The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

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1. ACT I.

   Rome celebrates Caesar's victory over the sons of his rival Pompey. The tribunes resent it, and Cassius begins quietly building a conspiracy, working above all to win the respected Brutus to the cause. Strange portents trouble the night.

   1. Scene 1 — Rome. A street.

      The tribunes Flavius and Marullus drive the celebrating commoners off the streets and strip the festival decorations from Caesar's statues, uneasy at how fast the crowd's love has shifted from Pompey to Caesar.

   2. Scene 2 — The same. A public place.

      At the feast of Lupercal a Soothsayer warns Caesar to 'beware the ides of March.' Cassius sounds out Brutus, arguing that Caesar has grown dangerously god-like, while Casca describes Caesar publicly refusing a crown three times and then fainting.

   3. Scene 3 — The same. A street.

      A night of supernatural portents shakes Rome. Casca and Cassius read the storm as a warning about Caesar; Cassius gathers the conspirators and plans to forge letters that will commit Brutus to the plot.

2. ACT II.

   Brutus, alone in his orchard, talks himself into the murder and takes charge of the conspiracy, overruling Cassius on its conduct. Despite his wife's pleas, omens, and his own wife Calpurnia's terror, Caesar is flattered into going to the Senate.

   1. Scene 1 — Rome. BRUTUS'S orchard.

      Brutus resolves that Caesar must die before he can abuse power. The conspirators meet at his house; he persuades them to swear no oath and to spare Antony. Portia begs to be trusted with his secret.

   2. Scene 2 — A room in Caesar's palace.

      Frightened by Calpurnia's dream of his statue running blood, Caesar decides to stay home — until Decius reinterprets the dream as a sign of Rome's renewal and shames him with the prospect of the crown.

   3. Scene 3 — A street near the Capitol.

      Artemidorus reads aloud the letter naming the conspirators that he hopes to hand Caesar in the street.

   4. Scene 4 — Another part of the same street, before the house of Brutus.

      Portia, frantic with the secret she now shares, sends young Lucius toward the Capitol, while the Soothsayer waits to make one last attempt to warn Caesar.

3. ACT III.

   Caesar is assassinated at the Capitol. Antony, pretending reconciliation, secures permission to speak at the funeral and uses it to turn the people against the conspirators, plunging Rome into chaos.

   1. Scene 1 — Rome. Before the Capitol; the Senate sitting.

      At the Capitol the conspirators surround Caesar over Metellus's petition and stab him; he dies recognizing Brutus ('Et tu, Brute?'). Antony shakes their bloody hands, then, alone over the body, vows to 'cry havoc' and let slip the dogs of war.

   2. Scene 2 — The same. The Forum.

      In the Forum Brutus explains the murder and wins the crowd; then Antony's oration ('Friends, Romans, countrymen'), the sight of Caesar's wounds, and the reading of his will turn the people to mutiny against the assassins.

   3. Scene 3 — The same. A street.

      The inflamed mob seizes Cinna the poet and tears him apart simply for sharing a conspirator's name.

4. ACT IV.

   Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus divide power and mark out enemies to be killed. In the camp near Sardis, Brutus and Cassius quarrel bitterly and reconcile; Brutus reveals Portia is dead, and the Ghost of Caesar appears to him.

   1. Scene 1 — Rome. A room in Antony's house.

      The new Triumvirate coldly checks off the names of those who must die, and Antony dismisses Lepidus as a mere errand-runner while planning the war against Brutus and Cassius.

   2. Scene 2 — Before Brutus' tent, in the camp near Sardis.

      At the camp near Sardis, Brutus greets a noticeably cooler Cassius and draws him aside to air their grievances in private.

   3. Scene 3 — within the tent of Brutus.

      Brutus and Cassius quarrel furiously, then reconcile. Brutus reveals Portia has killed herself, and the two agree to march to Philippi. That night the Ghost of Caesar appears, promising to meet Brutus on the battlefield.

5. ACT V.

   The armies meet on the plains of Philippi. Through misjudgment and bad news, Cassius and then Brutus take their own lives in the Roman fashion, and Antony and Octavius are left masters of Rome.

