What Shakespeare tragedy dramatizes Caesar's assassination?

William Shakespeare’s tragedy Julius Caesar dramatizes the assassination of the Roman dictator. First performed around 1599, the play follows the conspiracy against Caesar, his murder, and the political violence that follows in Rome.

Although the title highlights Caesar, the drama gives substantial attention to Marcus Brutus, whose struggle over loyalty, republican liberty, and political violence makes him the play’s central moral figure for much of the action. Cassius helps recruit the conspirators, while Mark Antony and Octavius become the leading forces opposing them after Caesar’s death.

Shakespeare based much of the plot on Plutarch’s Lives, read through Sir Thomas North’s English translation. The play takes dramatic liberties with chronology and setting: it places the assassination at the Capitol rather than the Curia of Pompey and compresses several historical events into a single day. The tragedy is also the source of famous theatrical moments such as Antony’s funeral speech and the conspirators’ public justification of Caesar’s murder.