Julius Caesar Play

The Julius Caesar play by William Shakespeare had it's premiere the 21st september 1599, and was published in the year 1623.

Since than it has been played hundreds of times in various locations, versions and languages. The language and grammar of the play is about the same as Hamlet, another play by Shakespeare, and over the years it has acquired the title "Most Expressive" of the depictions of Julius Caesar's murder.

This play is not purely fictitious, as we all know of the historical betrayal that was the Senators' doing. After luring Caesar away from prying eyes, his acquaintance Brutus, along with others, had had him and his partners in crime assassinated. Apparently the Emperor of Rome's most trusted man was nothing but a traitor.

The main characters of the play are Julius Caesar and Marcus Junius Brutus, even if Brutus is often viewed as the true main character because of his depiction and words. The story itself follows Brutus much more than it does Caesar, and according to many, Brutus was the hero of the story. His main focus was to save Rome, after all, not to blindly follow an unloved leader.

There are other works much like this one, for example we have Samuel Daniel's Musophilus and John Davie's Nosce teipsum.

Shakespeare's first and foremost source to Julius Caesar was Plutarcho's written works of Caesar's life, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans. Shakespeare changed the plot of the historical work quite a lot; Events that happened over the range of four months was compressed into a single day! 

Famous quotes of this play is "Et tu, Brute?" (You too, Brutus?) and "It was all greek to me."

As earlier mentioned, the first printed script of Julius Caesar was made the year 1623, by a few of Shakespeare's actor colleagues. 

The characters have had many different actors over the years, none of which the author of this text find noteworthy of mentioning, and from the year 1914 to 2012, movies have been made in the name and spirit of this play. The first one being Cajus Julius Caesar (staged by Enrico Guazzoni) and the most recent one being Julius Ceasar (staged by Gregory Doran)

Sources: WiKiPeDiA and, well, me!