Caius Cassius

Also known as: Cassius · Family: Roman · Role: nobleman · First appears: Julius Caesar · Act I, Scene II

Caius Cassius, a Roman nobleman, is presented as an enemy of Julius Caesar and a friend of Marcus Brutus. In Act I, Scene II, he plans to use forged letters to make Marcus Brutus oppose Julius Caesar, while Julius Caesar regards him as dangerous. He brings Casca into his faction, sends Cinna to distribute papers recruiting Marcus Brutus, and plans with Casca to secure Brutus’s support: “There’s a bargain made.”

By Act II, Scene I, Cassius and the conspirators decide that Julius Caesar must die, while rejecting the killing of Mark Antony: “Let Antony and Caesar fall together.” After Julius Caesar is stabbed and Mark Antony turns the citizens against the conspirators, Cassius flees Rome with Marcus Brutus and raises forces against Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar. He later reconciles with Marcus Brutus, then marches with him to meet the opposing army at Philippi.

At Philippi, Cassius commands Pindarus and addresses Messala as his general, while Marcus Brutus and he exchange a possible final farewell. When Mark Antony’s forces overrun Cassius’s camp, Cassius orders Pindarus to kill him with the sword that struck Julius Caesar, declaring, “Caesar, thou art reveng’d.” Titinius, finding Cassius dead after discovering that he had mistaken the battle’s outcome, kills himself with Cassius’s sword; Marcus Brutus then orders Cassius’s body sent to Thassos for burial outside the camp.