   1. Scene 1 — The plains of Philippi.

      Before the battle the leaders trade insults across the field. Cassius, on his birthday and newly fearful of omens, exchanges solemn farewells with Brutus in case they never meet again.

   2. Scene 2 — The same. The field of battle.

      Sensing weakness in Octavius's wing, Brutus sends Messala with orders for a sudden attack.

   3. Scene 3 — Another part of the field.

      Wrongly told that Titinius has been captured, Cassius has his bondman Pindarus kill him with the same sword that struck Caesar. Titinius, returning crowned with victory, finds Cassius dead and kills himself beside him.

   4. Scene 4 — Another part of the field.

      In the thick of battle Young Cato is killed proclaiming his name, and Lucilius, pretending to be Brutus, is captured and spared by an admiring Antony.

   5. Scene 5 — Another part of the field.

      His cause lost, Brutus asks his friends to hold his sword and at last runs upon it with Strato's help. Antony pronounces him 'the noblest Roman of them all,' and Octavius orders him buried with honor.

Characters

• Marcus Brutus protagonist

  A respected senator, Stoic philosopher, and friend of Caesar, descended from the Brutus who expelled Rome's last king. Persuaded that Caesar's ambition endangers the Republic, he joins the conspiracy and strikes the man he loves for the sake of an idea, then watches his cause unravel.

• Caius Cassius deuteragonist

  The lean, sharp-eyed senator who first organizes the conspiracy and recruits Brutus to lend it honor. Shrewd at reading other men's motives, he repeatedly defers to Brutus's worse judgment, and dies at Philippi on a misreading of the battle.

• Julius Caesar major

  Rome's most powerful man, home in triumph and publicly offered a crown he three times refuses. Proud, superstitious yet dismissive of the omens that surround him, he is assassinated at the Capitol; his spirit then haunts the play and the conspirators to the end.

• Mark Antony major

  Caesar's devoted friend, athlete, and a brilliant, unscrupulous orator. After the murder he secures safe conduct, then turns the Roman crowd against the conspirators with his funeral oration over Caesar's body, and joins the Triumvirate that destroys them.

• Octavius Caesar supporting

  Caesar's young great-nephew and named heir, who arrives in Rome to claim his place. Cold, composed, and quietly assertive, he forms the Second Triumvirate with Antony and Lepidus and shares command of the victorious army at Philippi.

• Lepidus minor

  The third member of the ruling Triumvirate, used by Antony to mark off the men to be killed in the proscriptions. Antony dismisses him to Octavius as a 'slight, unmeritable man, meet to be sent on errands.'

• Casca supporting

  A blunt, sardonic senator who gives the sour eyewitness account of Caesar refusing the crown and of Cicero speaking Greek. Unnerved by the night's prodigies, he strikes the first blow against Caesar.

• Decius Brutus minor

  The conspirator who promises he can flatter Caesar to the Capitol, reinterpreting Calpurnia's bloody dream as a vision of Rome's renewal and playing on Caesar's vanity about the crown.

• Cinna minor

  A conspirator who helps Cassius win Brutus over, planting forged petitions where Brutus will find them. (This edition gives the same speech-prefix to Cinna the poet, who is torn apart by the mob in Act 3.)

• Metellus Cimber minor

  The conspirator whose suit to recall his banished brother gives the assassins their pretext to press around Caesar at the Capitol.

• Trebonius minor

  The conspirator who draws Mark Antony out of the way while the others kill Caesar, sparing Antony at Brutus's insistence.

• Caius Ligarius minor

  A sick senator who throws off his illness to follow Brutus, whom he reveres, into the conspiracy.

• Calpurnia supporting

  Caesar's wife, whose nightmare of his statue running blood and whose dread of the day's omens nearly keep him home. Decius's flattery overrides her warning, and Caesar goes to his death.

• Portia supporting

  Brutus's wife and the daughter of Cato. Stoic and strong-willed, she gives herself a voluntary wound in the thigh to prove she can be trusted with his secret; in his absence she dies by swallowing fire.

• Soothsayer minor

  The seer who calls out of the crowd to 'beware the ides of March,' and meets Caesar again on the day itself to warn that the ides are come but not gone.

