Julius Caesar: Beware the Ides of March

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Recommended: Character analysis of Julius Caesar

The Senate of the Roman Republic are the ruling power over most of the known world. Yet this powerful and influential senate is easily threatened by one man; Julius Caesar. To the senators Caesar is the catalyst for the downfall of a Republic they had worked so hard to create and protect. The playwright William Shakespeare dives into this world of betrayal and ambition with his play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. Using his voice as a writer he takes the audience into Rome and lets them experience each riveting moment of Caesar’s fall. The play shows that Caesar is not the cause of Rome’s eventual downfall, but the senators who conspire against him and ultimately kill him are the ones reprehensible. Shakespeare introduces the characters of Brutus and Cassius: two men, both of high standing, that spearhead the conspiracy against Caesar’s life. The actions of their scheme are met with chaotic consequences, consequences so dangerous that both Brutus and Cassius flee to Asia Minor. After the Battle of Phillippi, once Octavius and Marc Antony seem to have one, the two men take their lives. This final action sends them back to a world with Caesar, a world they tried so hard to escape. At the end of both Caesar and Brutus’ lives become enlightened to a truth they had so eagerly avoided. For Caesar that truth is his over confidence in his ideals and his ignorance to the warning signs so often shown to him. Caesar’s downfall and untimely understanding makes him a tragic hero.

Even though Caesar is a brilliant leader, he is also a very prideful Roman man. He makes one of his biggest mistakes by not listening to the vociferous and wise Soothsayer. “Beware the ides of March,” says the Soothsayer (800). This is one of the first ...

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...bitious,” says Marc Antony (950). Here at his funeral Antony speaks in honor of Caesar and gives compelling evidence as to why he not a bad man. “When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept. Ambition should be made of sterner stuff,” says Antony (950). It takes an honorable man to shed tears, but to weep? That takes honor. Caesar’s actions as Antony describes them creates the image of a wildly sympathetic character that many audiences can relate to.

In the end, a great ruler was killed due to the jealousy and insecurity of two men. What everyone forgets in this play is that the Roman children were raised to be power hungry. So why is it Brutus and Cassius, the two men who waived all right to logical reasoning when they concocted their corrosive plan, thought Caesar ambitious when they are guilty of the same crime, which they were raised to be guilty of?

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