberal intellectual. In an effort to achieve perfect good, he kills Caesar; later he undermines the revolution by refusing to follow an expedient course. Other critics blame Brutus for praising himself and allowing his friends to flatter him. Not many critics go further and ask whether Brutus alienates the audience. Shakespeare presents him as a controversial figure about whom men's judgments differ widely. Except at the end, Antony speaks strongly against Brutus: for his sharpest attack, see the epigraph to this essay. In due course I hope to show that Antony's eulogy (just quoted) is ironic: one may construe it as blame, not praise. I propose to develop the case against Brutus, without denying that the evidence is ambiguous.

Antony sets the terms of our debate. The other conspirators envied Caesar. Among them, did Brutus alone act not for himself, but for his country, attempting to preserve its republican traditions? If we say yes, our best evidence would seem to be the contrasting role of Cassius, who often serves as a foil to Brutus. Cassius himself invites the comparison. In his soliloquy in I.ii., he observes that Brutus is "noble" (305, 308), and made of "honourable mettle" (306), whereas he, Cassius, conspires for his own gain. Cassius is not only blunt about his motives, but quick to act. He cunningly plays on the weaknesses of others, including Brutus; and once the conspiracy takes shape he recommends a bloody course of action. When, after the murder, war breaks out, Cassius apparently takes bribes or extorts money. Unlike Brutus he expresses no moral reservations.

But Shakespeare suggests that the two men are in some ways alike. Antony's drawing a distinction between Brutus and the others implies that some blurring might otherwise take place. Brutus, after all, "made one" with the conspirators; their actions were his actions. Brutus and Cassius are supposedly friends. As joint leaders, they fight Antony and Octavius. Their deaths, although separate, occur in parallel scenes.

The similarities are striking; moreover, certain differences may be illusory. Caesar returns from the festival races to find Brutus and Cassius talking together, discussing in fact his possible murder. Caesar, noticing Cassius's "lean and hungry look," mentions it to Antony. In Plutarch the corresponding description links Brutus and Cassius, who are both "pale and lean men." By changing the drift of his source, Shakespeare might appear to insist on a contrast between the two men. But the point may be that Caesar always trusts Brutus. Possibly Shakespeare kept the men look-alikes as in Plutarch, so that the audience would wonder whether Caesar had measured one man and not the other, a man whose present motives are questionable. When Caesar goes on to denigrate Cassius by comparing him with Antony, we may wonder whether the same contrast holds true for Brutus and Antony. Cassius "loves no plays," "hears no music," and "seldom smiles." Such men, Caesar concludes, are "never at heart's ease / Whiles they behold a greater than themselves." Before Caesar entered, Brutus had contrasted his own serious nature with Antony's "gamesome," "quick spirit" (27-28); and he had described himself as deep in "thought" (62). Perhaps Brutus, like Cassius, "thinks too much."

Brutus may be a certain kind of deceptive person. He is not like Iago; for the latter, even while praising himself in public and enjoying a reputation for virtue, knows himself to be evil, whereas Brutus does not. Brutus seems more like the self-deceived Angelo in the earlier part of Measure For Measure, although Angelo is a far more complicated character. Angelo's puritanical insistence on virtue is an attempt to control repressed desires that seethe within and take contorted form. Brutus merely has too much of the natural human desire to think well of oneself; refusing to see his own faults, he lets them run free. Of course, in these circumstances, any man must find ways of satisfying his conscience. Brutus does so by protesting his virtue too strongly and by finding socially approved forms for his destructive emotions; his public-mindedness conceals personal envy. But although he feels some inner conflict, he is not a proper object of sympathy. Unlike Macbeth or even King Claudius of Denmark, he is never shown struggling with his conscience. That struggle is in the background; in the foreground, he polishes his own image.

