Of course, Plutarch was not content to show this impressive feat of female power without later counterbalancing it with “evidence” of the fragility of the female mind. We are told that on the Ides of March, Porcia nearly went out of her mind as she waited for word of events. Did her husband succeed? Had he been caught? Was no news good news? Did she need to flee?
“Porcia,” Plutarch writes, “being distressed about what was impending and unable to bear the weight of her anxiety could with difficulty keep to herself at home, and at every noise or cry, like women in Bacchic frenzy, she would rush forth and ask every messenger who came in from the forum how Brutus was faring, and kept sending out others continually.” He writes that she eventually fainted and rumor reached Brutus that she had died, but that with great strength, Brutus resisted rushing home and executed the violent deed to which they were both so committed.
Shakespeare, drawing on Plutarch and centuries of sexism, seems to think that Porcia is mentally strong but physically weak:
I have a man’s mind, but a woman’s might.
How hard it is for women to keep counsel!
It seems unlikely that the same woman who could hide a gushing leg wound, who had stoically endured so much loss and uncertainty in her life, would be unable to control her anxiety for a few hours. After all, Brutus was more trusting of his wife’s ability to keep the secret than he and his conspirators were of Cicero, whom they kept in the dark because of his high-strung nature. But this is what the men who have written our history would have us believe.
In any case, the lessons stands: Deciding on a bold deed takes courage, but the execution matters too. Porcia and her husband would need to add patience and wisdom to the equation as well, for nothing racks the nerves quite like the moments, as Shakespeare would say, between decision and action.
The senators, led by Brutus, descended on Caesar with a savagery that surprised both their victim and themselves. Brutus’s blows landed in Caesar’s thigh and in his groin, another senator stabbed him in the face, another still in the ribs. Several senators wounded themselves in the frenzy, and Brutus himself was struck in the hand. Where was this violence when Cato needed it? When Caesar could have been stopped before he started?
And then, like a fit, the passion subsided and the deed was done. Brutus calmed his conspirators down quickly. No one else was to be killed, not even Caesar’s most prominent supporter, Mark Antony. This seems noble, but it turned out to be a fatal error.
During the Catiline conspiracy, Cicero’s wife urged him to execute his enemies, to destroy the cancer before it spread. We’re told that Brutus, abhorring violence, was reluctant to shed any more blood. Porcia could have reminded him that deeds cannot be only half done—that sometimes mercy to the undeserving is a grave injustice to everyone else. Or perhaps she did and he refused to listen.
This restraint would prove to be the undoing of them and their cause.
As Caesar lay dead, civil war—led by Antony—returned to Rome. It must have been traumatic for Porcia to be experiencing this yet again, particularly since the last one had stolen from her both her husband and her father, as well as countless friends. Parting ways with Brutus, who had to flee to begin what would be the fight of his life, a friend quoted from the famous parting of Hector and his wife in the Trojan War. Brutus in turn quoted from the Odyssey in a way that reveals not just his love for his wife, but also his abiding belief that she was an equal to him in philosophical determination and courage. “But I, certainly, have no mind to address Porcia in the words of Hector,” he said. “‘Ply loom and distaff and give orders to thy maids,’ for though her body is not strong enough to perform such heroic tasks as men do, still, in spirit she is valiant in defence of her country, just as we are.”
Neither of their heroic efforts could stem the tide of history. Perhaps, had her father survived, his superior generalship could have been decisive. Or if Cicero had not vacillated again or danced with Octavian, his help might have saved the Republic for another generation of Catos. But it was not to be.
We have conflicting sources as to whether Porcia died before Brutus or Brutus before Porcia. Plutarch tells us that when Brutus’s ashes were sent home to his mother, Servilia, Porcia resolved to depart from this earth, following the example of her father. Her attendants kept close watch over her, trying to prevent another Cato from suicide. But this was not a family easily stopped from doing what it believed was necessary. When her servants turned their backs, Porcia rushed to a fireplace, picked up glowing red coals, and quickly swallowed them, dying quite literally as the fire-eating lover of freedom her father had raised her to be. Other sources claim she died of illness before Brutus’s death at the second battle of Philippi, while others still that it was illness and loneliness that drove her to suicide.
It would seem that Brutus was aware of his wife’s loss, as there is a letter from Cicero in 43 BC consoling him about it. “You have suffered indeed a great loss (for you have lost that which had not left its fellow on earth),” he wrote, “and must be allowed to grieve under so cruel a blow, lest to want all sense of grief should be thought more wretched than grief itself: but do it with moderation, which is both useful to others and necessary to yourself.”
Cicero’s admonition to be stoic about Porcia’s death is touching considering how wrecked he had been by the death of his daughter, Tullia, in 45 BC. It raises the eternal question of how one ought to respond to the loss of someone they love dearly. Can a philosopher shrug off this pain, like they might a wound in the thigh? Is indifference to grief actually possible? Is it perfectly understandable that such a loss might finally crack the hard exterior of the Stoic, the way it nearly had for Cato when he lost his brother, and when Marcus Aurelius would weep over the loss of his beloved tutor?
Shakespeare, always the astute observer of the human experience, explores this tension, having made his character Brutus a stand-in for all that he believed a Stoic philosopher was supposed to represent.
“I am sick of many griefs,” Brutus tells a contentious ally, Cassius, who attempts to remind him of what the Stoics believed about accepting what was outside our control. “No man bears sorrow better,” Brutus tells him with flat affect. “Portia is dead.”
So is this Stoicism? A man who can spit out those painful words without flinching? My wife is dead, and then get on with a discussion about the upcoming battle? Perhaps.
But Brutus was no Porcia, who had always been all action and no talk. He had a flair for the theatric; he desired to be credited for those virtues that he made sure were conspicuous.
So when, a few minutes later, a messenger named Messala appears with news, Brutus sees an opportunity to perform for history. The word comes that Cicero is dead and a hundred senators have been executed. Have you heard from your wife? the messenger asks. Brutus replies that he hasn’t. Have you heard anything at all? he asks. Again, Brutus pretends he does not know. “Tell me true,” Brutus demands. So prompted, the messenger informs him that Porcia has died.
And then, whether for the sake of his reputation or to inspire others with his Stoic example, we get this:
BRUTUS
Why, farewell, Portia. We must die, Messala.
With meditating that she must die once,
I have the patience to endure it now.
MESSALA
Even so great men great losses should endure.
CASSIUS
I have as much of this in art as you,
But yet my nature could not bear it so.
BRUTUS
Well, to our work alive. What do you think
Of marching to Philippi presently?
Though Porcia departed from this earth as the Republic died its final death, she would live on as a powerful symbol of resistance for men and women forever. She had lived as her father and the Stoics had taught: We must do what needs to be done. We must not waver. We cannot be afraid.