[Stirling examines the extent to which Shakepeare relied upon his source material in his presentation of the Roman populace in Julius Caesar. The critic notes that although Shakepeare's portrait of the commoners as fickle, unreasonable, and opportunistic generally echoes Plutarch's lives Of Caesar and Brutus. the dramatist also elaborated upon Plutarch:S account, notably in Act III. scene ii, when Brutus and Antony deliver their funeral orations
for Caesar. and in Act III scene iii, when the citizens interrogate the poet Cinna. While the effect of the changes in the first of these scenes is to accentuate the instability of the mob, Stirling maintains, Shakespeare did not deliberately alter his source to further denigrate the populace; rather, the changes were made for dramatic r:ffect and, moreover, were warranted by Plutarch's descriptions of the mob in other.....