Cassius sees himself as tempting and corrupting the "honourable" Brutus. A subtler but equally plausible reading of their first interview is that Brutus also tempts him. When Caesar leaves to watch the races, all follow except Brutus. When Cassius urges him to join the group, Brutus could excuse himself in any number of ways, but he chooses to intimate that he is "with himself at war" (45), debating action while others cheerily surround Caesar. Cassius therefore knows that the subject of conspiracy will find a receptive audience. His first move is bold: he offers flattery. "Can you see your face?" he asks (50), implying that Brutus is too modest. When Brutus demurely replies in the negative, Cassius volunteers to show him his features, and goes on to imply, none too ambiguously, that Brutus (not Caesar) is a worthy leader of Rome. "Into what dangers, Cassius, would you lead me?" asks Brutus (62), protecting his honor but also inviting Cassius to continue. Cassius then declares: "I, your glass [mirror], / Will modestly discover to yourself / That of yourself which you yet know not of" (67-69). Can we take Cassius literally? Is he offering himself as a mirror of Brutus? Confirmation follows. Cassius promptly describes his own resentment at Caesar's power. Although Brutus does not agree directly, he finds other means of encouraging Cassius to continue.

Twice when shouting is heard in the distance, Brutus expresses the fear that further honors are falling to Caesar (78-79; 130-32). Early in the conversation he indicates a willingness to do whatever is necessary for the "general good" (84). And in closing the interview, Brutus not only asks highmindedly for time to reflect, but tantalizes Cassius with the likelihood that he will join the conspiracy. "My noble friend, chew upon this," Brutus says (169), and proceeds to indicate that he will not passively accept the "hard conditions" now laid upon Romans. Clearly, Brutus wants to be counted in. As far as he is concerned, the real purpose of the interview is to maintain his own appearance of virtue. He must seem reluctant and must let Cassius do the wooing.

Although Brutus wears the mask of a judicious person, we long to know what lies behind. Act II opens early the next morning with Brutus soliloquizing in his orchard. The first line arrests attention: "It must be by his death" (10). Apparently, Brutus has already settled on an extreme course of action, the murder of Caesar. Perhaps we have misunderstood, perhaps we have interrupted his thoughts? The lines which follow only confirm that Brutus has already arrived at his conclusion and merely seeks to justify it. The speech proceeds with two voices debating. As Brutus sees it, one of these expresses his own personal sentiments; the other, his public conscience. "I know no personal cause to spurn at him [Caesar]," Brutus begins. The verb "spurn" is interesting; with it, Brutus suggests that he at least is without the petty desire to "kick at" Caesar as "one despised". But the public voice intervenes with the reminder that Caesar "would be crown'd"; as a king, he would be free to indulge personal feelings. The personal voice, insistently fair, replies that Caesar has never yet allowed his "affections" to dominate his "reason." The public voice, without further considering Caesar's nature, imagines Caesar in the generalized figure of the "climber-upward" who finally "looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees / By which he did ascend" (23, 26-27). This is a tellingly emotive image, conveying the same envy and resentment that Cassius introduced earlier: "Why, man, he doth be-stride the narrow world / Like a Colossus, and we petty men / Walk under his huge legs" (I.ii. 133-35). Although Brutus made no direct reply to Cassius, alone his response is immediate. Because Caesar "may" do as this straw man (the climber) does, he should be murdered (28).

The logic that has brought Brutus to this point is weak indeed. Should he accept as fact Casca's intimation that Caesar wants the crown? Even if Caesar does want it, must he be given it? Should one act on a hypothesis? How likely is Caesar to abuse great office? Brutus does not believe his own argument—witness the "cover-up" that he initiates: "Since the quarrel / Will bear no colour for the thing he is, / Fashion it thus." He goes on to "fashion" Caesar a serpent's egg that must be killed in the shell. Shakespeare uses both italicized words elsewhere in contexts involving deceptive manipulation. Brutus seems to recognize that he must obscure his argument with false rhetoric.

Not only, then, is the logic of the soliloquy strained, but even Brutus does not believe it. We must look for his underlying motive, as a Renaissance audience certainly did, for it knew that sophistical reasoning arises from a perversion of the will. We have seen personal animosity peep through in the speech; even in the last lines quoted above, the word "quarrel" hints at hostility, although editors offer as a gloss the Latin querela, cause of complaint (II.i.28-29n). Brutus's very insistence that he acts only for the public good raises suspicions, confirmed when the boy-servant Lucius interrupts the soliloquy with a message he has discovered in Brutus's study. We know that Cassius has had the message placed there (I.iii. 144-45), and Brutus at first identifies it as one of many "instigations" to murder Caesar that he has received. But soon, in an apostrophe beginning "O Rome," he imagines that the solicitations accurately represent popular feeling, and that he as a patriot must take action (II.i.46-58).

