56 pages • 1 hour read
William ShakespeareJulius Caesar
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1599A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Act IIIChapter Summaries & Analyses
Act III, Scene 1 Summary
Artemidorus, the soothsayer, and citizens enter on one side of the stage; Caesar, the conspirators, and other senators enter on the other. Artemidorus tries in vain to get Caesar to read his letter. Brutus and Cassius fear that the other senators have discovered their plot. Trebonius persuades Mark Antony to leave.
Metellus Cimber is the first to approach Caesar; he asks Caesar to revoke the banishment of his brother. Brutus and Cassius join Cimber in his entreaty. Caesar remains unmoved. The conspirators beg him. Casca moves forward and says, “Speak hands for me” (3.1.76). They stab Caesar. Caesar says, “Et tu Brute?—Then fall Caesar” (3.1.77). He dies.
Chaos ensues. Brutus bids the conspirators to dip their hands and weapons in Caesar’s blood then go out chanting about liberty and freedom. Mark Antony’s servant enters. He wishes to know the reason why Caesar was killed; if it is sound, Mark Antony will support Brutus. Brutus promises that Mark Antony will not be harmed if he returns to the Senate.
Mark Antony enters and laments Caesar’s death. He tells them that if they want to kill him, they should do it now. Brutus assures him that they bear him no ill will; they killed Caesar out of fear for the Republic. Mark Antony shakes their hands, feeling conflicted: he does not want to be seen as a coward or a flatterer. He only asks that they give him their reasons for killing Caesar and that his body be removed to the marketplace for the people to see. Brutus assents, but Cassius warns him against letting Mark Antony give Caesar a funerary oration. Brutus convinces Mark Antony to agree not to speak ill of the conspirators or else he will have no part in the funeral. Mark Antony agrees.
All exit but Mark Antony who prophesizes great bloodshed in Rome. Octavius Caesar’s servant enters, and Mark Antony bids him to tell Octavius to go far from Rome, as it is not safe for him. In the meantime, Mark Antony will test the citizens’ attitude.
Act III, Scene 2 Summary
The crowd of plebeians demand an explanation for Caesar’s assassination. Brutus and Cassius divide the crowd. Brutus calls on the crowd to believe him for his honor that he loved Caesar. He tells them he killed Caesar “not that I loved Caesar less, but that/ I loved Rome more” (3.2.20-21). Moreover, Brutus adds, he killed Caesar for his ambition to subjugate Rome as a tyrant. He contends that no one in the crowd would assent to becoming a slave, and the crowd agrees. Mark Antony enters, bearing Caesar’s body. He begs the crowd to listen to Mark Antony, and he exits.
With the crowd firmly on Brutus’s side, Mark Antony addresses them. He says, “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him” (3.2.71). He describes Caesar’s positive contributions to Rome while repeatedly telling the crowd that “Brutus is an honourable man” (3.2.91). He reminds them that Caesar refused the crown three times on Lupercalia. In tears, he questions why they do not mourn for Caesar.
Mark Antony’s speech moves the crowd against Brutus and the other conspirators. Mark Antony produces Caesar’s will, which he allows the crowd to persuade him to read. They gather around Caesar’s body, and Antony points out where the conspirators’ knives entered it. As he uncovers the body for dramatic effect, the plebeians clamor for revenge. Mark Antony appeases them until he can read the will: Caesar left each Roman citizen 75 Greek silver coins known as drachmas. Furthermore, he left his orchards and gardens for common use. The citizens are enraged at Caesar’s murder. They leave to burn down the conspirators’ houses.
Meanwhile, Mark Antony leaves to meet with Octavius and Lepidus.
Act III, Scene 3 Summary
The angry mob of plebeians comes across Cinna the poet. Mistaking him for Cinna the conspirator, they attack and kill him before seeking out Brutus and Cassius.
Act III Analysis
Julius Caesar’s death in the first scene of Act III has caused many scholars to regard Brutus, not Caesar, as the tragic hero of the play. There is evidence for both arguments. As previously stated, Caesar’s tragic flaw is his arrogance over his own invulnerability. He repeatedly ignores signs pointing to his death. Had he heeded the omens, Calpurnia’s dream, the priests’ divination, or Artemidorus’s letter, he may have survived the day. Unlike the arrogant Caesar, Brutus is fundamentally a good and trusting man who wants what is best for the Roman Republic, even if it means killing the man who is most dear to him in his life. Unfortunately, he is too trusting. For example, he believes Mark Antony when he says he will not incite the plebeians against Brutus and Cassius.
Elsewhere, Mark Antony’s speech to the plebeians is a famous example of the power of rhetorical persuasion. His line “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears” is often quoted, imitated, and parodied in popular culture (3.2.70). It is a direct echo of the opening line to Brutus’s earlier speech: “Romans, countrymen, lovers, hear me for my cause” (3.2.13). Brutus’s defense of assassinating Caesar is rooted in the ethos of honor and freedom. His argument poses two possible scenarios for the Roman Republic: Caesar lives, and the plebeians become servants to a tyrant, thus ending the republic; or, Caesar dies, and although Brutus and the plebeians mourn him, they remain free citizens. Brutus’s argument is sound; it sways the crowd to his side through logic and Brutus’s reputation as an honorable man.
Mark Antony’s speech, on the other hand, makes many appeals to pathos, systematically dismantling Brutus’s actions by reminding the crowd that “Brutus is an honourable man,/ So are they all, all honourable men” over and over (3.2.79-80). Antony’s argument is based on the good deeds Caesar performed for the glory of Rome. While he claims, “I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke” (3.2.90), his words have that exact effect on the crowd. By playing on emotions such as grief (weeping over Caesar’s coffin and using the dramatic pause to let his words sink in) and shock (dramatically revealing Caesar’s wounded and blood-soaked corpse), he incites the crowd to violence. Antony effectively uses rhetoric to manipulate the crowd to get revenge on Brutus, Cassius, and the others, without ever directly telling them to do so.
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