Julius Caesar

by Shakespeare

First published 1623

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Julius Caesar returns to Rome at the height of his power, alarming senators who fear that republican government is giving way to monarchy. Cassius draws Brutus into a conspiracy, and the assassins kill Caesar in the Senate believing that the act will preserve Roman liberty.

The murder instead unleashes a struggle for control. Mark Antony’s funeral speech turns the crowd against the conspirators, and Brutus and Cassius are driven toward the civil war that ends at Philippi. Shakespeare centres the tragedy on political judgement: the difficulty of distinguishing principle from ambition and the consequences of using violence to defend a constitutional ideal.