Julius Caesar

Description

Caesar marches into Rome after defeating Pompey’s sons in battle. As he parades through the city, a soothsayer—a person who tells the future—tells Caesar to “beware the Ides of March,” meaning the 15th of March, a holiday which represented the paying off of debts. Caesar dismisses the warning. Meanwhile, Roman Senator Caius Cassius plots Caesar’s assassination. He and his fellow Roman senator conspirators are nervous over what Caesar would do with more power; they believe his ambition makes him dangerous to the future of Rome as a free republic. Although Caesar secretly wants to rule Rome as a monarch, he presents himself as uninterested in becoming king. Fearing the public’s reaction to his ascension to the throne, Caesar denies the crown three times when Mark Antony presents it to him. Cassius is the instigator behind the assassination plot. He manipulates the other senators who are unsure, like Brutus and Casca, to join the conspiracy.