HKB
Decimus Junius Brutus, belonging to the family of the Junii, was son of Decimus Junius Brutus, elected consul in the year 677, and of Sempronia, who performed so celebrated a part in Catiline’s conspiracy. He was adopted by A. Postumius Albinus, consul in 655, and took, for this reason, the surname of Albinus, by which we find him sometimes designated. When Cæsar took him into Gaul, he was still very young; the “Commentaries” apply to him the epithet adolescens. He must have returned to Rome in January, 704, since a letter of Cicero mentions his presence there at that period. (Epist. Familiar., VIII. 7.) The year following he commanded Cæsar’s fleet before Marseilles. (Cæsar, De Bello Civili, I. 36.--Dio Cassius, XLI. 19.) He gained, although with unequal forces, a naval victory over L. Domitius. (Cæsar, De Bello Civili, II. 5.) Having received from Cæsar, in 706, the government of Transalpine Gaul, he repressed, in 708, an insurrection of the Bellovaci. (Titos Livius, Epitome, CXIV.) An object of the special favours of his old general, who felt for him a warm affection, D. Brutus, along with Antony and Octavius, was associated in the triumph which Cæsar celebrated in 709, on his return from Spain, and mounted with them on the car. (Plutarch, Antony, 13.) By his will of the Ides of September, the Dictator named him one of the guardians of Octavius, and made him one of his second heirs (Dio Cassius, XLIV. 35.--Appian, Civil Wars, II, 143.--Suetonius, Cæsar, 83); he caused to be given him, for the year 712, the government of Cisalpine Gaul. In spite of this friendship, of which Cæsar had given him so many proofs, and which the latter believed to be paid by a requital, Brutus, who had remained faithful to his benefactor in the civil war, lent his ear to the proposals of the conspirators, and yielded to the seductions of M. Brutus, his kinsman. He not only went to the Senate to assist in striking the victim, but he accepted the mission of going to persuade the Dictator, who was hesitating, to repair to the curia. (Dio Cassius, XLIV. 14, 18.--Appian, Civil Wars, II. 115.--Plutarch, Cæsar, 70.) Exposed to public hatred (Cicero, Philippic., X. 7), and intimidated by the threats of Antony, he left Rome to go and take possession of the province which Cæsar had caused to be assigned to him. (Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, XIV. 13.)