"Cliff Notes - Julius Caesar" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

Caesar has had a restless night, too. His wife Calpurnia tries
to keep him home--she senses evil in the air--and at first he
relents. But the conspirators arrive and persuade him to go to
the Senate as planned. What would happen to his reputation if
his public thought the mighty Caesar was swayed by a
superstitious wife!

Calpurnia's fears turn out to be more than superstitions, for
the day is March 15, the ides of March. Caesar ignores two more
warnings and, after delivering a speech full of extravagant
self-praise, he is stabbed by the conspirators and dies.

Antony, learning of the murder of his dearest friend, begs the
conspirators to let him speak at the funeral. Believing that
right is on his side, Brutus agrees, over the objections of his
more realistic friends. Left alone, Antony vows to revenge the
death of Caesar, even if it means plunging his country into
civil war. In the meantime, Caesar's adopted son and heir,
Octavius, has arrived on the outskirts of Rome, and Antony
advises him to wait there till he can gauge the mood of the
country.

Brutus' funeral oration is a measured, well-reasoned speech,
appealing to the better instincts of the people and to their
abstract sense of duty to the state. For a moment he wins them
over. But then Antony inflames the crowds with an appeal to
their emotions. Showing them Caesar's bloody clothes turns them
into an angry mob, hungry for revenge. Blind with hate, they
roam the streets and tear apart the innocent poet Cinna.

Antony and Octavius now join forces with Lepidus to pursue and
destroy the conspirators, who have fled from Rome. Anyone who
might endanger their cause is coldly put to death. Brutus and
Cassius await this new triumverate at their camp near Sardis in
Asia Minor. Should Cassius let an officer take bribes? Brutus,
standing on his principles, says no, and vents his anger on his
friend. At the root of his anger, however, is his unspoken
sorrow at the death of his beloved wife Portia. Apparently
unable to deal with such an unsettling situation, she went mad
and took her life by swallowing hot coals. Sadness over her
death brings Brutus and Cassius back together again, closer
perhaps than before.

At night Brutus is visited by the ghost of Caesar, who vows to
meet him again on the battlefield at Philippi in Greece. The
next day the two armies--the army of Brutus and Cassius, and the
army of Antony and Octavius--stand in readiness at Philippi
while the four generals battle each other with words. In the
first encounter, Brutus' troops defeat Octavius', and Antony's