In an effort to correct the overidealization of Brutus, recent criticism has tended to obscure the distinctions between Brutus and his fellow Romans. Yet, Shakespeare was at some pains to depict him as the noblest Roman of them all. That is not to say he was flawless: the noblest pagan was still pagan, and as such was guided only by the light of Reason and tempted to trust in himself. If contemporary prose treatises are any key to Elizabethan attitudes toward ancient philosophy, Shakespeare's audience regarded the Stoic with ambivalence: they admired his constancy, purity of motive, and pursuit of virtue; yet they distrusted his pride, his self-sufficiency, and his hardness. By contrasting Brutus with Cassius and Caesar, Shakespeare has shown him as possessing the best of the Stoic characteristics commingled with touches of Christian compassion and ordinary human weakness. The elements are seen to be so mixed in him that one must say of him with both pride and humility: This was a man.