The most famous assassination in history, told through the conscience of the killer.
Who drives the story
Caesar's friend and Rome's most trusted idealist, talked into assassination by forged letters and his own logic. He wins every moral argument and loses every practical one, ending by his own sword at Philippi.
The lean, hungry instigator who builds the conspiracy and forges the letters that hook Brutus. Haunted by omens before Philippi, he dies on the sword that killed Caesar, misreading his friend Titinius's fate.
The conqueror who wants a crown and believes his own constancy. He ignores every warning—soothsayer, wife, letter—and dies at the foot of Pompey's statue, then returns as a ghost to keep the plot moving.
Caesar's loyal second, underestimated by the conspirators, who turns a funeral into a revolution with one speech. He ends the play running the triumvirate and eulogizing the man who killed his friend.
The blunt, sneering senator who reports the crown-offering scene and strikes the first blow against Caesar. He is the conspiracy's first dagger.
An innocent writer mistaken for the conspirator Cinna by the mob Antony unleashed. Torn apart for his bad verses, he is the riot's random casualty.
Also in the story
Caesar's adopted heir, cool and quiet at the play's edges, who shares the proscription list with Antony and Lepidus. He grants Brutus burial and inherits the future.
Brutus's wife, who begs to share his secret burden and is left behind when war comes. Her suicide by swallowing fire is the grief that cracks Brutus's quarrel with Cassius open.
Caesar's wife, whose nightmares of his statue spouting blood nearly keep him home. Decius flatters the dream away, and her warning is discarded with the rest.
Cassius's devoted friend at Philippi, welcomed by friendly forces but reported captured. Finding Cassius dead from the mistake, he kills himself with Cassius's sword.
How they are connected
The lean, hungry instigator who builds the conspiracy and forges the letters that hook Brutus.
Haunted by omens before Philippi, he dies on the sword that killed Caesar, misreading his friend Titinius's fate.
Caesar's adopted heir, cool and quiet at the play's edges, who shares the proscription list with Antony and Lepidus.
He grants Brutus burial and inherits the future.
Brutus's wife, who begs to share his secret burden and is left behind when war comes.
Her suicide by swallowing fire is the grief that cracks Brutus's quarrel with Cassius open.
An innocent writer mistaken for the conspirator Cinna by the mob Antony unleashed.
Go deeper
Public good versus private loyalty · Rhetoric as power · The fragility of the republic · Fate, omens, and self-deception
Themes explainedThe full story act by act, the ending explained and a quick quiz.
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