Green’s Dictionary of Slang

brutus n.

[SE brute ‘Latinized’ by sfx -us]

(US campus) a mean, ugly person.

[US]Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 1: brutus – very mean, ugly person.
[US]Eble Sl. and Sociability 46: Brutus is ‘a mean, ugly person’. Clearly it is related to brute ‘animal’ but why is the form brutus rather than bruto or brutage? Possibly the allusion is to the treacherous assassin of Julius Caesar or to the stereotypical use of brutus as the name for a mean, ugly dog.