• Artemidorus minor

  A teacher of rhetoric who writes Caesar a letter naming the conspirators and tries, too late, to press it on him on the way to the Capitol.

• Cicero minor

  A famous senator and orator who comments wryly on the storm and speaks Greek at the games. The conspirators consider and reject recruiting him; he is later killed in the proscriptions.

• Publius minor

  An elderly senator who comes with the others to escort Caesar and is left stunned and trembling in the aftermath of the assassination.

• Popilius Lena minor

  A senator who terrifies Cassius moments before the killing by wishing that his 'enterprise today may thrive,' seeming for an instant to have betrayed the plot.

• Flavius minor

  A tribune who, with Marullus, scolds the commoners for celebrating Caesar's triumph and strips the festival decorations from his statues; the two are later 'put to silence.'

• Marullus minor

  A tribune who rebukes the fickle crowd for cheering Caesar when they had once loved Pompey, whom Caesar has just defeated.

• Lucius minor

  Brutus's young servant boy, gentle and loyal, who plays the lute for his sleepless master and dozes over the instrument on the eve of Philippi.

• Lucilius minor

  An officer loyal to Brutus who, captured at Philippi, claims to be Brutus to protect him and is spared by an admiring Antony.

• Titinius minor

  Cassius's trusted officer and friend. Mistakenly reported captured, he is the cause of Cassius's despairing suicide, and kills himself with Cassius's sword beside the body.

• Messala minor

  An officer in the republican army who reports the proscriptions and Portia's death, and who finds Cassius dead on the field at Philippi.

• Pindarus minor

  Cassius's bondman, brought from Parthia. At Cassius's order he runs him through with his own sword, then flees to freedom.

• Varro minor

  A servant of Brutus who sleeps in his tent the night the Ghost appears before Philippi.

• Claudius minor

  A servant of Brutus who, with Varro, lies in his master's tent on the night of the Ghost; not to be confused with the king in Hamlet.

• Clitus minor

  A follower of Brutus at Philippi who refuses, like the others, to hold the sword for his master's suicide.

• Dardanius minor

  A follower of Brutus who, like Clitus, cannot bring himself to kill his master when asked.

• Volumnius minor

  An old schoolfellow of Brutus who declines his friend's quiet request to hold the sword on which Brutus means to die.

• Strato minor

  The follower who at last holds the sword steady so that Brutus can run upon it, then enters Octavius's service.

• Young Cato minor

  Son of Marcus Cato and brother of Portia, who proclaims his name aloud and is killed fighting in the republican cause at Philippi.

• Ghost of Caesar supporting

  The spirit of the murdered Caesar, who appears to Brutus in his tent before Philippi as his 'evil spirit' and promises to meet him on the battlefield.

• First Citizen minor

  A commoner of Rome. In Act 1 a carpenter rebuked by the tribunes; in Act 3 one of the plebeians swayed back and forth by Brutus's and Antony's funeral speeches.

• Second Citizen minor

  A commoner of Rome. In Act 1 the quick-witted cobbler who jokes with the tribunes; in Act 3 a plebeian moved by Antony to mutiny.

• Third Citizen minor

  One of the Roman plebeians who hear the funeral orations and turn against the conspirators.

• Fourth Citizen minor

  One of the Roman plebeians at Caesar's funeral, roused by Antony's reading of the will.

• Citizens ensemble

  The Roman crowd speaking as one, by turns cheering the conspirators and then howling for their blood after Antony's oration.

• First Soldier minor

  A soldier in the armies at Philippi.

• Second Soldier minor

  A soldier in the armies at Philippi.

• Third Soldier minor

  A soldier in the armies at Philippi.

• Messenger minor

  A messenger who reports the approach of the enemy army to the field at Philippi.

• Poet minor

  A self-appointed peacemaker who bursts into the generals' tent to reconcile the quarreling Brutus and Cassius, and is mocked out again.

• Servant minor

  One of several servants who carry messages between their masters — Caesar, Antony, and Octavius — at the play's turning points.

Cross-references

• Folger Shakespeare
• MIT plain text
• Wikipedia