Marcus Junius Brutus

Marcus Junius Brutus (about 85 BC to 42 BC) was a Roman politician and orator best known as the most prominent of the assassins of Julius Caesar. Adopted by a relative, he was legally named Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, though he is usually called simply Brutus. He first opposed Pompey, who had been responsible for his father's death, but sided with Pompey against Caesar in the civil war and was pardoned by Caesar after the defeat at Pharsalus in 48 BC. Alarmed by Caesar's increasingly monarchical behavior, he took a leading role in the conspiracy that killed Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BC. The conspirators then lost the political struggle with Octavian and Mark Antony, and Brutus took his own life after the two battles of Philippi in October 42 BC. His name became a byword for betrayal, yet he has also been praised as a republican who resisted tyranny.