Julius Caesar Lesson Plan

What are the essential qualities of “Roman-ness” that emerge in Act II?

In the context of Act II, the quality of being Roman is referred to primarily as the conspirators discuss their assassiation plot and honorability in undertaking it. When Brutus says that their being Romans should eliminate the need for an oath, the clear implication is that Romans are at once honest, virtuous, and endowed with an “insuppressive mettle of [spirit]” (II.1.133). Because these characters associate such positive qualities with being citizens in the Roman Republic and they believe they are undertaking the assassination as an act of civic obligation, students might also extrapolate that being...