Brutus represents a threat not only to Caesar, but to his fellow conspirators. No sooner does he decide to join the plot, than he hears that Cassius has arrived with other muffled men. Surprisingly, Brutus moralizes on evil's "mask" of "monstrous visage" (81). Does he now recognize that his own intentions are evil? Or—projecting his guilt—does he think of others as evil, but not himself? When Cassius enters, he resumes his flattery; but Brutus, far from being irresolute, welcomes all the conspirators. He apparently counts himself among them, and they seem to have obtained exactly what they had prayed for—"O Cassius, if you could / But win the noble Brutus to our party" (I.iii. 140-41).

Ironically, at this very moment their cause is undone. Brutus—at great cost to them—now asserts his moral supremacy. When Cassius suggests that everyone should be bound by an oath, Brutus contradicts him: an oath would "stain / The even virtue of our enterprise" (ILL 132-33). Brutus now also describes Rome as oppressed by tyrannical conditions, a flat contradiction of his recent soliloquy, which discussed only a hypothetical danger. Cassius, upon hearing Brutus's soaring rhetoric, immediately thinks of another man, Cicero, who could lend dignity to their undertaking; "silver hairs," he says, can "buy men's voices to commend our deeds" (144-46). But when the intriguers, one after another, welcome the idea, Brutus sharply rejects it: Cicero, he says, "will never follow any thing / That other men begin" (151-52). Brutus here describes himself. Cassius speaks up again: Antony should be killed with Caesar. Brutus rebukes Cassius in a grandiloquent manner: "Let's be sacrificers, but not butchers." He then goes back to speak of Caesar's death in equally exalted terms: "Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully; / Let's carve him as a dish for the gods, / Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds" (172-74). These words cannot describe a real stabbing, a bloody business; instead, they allow Brutus to conceal his own evil from himself and to think that he provides moral leadership at an otherwise disreputable gathering. But we can challenge Brutus's assessment, and say instead that he shows to disadvantage. There is, after all, such a thing as "honor among thieves," and Brutus lacks it: he betrays the others by blocking any successful strategy.

Julius Caesar is deeply concerned with loyalty and disloyalty and carefully develops a context that allows for a judgment of Brutus. Every political act in the play also affects a personal relationship, and intimate feelings may often provide the real motive for action. Although, for example, on the political level Caesar's rise to power endangers the republic, on the personal level the conspirators hate to see one of their peers rise to eminence. Cassius, tempting Brutus, recalls an incident of youthful competition when he not only out-swam Caesar but heard that rival crying out for his help. The recollection is revealing, for the men, Brutus included, still feel towards one another the jealousies of youth. Brutus is not distinguished by his envy but by his willingness to betray those for whom he expresses affection. He alone offers to play upon another man's "love," thereby luring him into the conspiracy (II.i.219). He alone expresses "love" for Caesar (I.ii.81, III.i.182), his intended victim.

Brutus can also be judged by certain positive examples of friendship offered in the play. Cassius, wisely trying to convince Brutus of the danger Antony poses, mentions Antony's "ingrafted love" for Caesar (II.i.184), and although Brutus will not allow the murder of Antony, the conspirators carefully lead that friend of Caesar aside at the time of the assassination. Caesar has another loyal friend in Artemidorus, who, discovering the plot against Caesar, writes a warning message, which he signs, "thy lover" (II.iii.8). Finally, Caesar himself is capable of friendship. The night leading into the Ides of March with its storm, unnatural events, and omens troubles Caesar, as it does everyone, but when the morning comes and men he likes gather around him he relaxes. When Decius Brutus arrives to escort him out, a trusting Caesar confesses his fears to Decius "because," as he says, "I love you" (II.ii.74). No sooner has Decius quieted these fears than seven conspirators enter. Because Cassius is absent, we can believe that Caesar is sincere when he welcomes each man warmly. To one he begs the chance to do a favor. At the end of the scene, he calls his "good friends" to drink with him, before, "like friends," they proceed to the capitol. In an aside, Brutus echoes Caesar's words: "That every like is not the same, O Caesar! / The heart of Brutus yearns [grieves] to think upon." Brutus's are crocodile tears, however; far from changing his plans, he quickly joins the conspirators who hover around Caesar.

