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Julius Caesar Summary 56938 Views


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Description:

We totally understand loving your country, but don't murder your best friend over it. That's a bit over the top. Stick to flying flags and singing national anthems, please.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

Julius Caesar, a la Shmoop Greetings, fellow countrymen. I am Brutus…

00:12

….Okay, okay, you all probably know me for my um, shaky moral compass…

00:17

…you know – murdering my good friend…

00:19

…who, uh, also happened to be a beloved Roman general and senator…

00:24

…but I swear this wasn’t just some popularity contest gone wrong.

00:28

I mean, I did think that Caesar was getting too popular.

00:31

I was afraid that he was going to become the king of Rome…

00:37

…but it’s not like I wanted to be king instead! I just wanted no kings! Not even

00:42

the nice kind!

00:43

Just a good old fashioned republic…

00:44

…where everybody gets a voice.

00:47

Well, except the dead guy.

00:49

Okay, I admit… I guess we could have tried more, um, republican techniques, but it’s

00:56

not like we could have voted for the people to stop liking him!

01:00

Plus, I had my friend Cassius breathing down my neck.

01:05

He was all “Caesar thinks he’s soooo cool” and “nobody even likes him” and “we

01:10

need to murder him before he becomes a vicious dictator…”

01:13

Talk about pressure.

01:16

It’s especially uncomfortable when, at your murder victim’s funeral, after you’ve

01:21

gone on and on about how you did it all for the love of your country…

01:24

….it turns out that the guy you killed bequeathed all his money to the citizens of that country.

01:30

Doesn’t really make you look like you love your country all that much.

01:34

But I did, I swear… I was just misguided in my love…

01:37

Overly eager, pressured, a little obsessive – like that guy who keeps messaging you

01:42

on OKCupid…

01:44

Before this murder thing, I used to be one of the good guys. Well-loved in the community,

01:50

rubbing elbows with rising stars like Caesar, a good husband and a hard worker…

01:58

…but my love of country made me lose it all.

02:01

I lost my wife… she killed herself because I was so obsessed with Rome I’d forgotten

02:07

about her.

02:07

I lost my friend Cassius to the war…

02:09

…and then I lost the war.

02:12

And then, after all that, I lost myself.

02:16

Mine is a tale of caution: love can make you do crazy things. Like, really crazy things.

02:22

Seriously, people, don’t murder your friends.

02:25

But while I majorly screwed up with Rome, I didn’t lose the love of my life completely.

02:31

See, after I realized that the war was lost, and I killed myself…

02:34

…Antony, Caesar’s ally, spoke over my dead body. He said that, in spite of the huge

02:39

mess I helped create…

02:41

….I was the only one who did it because I truly loved my country.

02:44

So… yeah. At least I’ve got that going for me.

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