Abandoned Forum

[Twin2]

Julius Caesar is a tragedy by William Shakespeare probably written in 1599. It portrays the conspiracy against the Roman dictator, Julius Caesar, his assassination and its aftermath. It is one of several Shakespeare plays that are based on true events from history.

Unlike the other titular characters in Shakespeare's plays (e.g. Hamlet, Henry V), Caesar is not the central character in the action of the play, appearing in only three scenes and dying at the beginning of the third Act. The central protagonist of the play is Brutus and the central psychological drama is his stuggle between the conflicting demands of honour, patriotism, and friendship.

The play is notable for being the first of Shakespeare's five great tragedies (the others being Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth) and the first of Shakespeare's Roman plays (the other two being Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus).

Most Shakespeare critics and historians agree that the play reflected the general anxiety of England due to worries over succession of leadership. At the time of its creation and first performance, Elizabeth I, a strong ruler, was elderly and had refused to name a successor, leading to worries that a civil war similar to that of Rome's might break out after her death.

Contents
1 The Plot

2 Dramatis Personae



The Plot
Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.
Brutus is Caesar's close friend (there are suggestions that he was his illegitimate son) whose ancestors were famed for driving the tyrranical Tarquin kings from Rome. Brutus allows himself to be cajoled into joining a group of conspiring senators because of a growing suspicion - implanted by Cassius - that Caesar intends to turn Rome into a monarchy under his own rule. Traditional readings of the play maintain that Cassius and the other conspirators are motivated largely by envy and ambition whereas Brutus is motived by the demands of honour and patriotism; in fact one of the central strengths of the play is that it resists categorising its characters as either simple heroes or villains.

The early scenes deal mainly with Brutus's arguments with Cassius and his struggle with his own conscience. After Caesar's death, however, another character appears on the scene, in the form of Caesar's devotee, Mark Antony, who, by a rousing speech over the corpse -- the much-quoted Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears... -- deftly turns public opinion against the assassins and rouses the mob to drive them from Rome.

The beginning of Act Four is marked by the quarrell scene, where Brutus attacks Cassius for soiling the noble act of regicide by accepting bribes ("Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake?/ What villain touch'd his body, that did stab,/ And not for justice?", IV.iii). The two are reconciled, but as they prepare for war with Marc Antony and Caesar's great-nephew, Octavian, Caesar's ghost appears to Brutus with a warning of defeat ("thou shalt see me at Philippi", IV.iii). Events go badly for the conspirators during the battle; both Brutus and Cassius commit suicide rather than be captured. The play ends with a tribute to Brutus, who has remained "the noblest Roman of them all" (V.v) and hints at the friction between Mark Antony and Octavian which will characterise another of Shakespeare's Roman plays, Antony and Cleopatra.

Julius Caesar was first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's source was Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Life of Brutus and Life of Caesar.

[edit]
[b]Dramatis Personae[/b]
Julius Caesar
Octavius Caesar, Marcus Antonius, M. Aemilius Lepidus, Triumvirs after the death of Julius Caesar
Cicero, Publius, Popilius Lena, Senators
Marcus Brutus, Cassius, Casca, Trebonius, Ligarius, Decius Brutus, Metellus Cimber, Cinna, Conspirators against Julius Caesar
Flavius and Marullus, Tribunes
Artemidorus, a Sophist of Cnidos
A Soothsayer
Cinna, a poet
Another poet
Lucilius, Titinius, Messala, Young Cato, Volumnius, Friends to Brutus and Cassius
Varro, Clitus, Claudius, Strato, Lucius, Dardanius, Servants to Brutus
Pindarus, Servant to Cassius
Calpurnia, wife to Caesar
Portia, wife to Brutus



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar_%28play%29

[Pimienta]

Caesar died then Brutus and Casius died
it was pretty simple

[Cherokee_girl]

Ceaser, Cicero, Cassius, Trebonious, Brutus. That is the order and who dies.

[Pimienta]

it doesn't really matter when they died
in the end brutus was a hero anyhow

[Cherokee_girl]

A tragic hero, according to aristotle's six elements

[Pimienta]

he was also concidered to be a hero in rome
tragic heros aren't always that kind of hero

[trumpetprodigy]

I like Brutus. Did you know that his great great great etc. Grandfather actually killed the last of the ten kings of Rome? After that King, Rome became a republic. Then his Great great great etc. grandson killed a guy, and Rome became ruled by a emperor. The Brutus's have a history of killing tyrants.

[hamster]

You are all so smart. Gold stars all around. Now go outside and play!

[meateater540]

Et tu brutes?

[Insanity test]

"No You didn't, you et the bloody lot!"