Roman Republic and Caesar Orders Essay

Submitted By marshallmaz
Words: 916
Pages: 4

hysical properties of matter are categorized as either Intensive or Extensive:
Intensive - Properties that do not depend on the amount of the matter present.
Color
Odor
Luster - How shiny a substance is.
Malleability - The ability of a substance to be beaten into thin sheets.
Ductility - The ability of a substance to be drawn into thin wires.
Conductivity - The ability of a substance to allow the flow of energy or electricity.
Hardness - How easily a substance can be scratched.
Melting/Freezing Point - The temperature at which the solid and liquid phases of a substance are in equilibrium at atmospheric pressure.
Boiling Point - The temperature at which the vapor pressure of a liquid is equal to the pressure on the liquid (generally atmospheric pressure).
Density - The mass of a substance divided by its volume

Extensive - Properties that do depend on the amount of matter present.
Mass - A measurement of the amount of matter in a object (grams).
Weight - A measurement of the gravitational force of attraction of the earth acting on an object.
Volume - A measurement of the amount of space a substance occupies.
Length

Cassius, alone now, says that while he believes that Brutus is noble, he hopes that Brutus’s noble nature may yet be bent: “For who so firm that cannot be seduced?” he asks rhetorically (I.ii.306). He decides to forge letters from Roman citizens declaring their support for Brutus and their fear of Caesar’s ascent to power; he will throw them into Brutus’s house that evening.

Analysis

While the opening scene illustrates Caesar’s popularity with the masses, the audience’s first direct encounter with him presents an omen of his imminent fall. Caesar’s choice to ignore the Soothsayer’s advice proves the first in a series of failures to heed warnings about his fate. Just as Caesar himself proves fallible, his power proves imperfect. When Caesar orders Antony to touch Calpurnia, Antony replies that Caesar need merely speak and his word will become fact—that is, Caesar’s authority is so strong that his word immediately brings about the requested action. However, while the masses may conceive of Caesar’s power thus, Caesar’s order to Antony alerts us to the reality that he and his wife have been unable to produce a child. The implication that Caesar may be impotent or sterile is the first—and, for a potential monarch, the most damaging—of his physical shortcomings to be revealed in the play.

This conversation between Brutus and Cassius reveals the respective characters of the two men, who will emerge as the foremost conspirators against Caesar. Brutus appears to be a man at war with himself, torn between his love for Caesar and his honorable concern for Rome. He worries that it is not in Rome’s best interest for Caesar to become king, yet he hates to oppose his friend. Cassius steps into Brutus’s personal crisis and begins his campaign to turn Brutus against Caesar, flattering Brutus’s pride by offering to be his mirror and thus relaying to him the ostensible high regard in which the citizens hold him.

Cassius compounds Brutus’s alarm about Caesar’s growing power with references to his weak physical state: he lacks stamina and is probably epileptic. But Cassius observes only Caesar’s frail human body, his private self. When he urges Brutus to consider that the name of Brutus should be as powerful as the name of Caesar, he fails to understand that Caesar’s real power is not affected by private infirmities but rather rests in his public persona, whose strength is derived from the goodwill and good