Julius Caesar

In Julius Caesar, Brutus dies by suicide after his army is defeated by Antony and Octavius at the Battle of Philippi. Exhausted and on the run, Brutus becomes convinced that his death is both inevitable and deserved. Caesar’s ghost has appeared to him twice, and before killing himself he tells Volumnius that he knows his time has come. His companions refuse to help him die, but Strato finally agrees to hold Brutus’s sword while Brutus runs onto it himself.

Brutus’s last words connect his death directly to Caesar’s murder: “Caesar, now rest. I killed you half as willingly as I kill myself.” He believes his suicide is a form of justice for taking part in the assassination. Earlier in the play, Brutus had claimed that his motives were honorable and based on the “common good” of Rome, but by the end he sees that the conspiracy has led to civil war, death, and the destruction of the Republic he hoped to protect.

After Brutus dies, Antony honors him above all the other conspirators. Antony says, “This was the noblest Roman of them all,” because Brutus alone acted “in a general honest thought, / And common good to all.” Antony believes the other conspirators were motivated by envy of Caesar, while Brutus sincerely believed he was saving Rome. Octavius then orders that Brutus receive an honorable burial.

Brutus’s death completes the tragedy of a man destroyed by his own ideals. His loyalty to honor, reason, and Rome leads him to betray Caesar, misjudge Antony, lose the war, and finally judge himself worthy of death.