Marcus Brutus Junior, the protagonist of the play “Julius Caesar”, made one of the toughest decisions in the history of the Roman Empire: To, or not to, assassinate his longtime friend Julius Caesar, who would turn the Roman government into a dictatorship? Perhaps one of the turning points of this inner conflict came when Gaius Cassius Longinus, Brutus’ brother-in-law, gave a fiery speech to encourage Brutus to backstab Caesar. Cassius’ use of the three3 rhetorical strategies - logos, pathos, and ethos - would eventually persuade Brutus to participate in one of the most famous murder conspiracies in history. First, Cassius starts off by calming the fears and doubts in Brutus about his influence in Rome; Brutus’ fears of his lack of self-worthiness were soothed by Cassius using pathos. Notably in the passage, Cassius makes Brutus feel respected even by Caesar, the most influential man in Rome, with the words “Immortal Caesar, speaking of Brutus...have wish’d that noble Brutus had his eyes (I, ii, 60)”. Moreover, Cassius made sure Brutus knew that he was capable of many things …show more content…
In this case, Cassius underlays pathos to say that “men are at some time masters of their fates(I, ii, 140)”, encouraging Brutus to feel that he has all the power to take command of the Roman empire. Without delay, Cassius proceeds to use logos to ask why exactly Caesar’s name should be more powerful than Brutus’, when “[Brutus] is just as fair a name” and they had “both endured the winter’s cold(I, ii, 99)”. As a result of this logical reasoning, Cassius makes it seem like Brutus is, if not worthier than Caesar to become leader. After all, from the context of Cassius’ speech Brutus has survived countless hardships that have toughened him, while Caesar almost drowned in his own cowardice; so logically, it would appear that former is superior to the