Brutus

Servilia, the mother of Brutus, was a sister of Cato the philosopher, and Brutus had a higher esteem for him than for any other Roman, Cato being his uncle and afterwards becoming his father-in-law.

There was practically no Greek philosopher with whom Brutus was unacquainted or unfamiliar, but he devoted himself particularly to the disciples of Plato.

To the New and Middle Academy, as they are called, he was not very partial, but clung to the Old. He was therefore always an admirer of Antiochus of Ascalon, whose brother Aristus he had made his friend and housemate, a man who in learning was inferior to many philosophers, but who in good sense and gentleness vied with the foremost.

Empylus also, who is often mentioned by Brutus himself in his letters, and also by his friends, as a housemate of his, was a rhetorician, and has left a brief but excellent account of the assassination of Caesar, entitled Brutus.

In Latin, now, Brutus was sufficiently trained for narrative or pleading; but in Greek he affected the brevity of the apophthegm and the Spartan, of which he sometimes gives a striking example in his letters

For instance, when he had already embarked upon the war, he wrote to the Pergamenians: I hear that ye have given money to Dolabella; if ye gave it willingly confess that ye have wronged me; if unwillingly, prove it by giving willingly to me.

Again, to the Samians: Your counsels are paltry, your subsidies slow; what, think ye, will be the end of this?

And in another letter: The Xanthians ignored my benefactions, and have made their country a grave for their madness; but the Patareans entrusted themselves to me, and now enjoy their freedom in all its fullness. It is in your power also to choose the decision of the Patareans or the fate of the Xanthians. Such, then, is the style of his remarkable letters.