The Downfall of Brutus

       I agree that Brutus’s downfall was his own doing. Brutus’s downfall did not happen due to a specific event, but a chain of catastrophic incidents and poor decision making that ultimately led to his unfortunate downfall. Brutus himself pulled the triggered for these events to occur,thus I agree that he lead himself to his own demise.

        Firstly, his practice of Stoicism played a pivotal and deadly role in his downfall as it was his fatal flaw. He justified his actions with the belief that Caesar’s death was for the good of Rome  and that reason alone was enough for him to join the conspiracy as his main duty laid with Rome. ‘Not that I loved Caesar less,but that I loved Rome more’. He put aside his personal feelings for Caesar, like what a good stoic should do. According to Jason Lewis Saunders (2019), ‘A stoic is ‘neither is merciful nor shows pity, because each suggests a deviation from duty and from the fated necessity that rules the world’. This lead to him prioritising Rome over his relationship with Caesar, blindsiding him into joining in the discriminate stabbing of Caesar. Had he let his friendship with Caesar get in the way of his judgment, he would have given more thought to whether Caesar would truly turn out to be a tyrant rather than convince himself that he needed to take action. This would have made him more skeptical to the words of Cassius, making him less easy to manipulate. Furthermore,according to Gann (2010), the stoics also believed that ‘physical states are nothing but spirits,because the body is made cohesive by them’ . Brutus believed that he was killing the tyrannical spirit of Caesar, not Caesar the man, viewing the bloody murder as a more sacrificial process rather than a heinous crime. This clouded his judgment as he was not able to see the magnitude of the cruelty behind Caesar getting repeatedly stabbed, as to him, he was not commiting murder, but the purging of an undesirable spirit. ‘We shall be called purgers, not murderers’. Brutus felt that the killing of Caesar is a patriotic and religious rite,not an unjustified murder. This caused him to be unable to see the brutality behind the heinous deed of stabbing him repeatedly, which is something Caesar, despite all his shortcomings, did not deserve. However, he could not escape the guilt behind killing Caesar as he saw his apparition before the battle at Philippi. Caesar’s ghost is a symbolism of conscience as well as his guilt, which haunted him until the very end. His guilt also played a part in his downfall,as it hindered his decision making skills, causing him to make one of his worst judgments. Additionally, stoicism caused him to suppress his emotions of devastation when he received word of Portia’s suicide. ‘With meditating that she must die once,/I have the patience to endure it now’ shows how Brutus brushed aside her death and forced himself to accept it as something inevitable to help deal with the pain.The suppression of his feelings, along with guilt, caused him to err and make the decision to meet Octavian’s army in Phillippi.However Brutus’s downfall could have been prevented if he did not let his practice of stoicism cloud his judgement. Thus, I agree that Brutus’s downfall was his own doing.

       Secondly, one of his fatal flaws was his nobility and idealism.Even though that earned him his respectable reputation, it hindered his ability to determine the true nature of the men around him. Shrewd Cassius was able to exploit his idealism to convince him to join the conspiracy by making it sound like a noble cause to appeal to his honourable nature. That marked the beginning of his downfall, Brutus’s character made it unsuitable for him to partake in such a treacherous expedition. He misjudged the conspirators’ motives behind wanting to kill Caesar. ‘Seek none, conspiracy;’ shows how he thought that if the cause is a noble one, no hiding is required, but the other conspirators are behaving in a secretive and furtive manner as they do not possess the same noble intentions as Brutus. Their main motive wasn’t as altruistic as his, for their reasons stem from hatred, jealousy and bitterness towards Cassar.One of his possible misjudgments was how he scrutinised Caesar. ‘How that might change his nature, there’s the question.’ Even though he was not sure about Caesar’s character, he pronounced Caesar a tyrant. Caesar did not show signs of abusing his power at present making Brutus’s reasoning flawed and illogical. Antony’s hedonistic lifestyle led Brutus to believe he was not a threat and that he ‘can do no more than Caesar’s arm’. The decision to not kill Antony stems from his honourable nature and idealistic mentality that they were ‘sacrificers, not purgers’. He then exacerbated that problem by allowing Mark Antony to speak at Caesar’s funeral . Due to his ideals, he could not fathom the idea that Antony would be able to persuade the crowd as he thought of his actions as righteous. Antony turned out to be the worst threat the conspiracy faced as he was able to turn the mob against the conspirators with his emotion evoking speech, converting the initially hostile crowd to his side. Brutus misjudged the fickleness of the crowd and did not have a good understanding of the mobs’ mentality or which tactic appeals to them. Had Brutus not allowed Antony to speak at the funeral, the crowd would have still been on his side. Thus, I agree that Brutus’s downfall was his own doing as his misjudgment of men was mainly attributed to his idealistic nature and vision of people.

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