JULIUS CAESAR: ACT 3, SCENE 1
Questions to Consider (pages 1134-1139):
1) What can we assume Artemidorus wants to tell Caesar? Why does Decius interrupt his request by presenting Caesar
with a petition from someone else?
2) Why do all the men step forward to support Metellus’s petition to have his brother’s banishment revoked? What is
Caesar’s response to their pleas?
3) Who is the last to stab Caesar? Why is this notable?
4) What messge is Brutus trying to convey by having the conspirators go out in public smeared with Caesar’s blood?
Questions to Consider (pages 1140-1144):
5) What message does Antony’s servant bring to Brutus? How does Brutus react?
6) When Antony comes on scene, he thinks that the men may have some hard feelings towards him (because he was
aligned with Caesar). What does he say they can do to him if that is the case (lines 148-163)?
7) How does Brutus respond to what Antony says in lines 148-163?
8) Brutus wants to explain to Antony why Caesar was murdered, but he says he must do something first. What does he
say he must do first (lines 179-183)?
9) After shaking hands with the conspirators, Antony immediately feels guilty and apologizes to Caesar. Why does he
feel guilty (lines 185-207)?
10) What is Cassius’s reaction to Antony’s apology to Caesar? What question does he pose to Antony (lines 214-217)?
How does Antony respond to the question (lines 218-222)?
11) What does Antony request of Brutus in lines 228-230? How does Brutus respond?
12) Cassius doesn’t agree with Brutus’s response to Antony’s request. Why doesn’t he think Antony should speak at
Caesar’s funeral? How does Brutus respond to Cassius’s complaint (bottom of page 1142)?
13) In order for Antony to speak at Caesar’s funeral, what are the rules he must follow, as outlined by Brutus in lines
244-251?
14) When all the conspirators leave the stage and Antony is alone, he is able to speak truthfully. His soliloquy shows
what he really thinks of the men who have just left and what he intends to do about the murder. What does he think
of the murder and the men who committed it? What does he intend to do?
15) A servant of Ocatvius Caesar comes on scene after Antony’s soliloquy. Octavius Caesar is an important senator who
was not in Rome at the time of Caesar’s murder. He is coming back to Rome upon Caesar’s request, not knowing
that Caesar has actually been murdered. What two things does Antony instruct the servant to do?
JULIUS CAESAR: ACT 3, SCENE 2
Questions to Consider:
1) How does Brutus justify Caesar’s death to the Roman citizens (lines13-30)? How do the citizens react to
what he has to say?
2) How does Antony gradually turn the citizens away from their support of Brutus and Caesar’s murder (lines
70-104)? Consider the examples about Caesar that he tells the people.
3) How does Brutus respond to what Antony says in lines 148-163? How do the citizens react to Antony’s
words?
4) What has Antony brought with him to his speech (that belongs to Caesar) and how does he manipulate the
audience into wanting to read it?
5) Antony asks the citizens to join him in standing around Caesar’s body in a ring. What does he point out to
the citizens (lines171-194)? What state of mind are the citizens in after this interchange?
6) In what way does Antony make himself seem humble in lines 213-226?
7) According to Caesar’s will (which Antony reads on page 1150), what has he left and who has he left it to?
8) At the end of the scene, a servant comes on stage and delivers some news to Antony. Who has arrived in
Rome? What does the servant say about Brutus and Cassius?
JULIUS CAESAR: ACT 3, SCENE 3
Questions to Consider:
1) Where does this scene take place?
2) What happens to Cinna, the poet? Why?
3) Why do you think Shakespeare choose to write this brief scene? What is he trying to teach us?