Journal Response 1
"There is a story told that while he (Caesar) was crossing the Alps her came to a small native village with hardly any inhabitants and altogether a miserable-looking place. His friends were laughing and joking about it, saying: "No doubt here, too, one would find people pushing themselves forward to gain office, and here, too, there are struggles to get the first place and jealous rivalries among the great men." Caesar then said to them in all seriousness: "As far as I am concerned, I would rather be the first man here than the second in Rome."
This quote by Caesar reminds me of some advice my fourth-grade teacher gave to our math class. There were three different levels of math classes, and I was in the advanced one. Many of the students were having trouble in the class because some of the material was pretty difficult for a fourth grader to understand. The teacher recommended that the students who were not doing well should move to the average class. She said that it's always better to be at the top of the average class than it is to be at the bottom of the advanced class. This is good advice, because one can take pride in being at a high level, but it doesn't matter how high their standing is if they are not successful at that level. One will feel better about themselves if they are successful, even though they may have to lower their standards. But Caesar did not follow this unspoken rule. He was so power-hungry that he always had to come out on top, no matter what the price. Coming in second in Rome would not satisfy him, though being second in power in Rome would be a great honor to many. He would rather be first in a little village such as the one mentioned above, because he would have total control. This shows a lot about Caesar's personality: he is extremely competitive, he doesn't give up, he strongly values total control, and he has different values than most people. Some might say that Caesar does not have good values, or that he is not very wise. His competitive drive forces him to make choices that other people might not make, therefore he seems foolish. But it was his competitiveness that made Caesar such a great leader. He set his own standards, and he refused to settle for anything less. This type of a leader is often a good leader because they get things done, but it can also be a bad thing because he will do anything to get what he wants, or what he thinks is in the best interests of other people. Because of this quality, it is easy to mistrust a leader of this type.
Journal Response 2
"A great conqueror, soldier, and politician, Caesar was popular because he gained territory for Rome and because he frequently sent money back to the city to be used for public works or to help the common people. Because of his conquests he was ultimately given the honor of ruling Rome for as long as he lived, but he was still not satisfied; many suspected that he wanted to set up a monarchy so that power could pass to his heirs as well. Caesar was married to Calpurnia, but thus far she had borne him no children."
This is more evidence of how Caesar was never satisfied with who he was or how much power he possessed. He was not of royal blood, yet the Romans chose him to rule them for all the rest of his life. This was a great honor, not to mention a truly incredible accomplishment. It is extremely unlikely that the Romans would choose someone to rule them who was not of royal blood. They put a lot of trust in him to be a good ruler to them. If he ended up to be a bad ruler, they might not have had enough power to overthrow him, which can result in disaster. The Romans gave Caesar a lot, but he still wanted more. It was in his nature to always want more, because he learned that you often have to be very pushy to get what you want or to get work done. If he did succeed in setting up a monarchy in Rome, one can assume that he would continue to struggle for more and more power, and never be satisfied with what he had. The fact that he had no children at the time shows how petty his hunger for power really is, because he doesn't even need the power that he is striving so hard to achieve. The Romans should have taken this as an indication that he was too power-hungry. Wanting power is good because it is motivation to achieve goals from which the entire nation benefits. But when too much power is desired, it can overcome the leader and force them to make unwise decisions. Leaders can easily become greedy, because it is usually easy for them to get what they want, since they have so much power. They get used to getting everything they want or need. When they can't have something, they feel a strong urge to get it because it is so unusual for them to not be allowed to have something. But Caesar seems to have been born with this overpowering struggle for control. When he became ruler of Rome, his already huge need for power may have grown even more, into something totally out of control. Trying to create a monarchy was one of his actions that was due to his natural desire for control and the increased need for power when he became a ruler. In other words, the more power he was given, the more he felt he needed.
Journal Response 3
"But what made Caesar most openly and mortally hated was his passion to be made king. It was this which made the common people hate him for the first time, and it served as a most useful pretext for those others who had long hated him but had up to now disguised their feelings."
This quote interests me because I was not aware that Caesar was a disliked king. After reading the first two scenes of Act I in the play Julius Caesar, it seemed to me that he was popular among the people of Rome. In Scene 2 of Act I, the crowd was upset that Caesar refused three times to be king. Now it is obvious to me that he was their hero at first, but ended up not to be a very good leader. At first he did not want to be king, but then his passion to be king became very strong. The surer of himself he became, the more he wanted to be king. People must have resented him for this. Even though he had a huge amount of power in Rome, he still wanted more. The common people who were getting to know him for the first time came to hate him, and the government officials who had known him for a long time finally exposed their true feelings for him. The commoners who did not know him personally were not afraid to show how they truly felt about him. The people who worked close to him may have started to develop jealous or resentful feelings towards Caesar because of his personality, but they did not let these feelings show until Caesar was already beginning to lose popularity. The way Caesar became so conceited after he became more noticed is the effect fame sometimes has on people in our present-day society. Many people get some power or control, and they feel superior to everyone else. There is no difference between someone who has a lot of power and someone who has little power, except that the person with more power has more responsibility. The fact that they have responsibility should not make them feel superior, it should just make them realize that they need to be trustworthy and honorable because they are not only accountable for their own fates, but also for the fates of others. It is always better if a leader with this much power is totally trusted by the community, because they know that his decisions could greatly affect them. They will feel safer if they know that their leader is dependable.
Journal Response 4
"Because Caesar may change and become unjust, Brutus decides to take the law into his own hands and do to Caesar the injustice of murdering him. The motives are high, but the tragic error is plain. It is perhaps better to speak of a tragic hero as making an error than as having a 'flaw'."
This quote seems very justified because it would not normally be in Brutus' personality to do something like this and kill Caesar. It is not his flaw, only a spell of bad judgment, an error, because his more honest qualities were shielded by the manipulation of Cassius. The assassination of Caesar actually may have worked had he thought about the whole procedure a little bit more. It also would have been more successful if their plan was more complete, with considerations of everything that could possibly happen after the death of Caesar. Brutus did not have a flaw in his personality. He was a man of honor and honesty, not one who would kill someone, especially not one of his friends. Cassius manipulated Brutus so that his normal personality was totally blocked by his desire to be a hero in the eyes of the public. He keeps telling himself that he is going to kill Caesar to do a good deed to the general public, until he actually believes it. There are definitely underlying emotions of guilt and disappointment in himself, but Brutus is able to cover them up. Surely his conscious might have warned him not to go through with the plan, but his sense of honor took over. It seems nicer to think that Brutus' sense of honor was what allowed him to be so easily manipulated into thinking that the assassination of Caesar was the right thing to do. But it is definitely possible that perhaps he thought the public would think of him as a hero. It is a known fact that Brutus did not kill Caesar to inherit his power, for Brutus feared that a single man might possess so much control. But he might have wanted to inherit Caesar's popularity, as a wondrous man committing selfless acts of heroism in the interest of the people. In Julius Caesar, Brutus is regarded as the victim who is helplessly manipulated by Cassius, the villain. But maybe Brutus subconsciously wanted to be manipulated, because he was never very popular or well known. It is safe for Brutus, because he can blame it on Cassius if the conspirators are rejected by the public. And if they are accepted by the public, Brutus will be a hero. Maybe Brutus is even more manipulative, than Cassius.