Marcus Brutus killed Julius Caesar in the name of the Republic, and Shakespeare turned him into the noblest Roman of them all. The real Brutus was a loan shark who charged 48 percent interest, a political opportunist who switched sides repeatedly, and a man whose assassination of Caesar plunged Rome into another civil war.

This episode strips away the literary mythology and examines who Brutus actually was.

• His predatory lending practices in Cyprus and what they reveal about his character
• Why he sided with Pompey, then accepted Caesar’s pardon, then killed him
• The conspiracy and the Ides of March
• His defeat at Philippi and the collapse of the Republican cause