At Caesar's funeral, Brutus tells the citizens he did it for the good of Rome. However, Mark Antony speaks next and turns the crowd against Brutus and the conspirators. He arrives at the senate house where Brutus, Cassius and their co-conspirators surround him and kill him. It is the Ides of March and Caesar has been warned by a Soothsayer about this date (15 March). She knows Brutus is troubled but he refuses to open up to her.Ĭaesar ignores pleas from his wife, Calpurnia, to stay at home. Brutus’s wife, Portia, sees him meeting secretly with the conspirators. Brutus rejects Cassius' suggestion that Mark Antony, a close friend of Caesar, should also be killed. Brutus is a decent man who is close to Caesar and does not want him murdered but Cassius persuades him it’s for the good of the republic. A plot starts to form to murder Caesar…Ĭaius Cassius visits his well-respected friend, Marcus Brutus, to gain his support in getting rid of Caesar. However, Rome is a republic, governed by elected representatives (the senate) and Caesar’s new popularity worries some senators who fear that too much power held by one man would create a dictatorship. Julius Caesar returns to Rome after winning a war against political rival, Pompey, and the citizens want to celebrate his victory by giving him new titles and honours. The result is a gripping and tragic play about the conspiracy against Caesar, his assassination and the defeat of his conspirators. His main inspiration was Plutarch’s ‘Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans’, written 150 years after Caesar’s death. Shakespeare regularly explored how power affects the individual and Julius Caesar is a political thriller which explores this theme.

Watch our British Sign Language synopsis of Julius Caesar.

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