In planning the murder, the conspirators draw upon their intimate knowledge of Caesar in order to make him look his worst. Metellus Cimber petitions for his brother's recall from exile, knowing that the issue has already become a test of Caesar's firmness. The conspirators have surmised that not only will Caesar not give way, but also he will feel irritated at being asked again. If Caesar displays excessive pride as well, he has been baited: Metellus, refused, asks for another to second his plea; and Brutus, moving forward, gives Caesar a Judas kiss. Caesar is surprised and annoyed that Brutus, whom he loves, should press him at this awkward moment. Cassius then kneels and Caesar, as the men have foreseen, hardens in his position and boasts of being constant. Cinna comes forward, then Decius Brutus; finally Brutus himself kneels—at which Casca strikes Caesar from behind. In this way is Caesar's friendliness repaid.

Brutus is judged separately. Caesar says nothing when he is attacked until he notices Brutus: "Et tu, Brute?—then fall Caesar!" The sudden Latin in the intimate form of address points to the significance of the occasion; Shakespeare's audience knew that dying men proverbially speak with insight. "The foremost man of all this world," as Brutus later calls Caesar (IV.iii.22), cares that a friend betrays him, cares so much that life becomes not worth living. To the familiar Renaissance question, "whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love" (Ham. III.iii.203), Caesar gives a decisive answer: that without love all fortune is worthless. Hence at his death Caesar proves the conspirators wrong; he is not without attachments to others. At the same time Caesar, perhaps unintentionally, points an accusing finger at Brutus: Brutus, not Caesar, fails the test of friendship. The accusation made, Caesar falls dead, and all our attention turns to Brutus's response.

At first, caught in the exigencies of the moment, Brutus reveals nothing. Then, in the uncertain situation, Casca, always fearful, remarks that death merely cuts off one's fear of dying. Brutus quickly embellishes the thought and shapes it for his own ends: "So are we Caesar's friends, that have abridg'd / His time of fearing death" (III.i.104-105). Then Brutus recommends and is the first to adopt an outrageous course of action. He dips his hands up to the elbows in Caesar's blood and prepares to display the spectacle publicly as a symbol of a righteous cause. With this defiant gesture, Brutus answers Caesar—but on the instant his fortunes turn. A "friend" of Antony brings Antony's offer to come and pledge his support. Brutus assents and turns to Cassius with a revealing remark: "I know that we shall have [Antony] well to friend" (III.i.143). He thinks the occasion safe to display magnanimity. Antony enters, and against Cassius's clear advice, Brutus goes even further, and allows Antony to speak at Caesar's funeral. In permitting this speech Brutus may not be a misguided idealist, as some have thought. Although he understands little about politics, he knows less about friendship, and that lack is his undoing. At Caesar's funeral he claims to have loved Caesar well but Rome more; his words, however, ring hollow beside Antony's impassioned rhetoric, motivated as it is by love, loyalty, anger, and the desire for revenge.

As a result of Antony's speech, "Brutus and Cassius / Are rid like madmen through the gates of Rome" (III.ii.270-71). Like Milton's Satan returning to Pandemonium, they have expected applause but got hisses instead. What is more, momentum passes to the other side; Antony and Octavius unite with Lepidus in planning a military campaign. When Brutus reappears at the beginning of the quarrel scene, the focus (as Bradley notes) is not on the plot but on "internal changes." Lacking acclaim and facing possible defeat, Brutus feels more sharply than ever the need to set himself apart as the moral guardian of the revolution. To vindicate his own role, Brutus blames Cassius for betraying the ideals of their cause. A similar kind of scape-goating is described in the preceding scene, where Antony plans to use Lepidus as a beast of burden who will carry the opprobrium that rightly belongs to all the triumvirs (IV.i. 19-27). Antony, however, responds to the realistic need for public esteem, whereas Brutus thinks mostly of bolstering his own self-esteem.

