Yours is a question that has long been debated, and arguments can be made for both characters. For, Caesar and Brutus of "Julius Caesar" both demonstrate hubris, arrogance as a result of his pride or passion; they both make tragic mistakes, or commit harmartia; and they both die as a result of their tragic mistakes,
However, it would seem that Brutus commits his "act of injustice," hamartia, more closely to definition, having killed Caesar through the conviction that a greater good will be served. His act is a criminal one and Brutus is responsible for it throughout the play whereas Caesar is gone by the end of Act III.
Another argument for Brutus as the tragic hero is in the gravity and number of his tragic mistakes.
- His first mistake, of course, is believing that Caesar is too ambitious and
It must be by his death...He would be crowned. III,i,10-12)
- At the same time, Brutus also mistakenly believes that Cassius and the others have the same noble intentions as he. After the assassination, Brutus does not follow the counsel of Cassius who tells him not to let Marc Antony speak, but Brutus believes that his rational argument of his having "loved Rome more" will sustain the crowd against Antony's rhetoric. This error leads to Antony's swaying of the Roman crowd as well as his becoming a military and political opposing force to Brutus and the other conspirators.
- As a result of this grave error,Brutus is responsible for the country's being thrown into civil strife, a condition far worse than Caesar's having been "crowned."
- In his military endeavors against the triumvirate of Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus, Brutus blunders gravely at the battle of Phillippi. Again, he does not listen to Cassius and moves too quickly, his final tragic mistake as this error causes his suicide, a death chosen over being dragged through the streets of Rome as the defeated.
- And, tragically, the resulting reign of the triumvirate becomes far more tyrannical than that of Caesar.
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