Julius Caesar
'Julius Caesar' Summary
The play opens with two tribunes discovering the commoners of Rome celebrating Julius Caesar's triumphant return from defeating the sons of his military rival, Pompey. The tribunes, insulting the crowd for their change in loyalty from Pompey to Caesar, attempt to end the festivities and break up the commoners, who return the insults. During the feast of Lupercal, Caesar holds a victory parade and a soothsayer warns him to "Beware the ides of March", which he ignores. Meanwhile, Cassius attempts to convince Brutus to join his conspiracy to kill Caesar. Although Brutus, friendly towards Caesar, is hesitant to kill him, he agrees that Caesar may be abusing his power. They then hear from Casca that Mark Antony has offered Caesar the crown of Rome three times and that each time Caesar refused it with increasing reluctance, in hopes that the crowd watching the exchange would beg him to accept the crown, yet the crowd applauded Caesar for denying the crown, upsetting Caesar, due to his wanting to accept the crown. On the eve of the ides of March, the conspirators meet and reveal that they have forged letters of support from the Roman people to tempt Brutus into joining. Brutus reads the letters and, after much moral debate, decides to join the conspiracy, thinking that Caesar should be killed to prevent him from doing anything against the people of Rome if he were ever to be crowned.
Book Details
Language
EnglishOriginal Language
EnglishPublished In
1599Author
William Shakespeare
United Kingdom
William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon. The son of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden, he was probably educated at the King Edward VI Grammar School in Stratford, where he...
More on William ShakespeareDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
Related books
The White Devil by John Webster
John Webster's The White Devil (1612) is a Jacobean revenge tragedy, replete with adultery, murder, ghosts, and violence. The Duke of Brachiano and Vi...
Chronicles of Canada Volume 15 - The War Chief of the Ottawas: A Chronicle of the Pontiac War by Thomas Guthrie Marquis
This is the history of Pontiac's Conspiracy, 1763-1765. It includes the siege of Detroit and his ultimate defeat.
History of Florence and of the Affairs of Italy, Volume 2 by Niccolò Machiavelli
History of Florence and of the Affairs of Italy is an historical account by Niccolò Machiavelli . Toward the end of 1520, the Cardinal Giulio of Medic...
Orra by Joanna Baillie
"Orra is a young woman who is cursed with the power of second sight. She can see into the future, but her visions are often dark and disturbing. Orra...
Historical Newspaper Articles, Volume 2 by Various
Both U.S. and U.K. newspapers are represented here. The articles span from 1848 to 1920. Topics covered (e.g., the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory Fire,...
A Yorkshire Tragedy by Thomas Middleton
A Yorkshire Tragedy is an early Jacobean era stage play, a domestic tragedy . The play was originally assigned to William Shakespeare, though the mode...
Conciliatory or Irenical Animadversions on the Controversies Agitated in Britain under the Unhappy Names of Antinomians and Neonomians by Hermann Witsius
The Antinomian-Neonomian controversy of the 17th century was initiated by the republication of a set of sermons by Tobias Crisp entitled "Christ alone...
Historical Newspaper Articles, Volume 1 by Various
Public Domain newspaper articles in the US span a period of nearly two and a half centuries. Subjects, styles, period, publisher, and length vary grea...
An American Tragedy, Volume 2 by Theodore Dreiser
An American Tragedy is a 1925 novel by American writer Theodore Dreiser. He began the manuscript in the summer of 1920, but a year later abandoned mos...
The Romance of the Romanoffs by Joseph Martin McCabe
The eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were periods of stark contrast between the opulent lifestyle of the rich and the extreme pove...
Reviews for Julius Caesar
No reviews posted or approved, yet...