Cassius has left himself open to attack. Needing money to pay for his troops, and faced with a local population that "grudg'd contribution" (iii.205), he has accepted bribes when distributing military offices, and has probably extorted money from peasants (iii.73-75). And yet, while Brutus is denouncing these misdeeds, we may wonder whether Cassius is not in the right. He might well retort with the words Antony later offers Octavius: "Why do you cross me in this exigent?" (V.i.19). Cassius did what he must do, if he is to wage war. This point becomes clear when Brutus hurls an additional charge at Cassius: in the same breath in which he condemns Cassius for raising money by "vile means" and boasts of his own unwillingness to employ similar methods, he scolds Cassius for refusing his request for funds (iii.65-82). In thus demanding money from Cassius's soiled hands, Brutus is a pander; his behavior in this scene seems only one example of his common practice. Shakespeare makes the incident particularly damaging because Cassius shows a certain candor and generosity of spirit. Having himself taken bribes, he defends one Lucius Pella for bribe-taking, though to do so he must admit his own wrongdoing and leave himself open to Brutus's immediate attack (1-12). The elementary facts at issue in the quarrel tell against Brutus; he is even more culpable for the manner in which he charges Cassius, as we shall see.

Cassius, like Brutus, is affected by the sudden reverses both have suffered. When he had anticipated victory, he seemed a leader, a man who loved liberty and possessed abundant courage. But now, intimidated by Brutus's moral pose, he cowers before him. Meanwhile, Brutus, giving him no quarter, insists that his own righteousness entitles him to chastise his fellow general. Cassius pleads, "Brutus, bait not me" (28), but Brutus goads him, "Away, slight man!" (37). Brutus seems intent on undermining Cassius's composure and driving him either to violence against Brutus or to humiliating capitulation.

Cassius does not at first know how to counterattack. But after one particularly withering blast (65-82), he gropes toward an effective defense: "A friend should bear his friend's infirmities; / But Brutus makes mine greater than they are" (85-86). Brutus, complacent, misses the significance of these words. "I do not like your faults" (88), he says haughtily. But Cassius, beside himself, makes a histrionic gesture. Taking out his dagger, he offers it to Brutus: "Strike, as thou didst at Caesar; for I know, / When thou didst hate him worst, thou lov'dst him better / Than ever thou lov'dst Cassius" (104-6). This raises the question of whether Brutus is capable of friendship—whether he hates those whom he says he loves. More specifically, the lines point to an extraordinary parallel between Brutus's treatment of Cassius and his earlier treatment of Caesar; one relationship seems to pick up where the other left off. Though the situation is different, and he now wields words, not a dagger, Brutus betrays a destructive instinct.

His response to Cassius is a precise measure of himself. Although clearly troubled by the charge, Brutus admits wrongdoing neither to himself nor to Cassius. Instead, in a volte face intended to portray generosity of spirit, he tells Cassius, "Sheathe your dagger," and promises in the future to indulge Cassius's "rash humour." Grudging though the concession is, Cassius seizes it; the two "bury all unkindness" and drink to their renewed friendship. But they never have displayed real affection. When Cassius spoke of his "love" for Brutus in Act I, he prepared the way to tempt Brutus. At that time, Brutus responded with the highly qualified willingness to "number" Cassius among many "friends" (I.ii.42-43); and we have seen the unconscious use that Brutus had for Cassius. Circumstances draw them together later. Joint leaders in a doubtful enterprise, they nevertheless quarrel. But Cassius is too weak to brook Brutus's displeasure, and Brutus retreats fearing discovery. Up to this point, at least, their behavior toward each other has lacked all the affection they now express in so exaggerated a fashion. Before the play is over, Brutus in a metaphoric sense takes up the dagger Cassius offered him and strikes home.

Brutus sets out to prove that Cassius betrayed the revolution; he ends by hearing Cassius imply that Brutus's own motives were vitiated from the first. The reconciliation between the men serves Brutus's immediate need to obscure the truth of Cassius's remark, but he remains troubled by the accusation. He moves to regain moral authority, explaining his treatment of Cassius as occasioned by his just having heard of Portia's death. Cassius being properly impressed, Brutus seeks to reassert his dominance. On a question of military tactics, Cassius recommends resting the army and waiting for the enemy to approach. Brutus, however, sharply overrules him, insisting that they seek out the foe. For the same reason that Brutus fears in-action, he fears being alone with his thoughts. As soon as Cassius leaves for the night, Brutus asks Lucius to play music and invites two soldiers to sleep in his tent. When Lucius follows the soldiers in falling asleep, Brutus tries to read. But the ghost of Caesar enters, evidence of a troubled conscience (although the ghost also has an objective existence). Brutus is abashed; but when the ghost leaves, he characteristically rallies his confidence and wants it to return so that he can face it down. The ghost, however, does not oblige. On the instant, Brutus sends orders for Cassius to march and apparently makes no further effort to sleep. When Act V opens, battle is imminent; and Cassius, shaken by Brutus's precipitate actions, has developed a morbid fear of death (V.i.77-89). But Brutus, self-absorbed, gives no thought to the effect of his actions on Cassius.

