Men and women alike of
all walks of life are pretty familiar with the name Julius Caesar, but very
few, perhaps only historians make mention of Brutus. And perhaps preachers too,
especially whenever they talked about the Judas-Jesus betrayal story;
Brutus-Caesar analogy is usually ad rem.
Mark Antony calls Brutus, and even claims it is known to the whole of Rome,
Caesar’s angel, and it became so disheartening that on the event of the murder
of Caesar by the conspirators in the Roman Capitol on the Ides of March, it was
Brutus’ own dagger that actually saw Caesar dead, amidst his utterance of the
much quoted Et tu Brute – And you Brutus. That was a sigh of
betrayal.
However, Brutus was an
honorable man, and so honorable that his very own eyes reflected a fine soul
that was admired and wanted by Caesar and much talked about by Cassius. It is
important, at this juncture, to correct the long held erroneous impression that
Brutus betrayed Caesar. This position could be contentious, but if one goes
through the Shakespearean piece, Julius
Caesar, as much as I have, then one could agree with me that Brutus had no
dint of envy for his friend Caesar. On Brutus’ death, and his lifeless body
having been brought to the tent of Octavius and Mark Antony, both recognized
and spoke of his honor. While Octavius swore that he deserved as much befitting
burial as he would himself, Antony had this to say of him: This was the noblest Roman of them all. All the conspirators save only
he did that they did in envy of great Caesar…his life was gentle and the
elements so mix in him that nature might stand up and say to all the world:
This was a man.
The vice on trial here
was that of bad company. His keeping company with the vicious and ill
ambitioned Cassius was his very undoing, even as he remained an honorable man
all through the episode until his death. In fact, methinks that the
conspirators, led by Cassius, took advantage of his virtue to reaching the
hearts and minds of their countrymen, Romans. This is evidenced by the fact
that it was he who was selected to make a speech before the people in
justification of the murder of Caesar, but finished up badly with the request
that Mark Antony spoke about Caesar on his honor; Antony’s eulogy led them to
mutiny. Brutus’ testament of Caesar was simple: In friendship I loved him, in victory I honored him, but in ambition I
slew him. But thinking Caesar ambitious wasn’t his idea; it was Cassius’.
On his solemn entrance
to Rome after the defeat of Pompey, Caesar had, on seeing Cassius from a
distance, warned Mark Antony to beware of Cassius and men like him for the
reason that he thinks too much and was capable of great harm. Although Antony
took the warning with a pinch of salt, what Caesar feared in Cassius for Antony
was made manifest in his angel, Brutus. Filled and overflowing with envy for
Caesar and ambitious for power, Cassius steered up hate for Caesar in Brutus.
He made him find in his lovely friend an enemy of the very much loved Roman
Republic, for whom no threat ought to be spared. Cassius had suggested to him
that Caesar was no nobler than they were, and that even the name Brutus
outweighed the name Caesar on the scales in meaning and content. He even asked,
“Upon what meat does this our Caesar feed that he is grown so great?” He
further cited that once, as growing boys, he had saved Caesar from drowning,
and the other time in Spain Titinius had helped him recover from an epileptic
seizure, and that a mere man like Caesar ought not become a god while they
remained ordinary citizens of Rome. And for all worth not reasons Cassius was
dishing out, Brutus only joined the conspiracy because he feared that Caesar
was steering the course of the great destiny of Rome to an uncertain direction
– and forgot everything he’s loved Caesar for.
I believe that even
Caesar understood that it wasn’t all Brutus’ fault. This believe leans against
the backdrop that Caesar had appeared to Brutus on the night before Brutus’
death, and a couple of times before then, notifying him of his waiting for him
at Philippi, the ground for the last battle to rage between Cassius and Brutus’
army and Octavius and Antony’s camp. And there was apparently no grin on Caesar’s
face when he did appear.
Now, what caliber of
people do you have on your company? Do you have the likes of Cassius there? Do
you have on board those that have made you hate what you used to love for the
wrong reasons? Do you smell envy and inordinate ambition in some of them? Check
them out, all of them, one after another, how better have you become having
them around – how virtuous or vicious? If your answers to those questions tend
towards the negative on some members of your company, then letting them go is a
sacred duty. Just let them go, and get used to not having them around
afterwards so that things don’t get as bad as Brutus stabbing Caesar for
induced reasons.
No doubt, you could be
an honorable fellow, but you also become a murderer, a conspirator, or
whatever, after you have been led into something your righteous mind couldn’t
have conceived. And you can trust that the memories that go with such
involvements are really traumatizing. It’s your call.
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