The Tragedy of Julius Caesar William Shakespeare

Julius Caesar: Introduction The setting of this play is ancient Rome. Shakespeare creates a world full of political intrigue, magical occurrences, and military conquest.

Julius Caesar: Introduction Caesar, the most powerful man in Rome, has recently returned to the city after months of fighting abroad.

Julius Caesar: Introduction Caesar was fighting Pompey, another powerful Roman, and his sons. Pompey, as well as others in the Roman senate, was disturbed by Caesar’s growing ambition.

Julius Caesar: Introduction Their fears seem to be valid when Caesar refuses to enter Rome as an ordinary citizen after the war. Instead, he marches his army on Rome and takes over the government.

Julius Caesar: Introduction But the people don’t mind—in fact, they love him. At least some of them. Caesar is made dictator, or ruler—a position that was sometimes granted for a ten-year term— for the rest of his life.

Julius Caesar: Introduction Many senators, however, resent Caesar for having so much power.

Julius Caesar: Introduction Some senators begin to conspire... Brutus, Caesar’s friend who believes that he must act against Caesar for the good of Rome Casca, who hates the ordinary citizens of Rome yet is jealous because they love Caesar and not him Cassius, a greedy and jealous man who wants to take drastic measures to keep Caesar from winning any more power—and to take away any power that Caesar previously had!

Julius Caesar : Background Shakespeare uses Roman customs and superstition to create spooky conditions to mirror the dangerous plot being planned.

Julius Caesar : Background The Romans believed that omens could reveal the future. These omens could take the form of unusual weather, flights of birds, or other natural phenomena.

Julius Caesar: Background Animals were seen as indicators of the future. The Romans often sacrificed animals to the gods, and had their entrails examined by an official called a haruspex. Any abnormalities or imperfections indicated the anger of a god or that a particularly bad event was about to happen.

Julius Caesar: Background Unusual astronomical and meteorological occurrences were also seen as signs of future events. Solar eclipses were believed to foreshadow doom, as was lightning.

Julius Caesar: Background One of the reasons the Senate was concerned by Caesar’s accumulation of power was Rome’s long history as a republic.

Julius Caesar : Background Around 509 B.C., the Romans ended a monarchy by rebelling against the last king of Rome, Tarquinius.

Julius Caesar: Background They were very proud of their non-king ruled government, and were determined to preserve it— but when Caesar arrived, they changed their minds! After this revolution, the Romans established their famous republic, in which all citizens were represented in the Senate.

Julius Caesar : Discussion Starters… Discussion starter topic 1: 1. How important is loyalty? Does your country or do your friends consider “loyalty” something to value? When can “loyalty” sometimes cause problems? What should people do when loyalty to their country and loyalty to their friend comes into conflict? Are there limits to what people should do in defense of the nation?

Julius Caesar: Discussion Starters Discussion starter topic 2: 2. What will a person do for the sake of political ideals? Assassinations of political figures are common in history. What political figures do you know of who have been assassinated? What effect did these assassinations have on the general public, a political party, or a cause at the time of the assassination?

Additional Notes Julius Caesar takes place in ancient Rome in 44 B. C., when Rome was the center of an empire stretching from Britain to North Africa and from Persia to Spain. Although the empire grew stronger, dangers to the empire increased.

Rome suffered from constant infighting between ambitious military leaders and the far weaker senators to whom they supposedly owed allegiance. The empire also suffered from a sharp division between citizens, who were represented in the senate, and the increasingly underrepresented lower classes.

Many men hoped to be the absolute ruler of Rome. Julius Caesar finally achieved this status. However, many people who wanted a democratic country worried that Caesar’s power would lead to the enslavement of Roman citizens.

As a result, a group of conspirators came together and assassinated Caesar. The assassination did not end the power struggles that were common in the country. Eventually a civil war broke out, and the conspirators faced the consequences of their actions.

The plot of Shakespeare’s play includes the events leading up to the assassination of Caesar as well as much of the subsequent war, in which the deaths of the leading conspirators constituted a sort of revenge for the assassination.

Shakespeare used the story of Caesar to comment on the political situation of his own day. During the Elizabethan era in 1599, when the play was first performed, Queen Elizabeth I had sat on the throne for nearly forty years, increasing her power.

After reigning for so long and without an heir, people were worried her death would cause political chaos in England. In an age when censorship would have limited direct commentary on these worries, Shakespeare echoed his country’s worries by emphasizing how the actions of the leaders of Roman society and society itself, rather than class conflicts or larger political movements, determined history.