Brutus has almost succeeded in composing himself. He holds his own in the flyting match between the generals, and in replying to Octavius's "I was not born to die on Brutus' sword," he seems almost smug, although his assertiveness betrays the pricking of conscience: "If thou wert the noblest of thy strain, / Young man, thou could'st not die more honourable" (V.i.59-60). Shortly afterwards, Cassius turns to Brutus with his worries about a possible defeat, and Brutus grandly asserts that he himself will never commit suicide. But when Cassius puts before him the concrete image of captivity, Brutus abruptly changes his tune; he says that he bears "too great a mind" to endure such humiliation. No "philosophy" (101) now guides Brutus. Nor is he concerned with anything so practical as military tactics, nor so commendable as his responsibility to subordinates or friends. What he really wants he reveals by his self-conscious effort to contrive a "well made" parting with Cassius: he wants to win glory that will vindicate his part in "that work the ides of March begun" (119, 114). He may gain this glory either in victory or in defeat, though he naturally prefers the former.

Brutus, restless, throws himself into battle prematurely, but fights with determination and prevails against the opposing flank. Cassius meanwhile suffers some reverses and, overcome by "melancholy," sees conditions as worse than they actually are. He wrongly concludes that Titinius, sent out to scout, has been captured. Calling this almost anonymous figure (mentioned only once before, at I.ii.126) his "best friend," whom to survive would be shameful (V.iii.34-35), Cassius falls on a sword held by a servant. He seeks a death that will measure up to Brutus's ideals. Messala prepares us to expect that Brutus will be grief-stricken: but upon discovering the body, Brutus postpones his tears—and the funeral—and quickly resolves, "Let us to the field" (107). Victory eludes him, however, and with defeat imminent, he carefully fashions his own suicide.

Brutus and Cassius die in similar circumstances and by the same method. The two death scenes differ primarily in that Brutus's attempt to vindicate his life is far more elaborate. He speaks to a small group of survivors:

My heart doth joy that yet in all my life
I found no man but he was true to me.
I shall have glory by this losing day
More than Octavius and Mark Antony
By this vile conquest shall attain unto.
                                    (V.v.34-38)

As far as Brutus is concerned, even in defeat he achieved "glory." The victory of Antony and Octavius is merely a "vile conquest." Brutus takes as evidence of his "glory" the loyalty he has received from others. But we know the conspirators merely used him to add respectability to their undertaking. Brutus also implied that the loyalty of followers repaid his own. Yet we have reason to doubt he served others well. Shakespeare carefully plants a reminder of Brutus's treacheries. Among those who have been "true" to him are the men gathered about him now. Their presence comforts him; yet he once denied Caesar this very comfort. The dying Caesar knew that the men around him had not been loyal to him. Still, Brutus believes that by committing suicide he will more than settle his accounts: "Caesar, now be still; / I kill'd not thee with half so good a will" (V.v.49-50). Our response to this passage may be illuminated by T. S. Eliot's analysis of the speech preceding another suicide, Othello's. Eliot, noting that "nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of oneself," finds in Othello's lines a "terrible exposure of human weakness." By "escap[ing] reality," Othello absolves himself of moral responsibility and reasserts his heroic self-image. Whether Eliot is correct about Othello or not, I believe that he describes Brutus exactly.

