Brutus

Brutus is the named recipient of the Tusculan Disputations, the intimate whose advice drew Cicero back to philosophy after his withdrawal from the courts and the senate, and whose seriousness as a student of Greek thought makes him a worthy audience for the argument. The tension he embodies is between the contemplative life Cicero is recommending and the political life Brutus cannot abandon. His presence frames the entire book as a conversation between friends about how to face death, which gives the philosophical content its warmth and its urgency.