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<title> Shakespeare's Julius Caesar </title>
After "A very pleasing night to honest men" (I.3.43) - a night of thunder - Cassius comes to Brutus's house in the company of Casca, Cinna, Decius, Trebonius and Metellus. It is early in the morning the day for the assassination and they have come to discuss and plan the murder of Caesar. Brutus has just received a letter exhorting him "To speak and strike" (II.1.56). He thinks this is an urgent request to him from the people of Rome, but in fact it is Cassius writing: in this way he tries to persuade Brutus to join the conspiracy. The passage this essay is based on is Act II, scene 1, line 112-191.

After a discussion about were the sun actually rises, Cassius wants all the conspirators to swear an oath. Brutus immediately oppose to this and his cause is clear:

		If not the face of men, 
	The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse -
	If these be motives weak, break off betimes. ... (114-16)
	...
	What need we any spur but our own cause. ... (123) 

The only oath that Brutus want is "honesty to honesty engaged" (127), because to Brutus, their reason for murdering Caesar is so strong and obvious that it does not need an oath in its real meaning. For him, the reason for the murder is the Roman people's state - they suffer - and he does not want them to live under these hard conditions. To him, the reason for the murder is that it is the common good and he wants the other conspirators as well as the public to believe that as strong as he does. This is also why he turns down the suggestion, by Decius and Cassius, that they should kill Mark Antony too. Cassius fear a "A shrewd contriver" in Antony (158) and he also trembles at the thought of what power Antony could get if they do not kill him. He is not aware of the fact that he "looks | Quite through the deeds of men" (I.2.201-2) twice, nor is Brutus, who says to him, both times, that he should "not think of him" (184). No one seems to understand, at this point, that Cassius justly feels the threat from Antony. If they kill both Antony and Caesar, their "course will seem too bloody" (162) and that is not the intention.

		This shall make
	Our purpose necessary, and not envious;
	Which so appearing to the common eyes,
	We shall be called purgers, not murderers. (177-80)

There is also a discussion about whether they should make Cicero one of them or not. Again it is Cassius that proposes and Brutus that rejects. Brutus always has long elaborated answers to Cassius's short, concise questions Cassius thinks that "he [Cicero] will stand very strong with us" (142) and Casca says: "Let us not leave him out" (143) and Cinna and Metellus agree. Brutus does not want him to join the conspiracy "For he will never follow anything | That other men begin." (line 151-52) Maybe Brutus thinks that not even he would be powerful enough to make Cicero a conspirator, for he makes it sound as if he had doubts about his own qualities as a leader, but he might not be aware of the others understanding it like that. Then Cassius thinks they should "leave him out" (line 153) and suddenly Casca sound as if he has never been of any other opinion than that of Brutus's and Cassius's: "Indeed he is not fit." (line 154). Cinna and Metellus do not comment on this, but contrary to Cicero, Casca is easily 'manipulated' and does not contradict the man he sees as the leader.

Both these discussions reveal a great difference of opinion between Brutus and Cassius. They agree on one point and that is the killing of Caesar, but they have quite different reasons for wanting his death. Brutus loves Caesar as a person: if there were some other way of making away with the spirit of Caesar - what Caesar stands for - and, with that, the 'general suffering', Brutus would have chosen that solution to the problem, but as it is now, Caesar has to die, even though this means that Brutus will kill a friend, and a very good one, because he does not want the whole people to suffer because of one man's dictatorialness. The general good thus gets the upper hand in Brutus.

	We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar,
	And in the spirit of men there is no blood.
	O, that we then could come by Caesar's spirit,
	And not dismember Caesar! But, alas, 
	Caesar must bleed for it. ... (167-71)

The major difference between Brutus and Cassius is that Brutus is an idealist. He feels as though it is his duty to kill Caesar, since so many people are suffering under his reign. It is 'cold logic' to reason like this - to kill a friend in order to relieve the suffering of a whole people - but this does not stop Brutus from murder Caesar. 

The picture given to the reader of Brutus suggests a very cold and determined man, but in fact, he is not as sure as he appears to be. The way he speaks about the conspirators as "sacrificers" rather than "murderers" (176 and 180) is a way to keep his bad conscience, for murdering a friend, at a distance. However, it does haunt him in the ghost of Caesar, which he sees before going out on the battlefield. (IV.3.279) Cassius, on the other hand hates Caesar on personal grounds. He has the opposite reasons for the murder compared to Brutus: he does not think of anyone else's good, but that of himself. However, he does say, when speaking of Antony:

	A shrewd contriver; and you know his means,
	If he improve them, they may well stretch so far
	As to annoy us all. ... (158-60)

This hints that he might be considering the good of them all when proposing that they murder both Antony and Caesar, but it is not very obvious. Brutus is the altruistic one and this creates his anguish: he does know the wrong in murdering a friend, but at the same time he wants to relieve the burden from the people.
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