They weren't worried he was too powerful.

Why did the Senate want to assassinate Julius Caesar?

He brought back lots of loot from his military victories.

They had a special building all to themselves.

Background and context: Power in ancient Rome

Key Stage 3

English

Julius Caesar, Shakespeare, Act 1

﻿Hello and welcome to the Oak National Academy for English. My name is Mr. James, and today I'm really excited to teach you about one of the most famous plays in human history. Yes, it's Julius Caesar by a certain William Shakespeare. But before we get onto the play, first we're going to learn a little bit about ancient Rome, because that is where the play is set. Before we begin, let's have a look at what we are going to be learning about in today's lesson. Number one, we're going to learn what power is. Number two, we're going to learn the word tyrant. Number three, we're going to investigate power in ancient Rome. Number four, we're going to discover who Julius Caesar was. And number five, we're going to answer some questions on everything we've learned. But before we do any of that, we need to make sure we've got the correct equipment. So number one, make sure you've got a pen. Number two, make sure you've got some paper and number three, make sure you have engaged your brain. If you don't have any of those things, pause the video, go and get them now and then come back when you're ready. Okay, now you've got your equipment. What I would like you to do is write down today's title on your piece of paper. It's on the screen in front of you now. So, pause the video and write down your title. First of all, let us ask the question, why do we need to learn about power? Well, there's a couple of reasons. The first thing is the main theme of Julius Caesar is the fight for power, and another theme of Julius Caesar is tyranny, okay? And we'll be talking about these, not just in this lesson, but in the series of lessons and for the whole duration of Julius Caesar, so we really need to make sure we're familiar with these concepts, so we need to know about power, okay? Another question is what is power? So, let's have a look. Here's the definition of power. It says, if someone has power, they have control over people or events. And we have a picture of Donald Trump. Now, Donald Trump is powerful because he's the American president. So that means he makes decisions that affects the lives of the ordinary people in America. He has power, he has some control. So, let's have a look at some more examples of power. Well, in society and British society, the British Prime Minister has more power than ordinary citizens in the same way that in America, Donald Trump has more power than American people. Number two, in the classroom, teachers have more power than pupils and that's because it's the teachers who make most of the decisions about what happens in the classroom. And number three in football, the manager has more power than the players. Again, it's because he is the person who makes the decisions. Now in a minute, you're going to pause the video and on paper, I want you to write down some more examples of power, like the ones on the previous slide. If you need a little bit of help, have a look at these examples to guide you through the process. So pause the video, write down new examples of power, and I'll see you in a minute. So, how did you do? Here's some examples of things you might've written down. Number one in the family, parents have more power than children. In History, kings had more power than parliament and at work owners of businesses have more power than the people who work for them. And I'm sure you've got some great answers of your own, that aren't on the slide. Now, let's return back to the definition of power, and I want you to think in your head, what is the missing word in this definition? Five, three, two, one. And yes, of course it's control. If someone has power, they have control over people or events. So, let's ask the question, how do people become powerful? Well, there's a number of ways. The first way is through their birth. Some people are born into very rich and powerful families, and that means they have power passed down to them from their parents. The second way that some people become powerful is through cheating. They lie or they cheat, or they manipulate people in order to get power for themselves, and obviously that's a very bad thing. And a third way that people can become powerful is through hard work. Some people work really hard because they want to achieve things in their life, and we generally think this is a very good thing. So, pause the video. And I want you to answer this question, write the answers down on your paper. What are the three main ways that people become powerful? Off you go. Okay, what did you get? Hopefully you put the three main ways that people become powerful are number one, by being born into a powerful family. Number two, through lying or cheating and number three, through hard work. But why is it dangerous if one person has too much power? Well, it's because it can lead to something called tyranny. Now let's investigate this word tyranny. If people live under tyranny, that means the ruler or leader is cruel and treats people very badly and Hitler, on the right over here, definitely created a tyranny in Germany and in Europe more