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After all, Rome was founded as a republic, i.e., a state that isn’t ruled by a king and yet Julius Caesar has set himself up as an absolute ruler much like a king in all but name. (Legend states that Lucius Junius Brutus founded the Roman Republic in around 509 BC.) This earlier Brutus would have let a devil rule in Rome before he let a king rule. The eternal devil to keep his state in RomeĬassius concludes his speech by reminding Brutus, his companion, that his namesake founded the city of Rome centuries before. There was a Brutus once that would have brook’d The implication is that Caesar will allow for no one else to take his mantle or power away from him. Cassius’ point is that, as far as Rome and Caesar are concerned, there is room for only one man: Julius Caesar himself. There is a pun here on ‘Rome’ and ‘room’, which could be homophones in Shakespeare’s time: Rome was rhymed with both dome and doom. Brutus is a noble Roman, descended from the Brutus who liberated Rome from the tyrannical monarchy of the Tarquins. That her wide walks encompass’d but one man?Ĭassius employs rhetorical questions to drive his point further home: when has there ever been such a time in the history of the world, ever since the biblical flood (the story of which we have analysed here), when one man alone dominated the political scene? (Note: some editors amend ‘wide walks’ to ‘wide walls’, but Daniell advises against that, on the basis that we can find references to ‘wide walks’ elsewhere in Shakespeare, but never wide walls.) When could they say till now, that talk’d of Rome, Any information you publish in a comment, profile, work, or Content that you post or import onto AO3 including in summaries, notes and tags, will be accessible.

If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say that Brutus’s love to Caesar was no less than his. Censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses that you may the better judge. Believe me for mine honor, and have respect to mine honor that you may believe.

When went there by an age, since the great flood,īut it was famed with more than with one man? Hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear.