Brutus' Motives

Throughout life, people are faced with many choices, some easier than normal. All decisions follow the same pattern, you choose one. This holds true if you are buying a car, picking a spouse, flipping through the channels, or simply deciding what to wear. Some circumstances, however, call for a much deeper thought process. One decision that would be particularly hard to make is if a person should be killed for something they might do. In “The Soldier’s Dilemma,” a soldier, Dillon, had to decide whether he should kill a woman for what she might do, or let her live and put the other soldiers’ lives at risk. I believe that if a country or other people’s lives are at risk, then the person who is possibly a threat should be stopped.
In Julius Caesar, Brutus and the other conspirators killed Caesar because they thought he was ambitious and he was a threat to Rome. Though it may seem harsh, Caesar would not have graciously given up on being king. If he was not killed, Rome could have been ruined a long with everyone living there. In my opinion, Brutus was justified for murdering Caesar. He knew what was best for Rome and he was trying to protect the people and the country he loved. Had he not agreed to the conspiracy, he would have been going against his beliefs and felt he would let everyone down. It is important to stand up for what you believe in and in this case it was believed that Caesar needed to be stopped before any harm was brought to other people. In act 3, scene 2, Brutus said “Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.” With this, he was saying that although Caesar and he were good friends, it was to the best of Rome’s interest that Caesar was killed. Brutus was a man of reason. He would not do anything harmful without a good motive. What he did was pure and incorruptible by looking out for the people he cared for. He had no other way to protect Rome than killing Caesar. He believed, "Think him as a serpent's egg, which, hatched, would, as