From the moment the conspirators pulled their swords from Caesar's body, their reasons for killing him were debated and documented with various spins, some accounts portraying Caesar's killers as heroes and others, like Dante, damning them to the deepest pit of hell. Shakespeare's account focuses largely on Brutus' internal conflicts between his loyalty to Caesar and to Rome, between his belief about what Rome should be and what it had become. He struggles to decide whether the demands of civic responsibility prevail over the ties of personal loyalty.

Caesar focuses on the lives of the great men, circulating among several characters, with the title character playing a smaller role than might be imagined. Brutus is most fully drawn of them. Unlike other characters, he appears in severa

Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare; Dover Publications, Inc., 31 east 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y., 11501

Both Brutus and Caesar pay for their inflexibility with their lives. However their cohorts show greater range of motion. Cassius is much more alert to the workings of the world; he knows he can fool Brutus with a faked letter, whereas Brutus would never imagine that a letter could not be real. Antony shows off a malleable improvisatory tone in his speech over Caesar's body that allows him to win over the masses, because he is able to bend to suit public opinion rather than making the public match his beliefs.

The play ends on two different notes, as Antony compliments a dead Brutus, foregrounding Brutus' conflict and tragedy, while Octavius stands by to take command. Brutus the republican may be the last of his kind, the last to stand for the way Rome was, while Octavius the politician prepares to become Rome's next emperor and lead Rome into a different future.

Inflexibility and an inability to recognize the changing nature of the world are traits often punished in Shakespeare's characters. Caesar suffers from unwavering belief in his public strength, which is betrayed by the frailty of his physical, private self, which he claims he would prefer to address last. Brutus' idealism allows him to believe that killing his close friend is an acceptable choice for the nation, but he neglects to notice

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Approximate Word count = 953
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)