Although the play is named after Julius Cæsar there is no question that in fact the hero of the piece is Marcus Brutus. So far at least as character is concerned the interest he inspires altogether overshadows that of the rest of the dramatis personæ, and we are somewhat apt to draw from a hasty reading a more superficial and erroneous idea of the other principal performers than is usual in Shakespeare's plays.
Thus the first idea that we get of Cæsar is that he is a good deal of a braggart, decidedly superstitious while pretending to a contempt for superstition, overweening, with more gasconade than real dignity; justifying, or at any rate fairly excusing the bitter terms in which Cassius speaks of him. Nevertheless a closer study reveals something very different. Cassius cries out in amazement that
- "A man of such a feeble temper should
- So get the start of the majestic world",
and we are inclined to agree. But to Antony he is
- "the noblest man
- That ever lived in the tide of times".
Brutus calls him "the foremost man of all this world", and says
- "I have not known when his affections sway'd
- More than his reason";
so that the position requires to be reconsidered. The explanation seems to lie in this, that Cæsar appears in the flesh at perhaps the least favourable moment in his career: the brief instant in which he might be excused for allowing himself to lapse into arrogance. He has attained complete mastery: the last remnant of open opposition has just been crushed at Munda, and the great conqueror stands on a height such as had never yet been attained by mortal man. There is plenty for him yet to do, but in the brief interval the strain is relaxed; for the time he can afford to give rein to the frailties of his nature and display the weaknesses of ordinary men. In the play we are shown nothing of the means whereby he attained to that eminence—the greatness
