names such as Cato and Poplicola. Conyers Middleton and Edward Gibbon, writing in the late 18th century, had negative views. Middleton believed Brutus' vacillations in correspondence with Cicero betrayed his claims to philosophical consistency. Gibbon conceived of Brutus' actions in terms of their results: the destruction of the republic, civil war, death, and future tyranny. More teleological views of Brutus' actions are viewed sceptically by historians today: Ronald Syme, for example, pointed out "to judge Brutus because he failed is simply to judge from the results". The influential History of Rome by Theodor Mommsen in the late 19th century "cast a damning verdict on Brutus" by ending with Caesar's reforms in 46 BC, along with advancing a view that Caesar "had some sort of solution to the problem of how to deal with Rome's growing empire" (of which there is no surviving description). Similarly, views of Brutus are also bound up with assessment of the republic: those who believe the republic was not worth saving or in an inevitable decline, views perhaps coloured by hindsight, view him more negatively. There remains little consensus or finality on Brutus' actions as a whole. In popular culture In Jonathan Swift's 1726 satire Gulliver's Travels, Gulliver arrives at the island of Glubbdubdrib and is invited by a sorcerer to visit with several historical figures brought back from the dead. Among them, Caesar and Brutus are evoked, and Caesar confesses that all his glory doesn't equal the glory Brutus gained by murdering him. In the Masters of Rome novels of Colleen McCullough, Brutus is portrayed as a timid intellectual whose relationship with Caesar is deeply complex. He resents Caesar for breaking his marriage arrangement with Caesar's daughter, Julia, whom Brutus deeply loved so that she could be married instead to Pompey the Great. However, Brutus enjoys Caesar's favor after he receives a pardon for fighting with Republican forces against Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalus. In the lead-up to the Ides of March, Cassius and Trebonius use him as a figurehead because of his family connections to the founder of the Republic. He appears in Fortune's Favourites, Caesar's Women, Caesar and The October Horse. Brutus is an occasional supporting character in Asterix comics, most notably Asterix and Son in which he is the main antagonist. The character appears in the first three live Asterix film adaptations – though briefly in the first two – Asterix