A Brief Introduction to Julius Caesar

We meet the cast and receive a synopsis of the play.

Jun 18, 2025

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Julius Caesar

By William Shakespeare

Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine
with Michael Poston and Rebecca Niles

Folger Shakespeare Library

Characters in the Play

JULIUS CAESAR
CALPHURNIA, his wife
Servant to them

MARCUS BRUTUS
PORTIA, his wife
LUCIUS, their servant

Patricians who, with Brutus, conspire against Caesar:
CAIUS CASSIUS
CASCA
CINNA
DECIUS BRUTUS
CAIUS LIGARIUS
METELLUS CIMBER
TREBONIUS

Senators:
CICERO
PUBLIUS
POPILIUS LENA

Tribunes:
FLAVIUS
MARULLUS

Rulers of Rome in Acts 4 and 5:
MARK ANTONY
LEPIDUS
OCTAVIUS
Servant to Antony
Servant to Octavius

Officers and soldiers in the armies of Brutus and Cassius:
LUCILIUS
TITINIUS
MESSALA
VARRO
CLAUDIUS
YOUNG CATO
STRATO
VOLUMNIUS
LABEO (nonspeaking)
FLAVIUS (nonspeaking)
DARDANUS
CLITUS

A Carpenter
A Cobbler
A Soothsayer
ARTEMIDORUS
First, Second, Third, and Fourth Plebeians
CINNA the poet
PINDARUS, slave to Cassius, freed upon Cassius’s death
First, Second, Third, and Fourth Soldiers in Brutus’s army
Another Poet
A Messenger
First and Second Soldiers in Antony’s army
Citizens, Senators, Petitioners, Plebeians, Soldiers

ATTENTION: Spoilers beyond this point! If you are reading Julius Caesar for the first time and would like to do so with no prior information about this play, stop reading here!

Synopsis

Caesar’s assassination is just the halfway point of Julius Caesar. The first part of the play leads to his death; the second portrays the consequences. As the action begins, Rome prepares for Caesar’s triumphal entrance. Brutus, Caesar’s friend and ally, fears that Caesar will become king, destroying the republic. Cassius and others convince Brutus to join a conspiracy to kill Caesar.

On the day of the assassination, Caesar plans to stay home at the urging of his wife, Calphurnia. A conspirator, Decius Brutus, persuades him to go to the Senate with the other conspirators and his friend, Mark Antony. At the Senate, the conspirators stab Caesar to death. Antony uses a funeral oration to turn the citizens of Rome against them. Brutus and Cassius escape as Antony joins forces with Octavius Caesar.

Encamped with their armies, Brutus and Cassius quarrel, then agree to march on Antony and Octavius. In the battle which follows, Cassius, misled by erroneous reports of loss, persuades a slave to kill him; Brutus’s army is defeated. Brutus commits suicide, praised by Antony as “the noblest Roman of them all.”