As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This means if you click on a link and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Historical person
86 BCE–43 BCE
Marcus Junius Brutus was a Roman senator, philosopher and one of the leading assassins of Julius Caesar. Although Caesar had pardoned and promoted him after the civil war, Brutus joined the conspiracy in the belief that dictatorship threatened the republic. After the murder he failed to secure political control of Rome, raised armies in the east and fought Antony and Octavian at Philippi. Defeated in 42 BC, he took his own life.
Brutus is a major character in Colleen McCullough’s The October Horse and Conn Iggulden’s Emperor series, while Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar continues to shape almost every later portrayal. Fiction often presents him as an honourable idealist manipulated by harder men. Other treatments emphasise wealth, provincial exploitation and the contradiction between republican principle and civil war.
In non-fiction, Marcus Junius Brutus is discussed in Appian’s The Civil Wars. Appian’s The Civil Wars approaches the subject through political ambition and government and crime, espionage and covert power.
Series
The Emperor series is a highly fictionalised retelling of Julius Caesar’s life and the violent end of the Roman Republic. It follows Caesar from youth through war, political ascent and conquest, then continues beyond his assassination into the struggle between Octavian, Antony and Caesar’s killers.
All books in this series
The Marius’ Mules series follows Marcus Falerius Fronto and Caesar’s legions from the invasion of Gaul to the destruction of the Roman Republic. Battles recorded in Caesar’s commentaries are viewed through officers and soldiers who must endure the practical cost of his ambition, while conspiracies in Rome steadily…
All books in this series
The Masters of Rome series reconstructs the final century of the Roman Republic from the rise of Gaius Marius in 110 BCE to the settlement that made Octavian Augustus in 27 BCE. Across seven novels, military commands, elections, family alliances, provincial wealth and personal patronage become instruments in…
All books in this series
The Forgotten Legion Chronicles follow the enslaved twins Romulus and Fabiola, the Etruscan seer Tarquinius and the gladiator Brennus during the final decades of the Roman Republic. Their stories stretch from Rome and Gaul to Carrhae, Parthia, Egypt and Asia Minor, intersecting with Crassus, Caesar, Brutus and Mark…
All books in this series
Robert Harris’s Cicero Trilogy reconstructs the final decades of the Roman Republic through Tiro, Cicero’s enslaved secretary and eventual freedman. Imperium follows the advocate’s prosecution of Verres and campaign for the consulship; Lustrum places his consulship inside the Catilinarian crisis; and Dictator carries him through exile, Caesar’s civil…
All books in this series
The Lucius Sestius Mysteries follow the historical Roman senator Lucius Sestius Quirinalis through the destruction of the Republic and the consolidation of Augustus’s principate. Beginning as a young lawyer under Julius Caesar, Forsyth’s Lucius is repeatedly drawn into murder inquiries whose evidence threatens the political settlement of the…
All books in this series
The Mark Antony series presents a biographical saga of the Roman commander from the Catilinarian crisis to his defeat by Octavian. Antony’s youth is shaped by the execution of his stepfather, service under Aulus Gabinius in Judaea and Egypt, and the campaigns in Gaul that bind him to…
All books in this series
The Roma Sub Rosa series follows Gordianus the Finder through the last generation of the Roman Republic. His investigations begin in the aftermath of Sulla’s dictatorship and continue through slave revolt, aristocratic trials, Catiline’s conspiracy, Caesar’s civil war and the assassination of Julius Caesar. The series uses murder…
All books in this series
The Caesar’s Spies series follows Iacomus Artemidorus, code-named Septem, and the intelligence unit operating for Julius Caesar and later Mark Antony. The sequence begins with the attempt to prevent Caesar’s assassination in March 44 BC and continues through the pursuit of the conspirators, the struggle among Antony, Cicero…
All books in this series
Standalone books
Non Fiction
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.
