The Philosophical Issues of Shakespeare's Brutus

Brutus is best positioned to play that role, because of his upright character and also his personal admiration for Caesar as a man. As several scholars have noted, there are strong clues that Brutus is meant to be a stoic. While Portia is still alive, we see him struggling to reconcile his love for her with his need to keep the conspiracy secret. His affection for Caesar himself makes it hard for him to act on behalf of the Republic. More like Hamlet than like Epictetus, he says after a sleepless and fretful night,. Between the acting of a dreadful thing and the first motion, all the interim is like a phantasm or a hideous dream.