In answering this question, the reader looks to what is
known as the "seduction scene" of Act I, Scene 2, of Julius
Caesar in which Cassius seeks to persuade Brutus to join the conspirators in
their assassination attempt on Julius Caesar. Wishing to solicit Brutus into the
conspiracy because of his honorable reputation, Cassius suggests Caesar's tyranny by
suggesting that Caesar has "now become a
god"(1.2.116):
readability="14">
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow
world
Like a Colossus, and we petty
men
Walk under his huge legs and peep
about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves
(1.2.141-144)
Not only is
Caesar too powerful, contends Cassius, but he is also unfit to rule. Cassius relates a
time when he and Caesar swam in the Tiber River and Cassius had to save Caesar from
drowning. Also, he fell sick in Spain, and fell down from an epileptic seizure. Casca
says that Caesar "fell down in the marketplace and foamed at mouth and was speechless:
(1.2.256-257)
Also, Cassius has Casca describe how Caesar
was off a crown, but he refused it. However, as he "put it by," Casca
says,
...he
would fain have had it....he put it by again; but to my thinking, he was very loath to
lay his fingers off it....He put it the third time by; and still as he refused it, the
rabblement hooted... (1.2.
244-248)
Later, to convince
Brutus, Cassius forges letters from senators and
says,
.....I
will this night'In several hands, in at his windows
throw,As if they came from several
citizens,Writings, all tending to the great
opinionThat Rome holds of his name, wherein
obscurelyCaesar's ambition shall be glanced at.
(1.2.318-322)
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