Note 580 — LIFE OF BRUTUS. (continued 2)

Plutarch here evidently doubts the genuineness of the letter attributed to Brutus. The life of Brutus offered good materials for the falsifiers of history, who worked with them after rhetorical fashion. There are a few letters in the collection of Cicero which are genuine, but the single book of letters to Brutus (M. Tullii Ciceronis Epistolorum ad Brutum Liber Singularis) is condemned as a forgery by the best critics. It contains letters of Cicero to Brutus, and of Brutus to Cicero; and a letter of Brutus to Atticus. Genuine letters of Brutus, written day by day, like those of Cicero, would have formed the best materials from which we might judge him.