Decimus Brutus

Also known as: Brutus / D. Brutus · Family: Roman · Role: commander of the fleet · First appears: The Gallic War, Book III, 8–13

In Book III of the Gallic War, Caesar appointed Decimus Brutus, “a young man,” to command the fleet and ordered him to proceed against the Veneti. In Book VII, Caesar placed Brutus in command of the forces he left behind. In Book I of the Civil War, Caesar put ships built at Arelas under Brutus’s command at Massilia.

There, Brutus’s fleet defeated the Massilians, taking or sinking ships and driving the rest into harbour. In Book II, at Taurois, his fleet fought the Massilian ships and those of Lucius Nasidius; Brutus escaped an attack by two galleys, which collided and were sunk. A few days before Massilia’s surrender, Lucius Domitius put out to sea, pursued by ships cruising under Brutus’s orders.