Brutus and Cassius commit suicide
By Ellie Zhang
Philippi, March 19 – Just a few days after Caesar’s death, more deaths have followed. The conspirators, Brutus and Cassius, were both killed. Cassius, because of a misunderstanding, asked his servant to kill him, and Brutus, who committed suicide, believed Caesar’s ghost was telling him it was his time to die.
Citizens wreaked havoc throughout the city, trying to look for those who killed Caesar, so the conspirators were driven out of Rome. They then set up camps to prepare for battle.
According to an anonymous source who was present at the scene, while in his tent, Cassius noticed a group of burning tents and a series of advancing troops in the distance, and he instructed Titinius to find out whose troops they were.
The source said Cassius was worried about Titinius, so he sent Pindarus to monitor Titinius’s progress. Pindarus reported back to Cassius, describing Titinius surrounded by unknown men cheering. Upset by the news of what he believed was his best friend’s death, he commanded Pindarus to come back. Cassius gave Pindarus his sword, covered his own face, and demanded that Pindarus kill him. Pindarus accommodated his request and killed Cassius. After killing Cassius, Pindarus ran away from the scene and has not been seen since.
“Caesar, thou art revenged/ Even with the sword that killed thee,” (Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, Act V, scene 3, lines 50-51) was Cassius’s last remark. When Titinius found out about the news, he mourned over Cassius’s body. Apparently distraught, he stabbed himself and died.
Following Cassius’s death, the battle still raged on. When Brutus’s last few remaining men urged him to run, he declined and told them he would catch up with them. He soon asked Strato to stay behind and hold his sword so that he could die honorably. Impaling himself on the sword, Brutus declared, “Caesar, now be still/ I killed not thee with half so good a will” (Act V, scene 5, lines 56-57).
According to a source who was close to Brutus, Brutus admitted seeing the Ghost of Caesar appear on the battlefield and believed that it was his time to die.
Dardanius, one of the remaining men at the scene, told us that once when they were all resting, Brutus secretly asked him to hold his sword so that he could run against it and kill himself.
Amid alarms signaling the rout of Brutus’s army, Octavius, Messala, Antony, Lucilius, and others entered and came upon Strato with Brutus’s body. “This was the noblest Roman of them all,” (Act V, scene 5, line 74) declared Antony. He believed all of the other conspirators attacked Caesar because of personal envy, but that Brutus alone believed it was for the good of Rome. Octavius agreed to an appropriate funeral for Brutus to honor him and gave orders to end the battle.
The end of the battle was consequently due to the death of two “noble” men and many other memorable people, but for now it has ceased most of the violence and destruction in Rome.