First performed in 1599, Julius Caesar depicts the events surrounding the assassination of Julius Caesar and the fall-out that would reshape the landscape of Roman politics and government. The events depicted would have been well known to Shakespeare's Renaissance audience, and their depiction in the play serves as parable of the stakes of politically motivated vioelnce, the volatily of the tension between republic and empire, political theater, class conflict, and the risk and danger of creating and attempting to fill a power vacuum.
As a tragedy, Julius Caesar is drawn along more ambiguous lines than other works in Shakespeare's tragic canon. The play's title suggests that Julius...
