My essay question is “Why does Brutus not want to swear an oath of elegance.”
I believe the answer of this question to be that Brutus does not want to swear an oath because he likes to think himself of a nobler person in the roman society. As a consequence of this all the power that that gives him goes to his head, which in time makes him feel like he is the best around and everyone should follow him. As a consequence in act 2 scene 1 he tries to act like the leader of the conspiracy despite being the newest member, he does this by disagreeing and shutting down all suggestions that people ask (despite most of them being good suggestions). These also eventually come back to haunt him. Such as when he chose not to kill Antony because he thought he was noting without Caesar.
I think that Brutus does not want the conspirators to swear an oath of allegiance, because as i said earlier, he likes to think of himself being better and nobler than the rest of the conspirators and he is not just part of the gang, but if he takes the oath he will be lowering himself to their level. He might also want to think that they do not need an oath to stay true to their word that they will kill Caesar for the good of Rome. Also if they don’t have the motives to do it whats the point, he says that in act 2,1 “If these be motives weak, break off betimes.” he might also be disagreeing because it was Cassius who suggested an oath and Cassius is currently the leader of the conspiracy however Brutus want to be so to show that he purposefully disagrees with all of Cassius’s propositions, such as keeping Anthony alive even though it was a bad decision. “For Antony is but a limb of Caesar.” Brutus says this when he just joined the conspirators and they were discussing things such as taking an oath, letting Anthony join, etc.
I also have some quotes directly from the play to back up my reasoning, one of which is “Not that I love Caesar less but that I loved Rome more.” This is basically saying that Brutus did not kill caesar out of hatred or anger, but instead out of his nobility and loyalty to the city of Rome, suggesting that he would do nearly anything for the city, even killing his best friend, Caesar. I think that he makes this out to be ambition as a way of hiding his true intentions.
Other people may have a different thoughts on this matter though, and I take them into account, such as the people who may think that swearing an oath makes their intentions of killing Caesar look evil and not for the good of the people because by swearing an oath it makes it seem like they don’t want to do it but have to out of duty, which is partially true but not completely because they all as far as we know, still wanted to do it and weren’t being forced or pressured into it.
Some people may also say that Brutus is not the honourable man that people make him out to be. They say this because Caesar had been one of his closest friends for a long time and instead of tutus talking to him about his concerns and worries that he is getting too ambitious, he just kills him. So how can you be a noble man if your best friend and the person who you are most loyal to (loyalty being a big part of nobility) you kill without a second thought, so Brutus is less of a noble man and more of s stone cold killer who takes no one else into account and tries to protect himself by saying it was his ‘duty’ to Rome that made him.
My final thoughts on this topic are that Brutus is not the noble man that everyone makes him out to be and it is because of this that he tries to manipulate the conspirators so that he is the leader, as i said earlier, he does this by disagreeing with everyones points and making himself heard so everyone listens to him and is to scared to speak up against him as he is the so called ‘noblest man in rome’
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