Julius Caesar:Act 1 - Questions & Answers
Q 1: Analyze the role of the tribunes in Act 1. How do Flavius and Murellus represent republican values, and what do their actions reveal about their fears regarding Caesar?
Flavius and Murellus, Roman tribunes (high-ranking officials), serve as representatives of republican values and guardians of Rome's traditional governmental system. Their appearance in Scene 1 establishes the political tension that drives the play: fear that Caesar's popularity and power threaten the Roman republic. The tribunes are horrified to find commoners celebrating Caesar's victory over Pompey on a day when they should be working. Rather than seeing the crowds' celebration as harmless public enthusiasm, the tribunes interpret it as evidence of Caesar's dangerous grip on popular imagination. Their attempt to shame the commoners by reminding them of their former devotion to Pompey—a rival to Caesar—demonstrates how the tribunes understand political power as dependent on popular support.
Murellus's harsh language—calling the commoners "you blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things"—reveals his contempt for the common people. However, this contempt masks deeper concerns: the tribunes fear that fickle mob loyalty enables a single ambitious individual to seize absolute power. By trying to disperse the crowds and removing crowns from Caesar's statues, the tribunes employ what might be called "popularity management"—they attempt to diminish Caesar's public support as a preventive measure against tyranny. Their strategy suggests that in the tribunes' understanding, a dictator cannot rise without popular support. Therefore, by controlling popular enthusiasm, they can prevent autocracy.
The tribunes' actions reveal their republican ideology: legitimate power should reside in shared institutions (Senate, tribunes, the republic itself), not in any single individual, however capable or popular. Their fear is not personal—they do not claim Caesar has wronged them specifically—but systemic. They worry that Caesar represents a new model of power based on personal charisma and military victory rather than constitutional authority. Their representative role as tribunes, whose duty is to represent the people's interests, puts them in opposition to Caesar's apparent bid for supremacy. The tribunes thus embody the clash between republican traditions and emerging autocracy that will destroy the play.
Q 2: Trace Cassius's manipulation of Brutus in Act 1, Scene 2. What techniques does Cassius employ, and why is Brutus particularly vulnerable to these techniques?
Cassius's manipulation of Brutus represents one of Shakespeare's most sophisticated portrayals of persuasion through appeal to principle. Cassius begins by flattering Brutus, asking why he has been unfriendly, and expressing concern for his wellbeing. This establishes a tone of intimate friendship. When Brutus admits he is troubled by the possibility of Caesar becoming king, Cassius seizes this opening to redirect Brutus's concern from abstract political worry toward personal resentment. Cassius employs the metaphor of the Colossus, suggesting Caesar towers over ordinary Romans, diminishing their honor and significance. Critically, Cassius frames this not as Cassius's jealousy but as an objective political fact: Caesar should not be valued above other Romans.
Cassius then appeals directly to Brutus's self-esteem and honor, claiming Brutus possesses equal virtue to Caesar and deserves equal recognition. By saying he knows "that virtue to be in you, Brutus, as well as I know I have hands, fingers, and a heart," Cassius flatters Brutus while also suggesting that society is unjust in valuing Caesar above him. This appeal to both Brutus's pride and his sense of justice is masterful: Brutus cannot accept the flattery without accepting that an injustice is being committed—namely, that superior men are being excluded from power by Caesar's dominance.
Brutus is vulnerable to this manipulation because his core values align with Cassius's arguments. Brutus genuinely cares about Rome's welfare and his own honor. Cassius exploits these values by presenting the conspiracy not as driven by personal ambition or jealousy but as a patriotic duty to prevent tyranny. Brutus's statement that he would lose his life rather than his honor makes him easy prey: Cassius can frame opposition to Caesar as honorable while framing inaction as betrayal of Rome. Brutus's personal affection for Caesar actually increases his vulnerability because he must convince himself his actions serve a greater good than personal loyalty. This internal conflict makes him susceptible to Cassius's reframing of the conspiracy as noble.
By Act 1's end, Cassius has successfully planted seeds of doubt in Brutus while maintaining plausible deniability about proposing anything specific. Brutus agrees only to continue their conversation—he has not yet committed to conspiracy. Yet the groundwork is laid: Cassius has made Brutus question whether his honor requires action against Caesar. The manipulation works because it targets not Brutus's weaknesses but his strengths—his patriotism, his honor, his virtue make him vulnerable to a clever manipulator who can appeal to these qualities.
Q 3: Discuss the significance of the Soothsayer's warning in Act 1. How does this warning function as foreshadowing, and what does Caesar's dismissal of it reveal about his character?
Q 4: How does Act 1 establish the play's central tensions and conflicts? What major issues are introduced, and how do they set up the tragedy to come?
Act 1 introduces the play's fundamental conflicts through multiple storylines that converge to create the conditions for tragedy. The first conflict, established in Scene 1, is political: the tension between republican values (represented by the tribunes) and the emergence of autocratic power (Caesar). The tribunes fear that Caesar's popularity enables him to transcend normal constitutional limits, threatening the republic. This political tension makes clear that the play is fundamentally about power—who holds it, how it should be distributed, and what happens when concentrated power threatens established systems.
The second conflict, central to Scene 2, is personal and philosophical: the tension between individual ambition and communal welfare. Cassius's jealousy of Caesar and his ambition for power would be mere personality conflict except that he frames it as patriotic duty. This allows ambition to masquerade as principle. Brutus accepts the framing because he genuinely cares about Rome's welfare. The play thus introduces the dangerous possibility that personal ambition can hide beneath the language of patriotism, and that virtuous people can be corrupted through appeal to their virtues.
A third conflict is introduced through Caesar himself: the tension between justified suspicion and unjustified pride. Caesar correctly perceives that Cassius is dangerous and does not love him, yet his pride prevents him from taking this perception seriously or acting on it. Caesar's tragedy lies not merely in plotting against him but in his inability to respond appropriately to genuine danger. He is trapped between seeing clearly and believing himself invulnerable.
These conflicts are not separate but interconnected. The political conflict (republic vs. autocracy) creates the condition for personal conflict (Cassius's jealousy finds expression through republican ideology). Personal ambition disguises itself as patriotic concern. Brutus, genuinely concerned about the republic, becomes complicit in murder through his belief that he is serving Rome. Caesar, correctly perceiving danger, is nonetheless destroyed by his own pride. Act 1 sets up a tragedy where well-intentioned people and legitimate concerns combine to produce disaster. By establishing these tensions early, Shakespeare suggests that the tragic events to come are not merely the result of villainy but emerge necessarily from the collision of these fundamental conflicts.