This Month's Julius Caesar Feature >>

The crux of Julius Caesar is a political issue that was as urgent in Shakespeare's Elizabethan England as it was in Caesar's day. It revolves around the question of whether the killing of a king is justifiable as a means of ending (or preventing) the tyranny of dictatorship and the loss of freedom. Brutus strikes Caesar down is the name of liberty, fearing that absolute power and Caesar's view of himself as more than a mere mortal will enslave Rome to the will of a single man. This was a problem with which the educated members of Shakespeare's society grappled, with those believing in a divine right of kings to rule pitting themselves against the claim that regicide is warranted when liberty is at stake. Brutus, at least, seems to be motivated by this Republican doctrine. It is important to note that none of the conspirators are champions of popular rule. Indeed, Brutus fears that the people will anoint Caesar as their absolute monarch (I, ii, ll.77-78). The violent actions of the base mob confirm his view of the common people as an irrational body capable of surrendering their liberty (and that of Rome's nobles) to Caesar.