as a cry of protest against the imperial system". Similarly, the Forum of Augustus, which included statues of various republican heroes, omitted men such as Cato Uticensis, Cicero, Brutus, and Cassius. The stoic, Seneca the Younger, argued that since Caesar was a good king, Brutus’ fear was unfounded, and that he did not think through the consequences of Caesar's death. Incidentally, Seneca himself was later killed by the last Julio-Claudian, Nero. But by the time that Plutarch was actually writing his Life of Brutus, "the oral and written tradition had been worked over to create a streamlined, and largely positive, narrative of Brutus' motives". Some high imperial writers also admired his rhetorical skills, especially Pliny the Younger and Tacitus, with the latter writing, "in my opinion, Brutus alone among them laid bare the convictions of his heart frankly and ingeniously, with neither ill-will nor spite". Renaissance and early modern views Dante Alighieri's Inferno notably placed Brutus in the lowest circle of Hell for his betrayal of Caesar, where he (along with Cassius and Judas Iscariot) is personally tortured by Satan. Dante's views gave a further theological bent as well: "Brutus, Dante believed, was resisting God's 'historical design'" by killing Caesar, a "quasi-prototype for all contemporary monarchs". The moral acceptance of tyrannicide also changed. Thomas Aquinas, in On the government of princes, while accepting that tyrants should be overthrown under certain circumstances, also argued mild tyrants ought to be tolerated out of fear of unintended consequences. Renaissance writers, however, tended to view him more positively, as "it was Brutus who came to symbolise the tradition of ancient republicanism through the ages". Various men in the renaissance and early modern periods were called or adopted the name Brutus: the pseudonym Stephanus Junius Brutus in 16th century France published a pamphlet Defences against tyrants; the "British Brutus" Algernon Sidney was executed for allegedly plotting against Charles II; the "Florentine Brutus", Lorenzino de' Medici, killed his cousin Duke Alessandro allegedly to free Florence. Of course, also in the early modern period is Shakespeare's depiction of Brutus in Julius Caesar, which depicts him "more of a troubled soul than a public symbol... [and] often sympathetic". Modern views Views of Brutus as a symbol of republicanism have remained through the modern period. For example, the Anti-Federalist Papers in 1787 were written under the pseudonym "Brutus". Similar anti-federalist letters and pamphlets were written by other Roman republican