During the last year of Cæsar’s life, Brutus and Cassius were prætors, both of whom had formerly been among the leaders of Pompey’s party. Brutus was a nephew of Cato. Livia, the mother of the latter, had, after the death of her first husband, married Servilius Cæpio; so that Servilia was Cato’s half-sister: Servilia was a profligate woman, unworthy of her son and brother, and she did not even care for the honour of her own daughter. Brutus indeed had very few eminent persons in his family after it had become plebeian. In the first years after the Licinian law, some Junii are to be found in the Fasti; but they are not above mediocrity: at a later period, the family had become truly contemptible. M. Brutus especially disgraced his house: after having carried on the business of an informer (_accusationes factitabat_), and acted a vile part in the time of Marius, he was put to death by Pompey in Gaul. Thus, although indeed no Roman family was so illustrious as to its _gens_, Brutus was by no means one of those who have been raised by great and fortunate circumstances. The training of his youth had, however, much effect upon him: his uncle Cato, whose daughter Porcia he afterwards married,—it is uncertain whether this was still in Cato’s lifetime,—had devoted him from a child to the Stoic philosophy, as if it were a religion. Besides this, he had qualities in which Cato was wanting, who had a certain scrupulosity and puritanism about him. Brutus was free from such qualms as these; he had also a finer and more versatile mind, not only endowed by nature with the happiest gifts, but likewise highly cultivated. Cato was not one of the distinguished orators, which Brutus certainly was; and had the latter lived longer, he would undoubtedly have been one of the first writers of Rome. Cicero had quite a fatherly affection for him; he saw in him a man who, he hoped, would one day become the head and heart of the state.[15] Cæsar’s attention also had been drawn to Brutus whom he had known and loved from a child: it is indeed quite natural that he should have shown fondness for so extraordinary and so amiable a mind; for he had as little of the feeling of envy as Cicero himself. The stories which have gone about of a connexion of a different kind, have been devised by some stupid fellow. Brutus had fought on the side of Pompey at the battle of Pharsalus, and Cæsar immediately afterwards inquired if any one knew what was become of him; on this Brutus wrote to Cæsar, who being quite rejoiced to see that Brutus wished to live, fully trusted him, and gave him the government of Cisalpine Gaul, where he greatly distinguished himself.