The victorious army enters to find Brutus dead, whereupon Antony offers a eulogy. I can now return to the question I raised at the outset: what are Antony's real feelings about Brutus? The question is important, for if, at his death, even Brutus's enemy thinks well of him, Shakespeare is guiding the audience to a favorable verdict. If, however, we have reason to doubt Antony's sincerity, then the play ends with an inconclusive judgment. That Antony has hated Brutus from the time of the assassination until this moment there can be no doubt. At Caesar's funeral, Antony singled Brutus out, first ironically praising him as an "honourable man," and then forthrightly accusing him of making "the unkindest cut of all," a remark that perhaps comments on Shakespeare's staging, for in Plutarch Brutus strikes at Caesar's genitals. Antony's anger does not abate, as may be seen from his words to Brutus during the flyting match. Antony's judgment is a firm one, and remains unchanged, but he has acquired a motive that explains the eulogy. When Brutus's general, Lucilius, is captured, Antony orders that he be treated with "kindness": "I had rather have / Such men my friends than enemies" (V.iv.28-29). Octavius adopts Antony's strategy just prior to the eulogy: "All that serv'd Brutus, I will entertain them" (V.v.60). Brutus is a legend in his own time; Antony can do nothing to destroy that legend, and besides, he does not want to. A pragmatist, he uses his great skills as a rhetorician to win Brutus's followers. The audience should therefore hear in Antony's voice the same bitter irony that underlay his ostensible admiration for Brutus throughout the opening movement of his funeral oration.

Brutus is not a "tarnished but good" man. In the real world, many a reputation is undeserved. Brutus may have virtues to offset his faults, but I am not convinced. Critics often cite in his defense his incidental kindnesses. But the solicitude he shows for Lucius, for example, comes when he has dirty work at hand and buys easy points for his conscience. By the same token, his kind words for Portia in the early morning cold seem designed to invite her sympathy for his sleepless night. I also find it hard to believe that Brutus feels deep sorrow at losing Portia; he uses her death for his own advantage, no matter whether the first report of it, or the second, or both, represent Shakespeare's final intentions. Brutus is no more motivated by human warmth than he is by the high ideals he espouses.

Critics have long discussed the difficulty of identifying the focus of Julius Caesar. The problem arises from the controversial nature of Caesar and therefore of the crime against him, and from the presence in the play of four major figures: Brutus, Caesar, Cassius, and Antony. Caesar has special claim on our attention, not only because he is the titular character, but because he is always in people's minds. His dramatic importance actually increases after his death. In retrospect, he appears to have been essential to Rome's political stability; his assassins seem to know this, and they certainly feel guilt about the murder. Conceivably, therefore, the man who is loyal to Caesar and to his memory, Antony, is the play's most sympathetic character. Shakespeare has made the judgment complicated by giving Antony certain flaws. He admits that Caesar's funeral redounds to his own benefit: "Fortune is merry, / And in this mood will give us any thing" (III.iii.268-69). In the next act, Antony, as one among the triumvirs, coolly composes a death list. Critics have held against him not only this deed, but his apparent insouciance when he complies with Lepidus's petulant demand that he add his own nephew to the names of those who will die. On the other hand, he immediately sends Lepidus on an errand and then erupts in a bitter tirade against him.

Antony at least shows to advantage when Brutus denounces Cassius in the scene that follows. Although Brutus's criticisms of Cassius are less justified than Antony's of Lepidus, Brutus assumes a high moral tone, as Antony does not. But if Antony is admirable, it is certainly not because he is without faults. He and Caesar both have faults in abundance, but they are joined together as true friends, just as Cassius and Brutus are joined together as false ones. While the latter pair conspire, the former "converse and waste the time together," as Shakespeare defines friendship elsewhere (MV III.iv. 12). Antony's love of revelry is symbolic, as is Caesar's appreciation of this trait in Antony and his own often jovial good spirits. Antony and Caesar have not lost their humanity, and therefore Caesar cares that Brutus is among the assassins, and Antony cares when Caesar dies. Antony's devotion to Caesar's memory sets a standard beside which the ostentatious avowals of friendship between Cassius and Brutus ring hollow. In Antony and Cleopatra. Antony again feels the pull between love and politics, and love prevails, even more decisively. In Julius Caesar Antony is the most attractive figure—and Brutus the least.

These judgments are corroborated by one of Shakespeare's contemporaries, who apparently saw an early production of the play:

The many-headed multitude were drawne
By Brutus speach, that Caesar was ambitious,
When eloquent Mark Antonie had showne
His vertues, who but Brutus then was vicious?