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Hamlet: Characters
Hamlet character analysis for all 10 main characters — Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude, Ophelia, Polonius, Laertes, Horatio and more. Each profile explores the character's psychology, motivation, and tragic flaw, supported throughout by a modern verse translation and key quotes.
A complete character study guide and revision resource for GCSE, A-Level, AP English, IB, and undergraduate Shakespeare — equally useful to teachers and actors. Select a character below to begin.
Supporting Cast
Beyond the eight figures who carry the main action, Julius Caesar is populated by senators, conspirators, citizens, and soldiers whose presence shapes the play in ways the central drama does not always make explicit. The wider cast is grouped below by their function within the political world of Rome.
The Other Conspirators
Decius Brutus
The flatterer who talks Caesar out of staying home on the Ides by reinterpreting Calpurnia's dream as a sign of imperial promise. Without his persuasion, Caesar never reaches the Senate.
Trebonius
The tactical conspirator who draws Mark Antony aside as Caesar enters the Capitol, ensuring the strike happens without intervention. A small role; without it, no assassination.
Metellus Cimber
The kneeling petitioner whose plea for his banished brother is the planned cue. At Caesar's refusal — "I could be well moved, if I were as you" — the daggers come out.
Cinna
A minor conspirator who delivers Cassius's forged letters to Brutus's window. Shares a name with Cinna the Poet, whose mistaken death in Act 3 turns the coincidence into the play's bleakest joke.
Caius Ligarius
The sick man who rises from his bed to join the conspiracy on Brutus's reputation alone — the play's clearest evidence of the moral authority Brutus carries within the plot.
Caesar's Rome
Lepidus
The third triumvir alongside Antony and Octavius, dismissed by Antony as "a slight unmeritable man" fit only to be sent on errands. Survives the play, diminished.
Popilius Lena
The senator whose whispered word to Caesar moments before the strike briefly terrifies the conspirators that the plot has been discovered. A single line of dialogue, perfectly placed.
Artemidorus
The sophist who tries to give Caesar a written warning naming each conspirator by name. Caesar refuses to read what concerns himself most — "What touches us ourself shall be last served."
The Soothsayer
The unnamed figure whose "Beware the Ides of March" opens the play's prophetic register. Correct in every detail; ignored as a matter of imperial principle.
Publius
The elderly senator brought along to lend dignity to Caesar's procession. Present at the assassination but spared by Brutus, who orders him kept safe from the crowd's panic.
The People of Rome
Flavius and Marullus
The tribunes who open the play, scattering the celebrating crowd and stripping decorations from Caesar's statues. "Put to silence" off-stage — the first political casualties of Caesar's rise.
The Cobbler
The witty plebeian who jests with the tribunes about mending soles and souls, establishing the social register of Rome's streets in the play's opening minutes.
The Plebeians
The collective body of Roman citizens whose loyalty swings within minutes from Brutus to Antony during the funeral orations — the fastest political reversal in the Shakespearean canon.
Cinna the Poet
Torn apart by the mob for sharing the conspirator's name — and for his bad verses. The play's savage joke about how political violence finds its targets.
The Camp at Philippi
Lucius
Brutus's young boy servant, who falls asleep playing music on the eve of the battle. The only figure in the play whose function is purely tender.
Pindarus
Cassius's bondman, who holds the sword Cassius runs upon at Philippi. Freed by the act, he flees Rome forever.
Titinius
Cassius's lieutenant, sent to scout the field and mistakenly thought captured. His return finds Cassius dead by Pindarus's hand, and he kills himself with the same sword.
Strato
The servant who steadies Brutus's sword so that Brutus can run upon it. The last gentle act in a brutal play.
Messala
Friend to both Brutus and Cassius, the messenger who brings the news of Portia's death. Survives Philippi and goes over to Antony's side, as Brutus had urged.
Lucilius
Brutus's loyal officer, who pretends to be Brutus to allow him to escape. Antony, recognising the honourable deception, spares him and welcomes him into his own service.
Young Cato
Marcus Cato's son and Portia's brother, killed at Philippi defending Brutus's cause — the Stoic family's last sacrifice to the dying Republic.
Others
Cicero
The famous orator, briefly present during the storm in Act 1, Scene 3; reported off-stage as one of seventy-odd senators marked for death on the triumvirs' proscription list in Act 4.
The Carpenter
The commoner questioned by the tribunes in the play's opening lines, before the Cobbler takes over the exchange with his punning on soles and awls.
The Poet
A figure separate from Cinna the Poet, who interrupts Brutus and Cassius's tent reconciliation at Sardis with a clumsy plea to "love, and be friends," and is dismissed by Brutus as a "jigging fool."
Varro and Claudius
Brutus's servants who sleep in his tent at Sardis while Lucius plays music. Their presence on stage frames the Ghost of Caesar's first appearance to Brutus.
Clitus, Dardanius, and Volumnius
Brutus's three followers at Philippi, each in turn asked by him to hold his sword for his suicide; each refuses. Strato eventually does the office.
The Ghost of Caesar
The apparition that appears to Brutus on the eve of Philippi, identifying itself as "thy evil spirit." Returns wordlessly on the battlefield as Brutus's defeat closes in.
Servants and Messengers
The various unnamed figures who carry word between the play's factions: Caesar's servant reporting the augurers' findings, Antony's servant requesting an audience, Octavius's servant announcing his approach to Rome. Each delivers plot but has no character of his own.