[II.68] cautelous: deceitful. The original meaning is 'wary,' 'circumspect.' It is the older English adjective for 'cautious.' "The transition from caution to suspicion, and from suspicion to craft and deceit, is not very abrupt."—Clar. Cf. 'cautel' in Hamlet, I, iii, 5.
[II.69] carrions: carcasses, men as good as dead.
[II.70] The even virtue: the virtue that holds an equable and uniform tenor, always keeping the same high level. Cf. Henry VIII, III, i, 37.
[II.71] insuppressive: not to be suppressed. The active form with the passive sense. Cf. 'unexpressive,' in As You Like It, III, ii, 10.
[II.72] To think: by thinking. The infinitive used gerundively.
[II.73] opinion: reputation. So in The Merchant of Venice, I, i, 91.
[II.74] break with him: broach the matter to him. This bit of dialogue is very charming. Brutus knows full well that Cicero is not the man to take a subordinate position; that if he have anything to do with the enterprise it must be as the leader of it; and that is just what Brutus wants to be himself. Merivale thinks it a great honor to Cicero that the conspirators did not venture to propose the matter to him. In Plutarch, Marcus Brutus, the attitude of the conspirators to Cicero is described thus: "For this cause they durst not acquaint Cicero with their conspiracy, although he was a man whom they loved dearly and trusted best; for they were afraid that he, being a coward by nature, and age also having increased his fear, he would quite turn and alter all their purpose, and quench the heat of their enterprise (the which specially required hot and earnest execution), seeking by persuasion to bring all things to such safety, as there should be no peril."
[II.75] of him: in him. The "appositional genitive." See Abbott, § 172.
[II.76] envy: malice. Commonly so in Shakespeare, as in The Merchant of Venice, IV, i, 10. So 'envious' in the sense of 'malicious' in l. 178.
[II.77] Let's Ff | Let us Theobald.