broadly. And let's have a look at this word tyrant. Now, if someone is a tyrant, it means they are the ruler or leader who is cruel and treating people very badly. So we can see the relationship between tyranny and tyrant. Now, let's have a look at some sentences that use these words correctly. Number one says, refugees are often fleeing from tyranny. Now that's because people really do not like living in a tyranny so they obviously want to leave the country and go somewhere else. Number two, the refugees left their country because their leader was a tyrant. Again, it's the same thing. A tyrant will create a tyranny. Number three, Vlad the Impaler is one of history's worst tyrants and he killed people, he cut their heads off and put them on stakes, and did all kinds of terrible things to people. Now, we have four sentences here and I want you to read through them and decide which two are correct. So pause the video, read through the sentences, choose the two that are correct, and then unpause and come back to me for the correct answer. Okay, welcome back. What did you get? The correct answers are option two, Hitler was a tyrant and option four, Vlad the Impaler was a tyrant. So, congratulations if you got those correct. Now next up, which one of these two options is correct? Option one, people don't like to live under tyrant. Option two, people don't like to live under tyranny. Make your decision. You've got five seconds, four, three, two, one. And the correct answer is option two, people don't like to live under a tyranny. So, let's ask the question. How did power work in ancient Rome? Well, power in ancient Rome was divided up between people called senators. Now, senators were elected officials. They were elected by other people in Rome, but only the powerful people were allowed to vote. Normal people like you or I, were not allowed to vote. But at least the senators were elected by some people, rather than by no people. Now, the senators they did most of their work in a building called the Senate. And this is a modern photo of the Senate, that the senators used to work in during the time when Julius Caesar was ruling Rome. Now, here is a painting of the Senate and this is what it looked like inside. People would give speeches to convince the other senators that their ideas were the best ones and they should vote for them. And then the senators would make decisions about what was in the best interests of Rome. Now, this is really important because in Rome, one person didn't have all the power. The power was split between the senators. There wasn't a king, there wasn't a queen and the Senate was very powerful and the people were elected. Now, what were the people elected to run Rome called? Three, two, one. Did you get it? They are called senators. Number two, what did Romans called the building where the decisions were made? It's called the Senate. Hopefully you got that right too. I'm sure you did, great work. Now, the question we have on screen says, why was the Senate so powerful? We've got four options. Let's have a look at them. Option one says, because they could do whatever they wanted. Option two says because there was lots of senators. Number three says because they were elected citizens and option four says because the building was very expensive. So, I want you to think about those options. Have another read through them if you need to. Pause the video, choose one that is correct, come back and I'll tell you the correct answer. Off you go, Okay, welcome back. Which one did you choose? Hopefully you chose option three because that's the correct one. The reason the Senate was so powerful is because they were elected citizens. That means they were chosen by other people in Rome. Only other powerful people, only other rich people, but still better than just one person taking power for themselves. So that's why the Senate was powerful because they were elected. So what about Julius Caesar? Now, we've talked about ancient Rome. We've talked about power. We've talked about power in ancient Rome in the Senate, but what about Julius Caesar himself. What about the man? Well, Julie Caesar was a real person, a real Roman leader who lived in Rome 2000 years ago. He commanded a large army and he was very popular because he'd won lots of military victories, and he brought home lots of loot that he was able to share with the Roman people. But he became more and more powerful, and he did not listen to the Senate to the point where he was basically ruling Rome on his own, sort of like a King. And obviously the senators and the people in Rome or some people in Rome didn't like this because he was behaving like a King and power was just with him. And the Senate, the senators didn't have the power themselves. The power was more spread out between lots of people, if it was shared between the senators. If just one person had it like Julius Caesar, perhaps he could become a what, beginning with T? Yes, a tyrant, okay? And we get a picture of Julius Caesar here on the right and you can see how powerful he is. He's got his army around him. You've got people that he's captured nearby, and there's people on horses coming to see him. So, let's ask the question. What made Julius Caesar so powerful that he could ignore the Senate? We've got four options. Let's have a look at them. Option one says because he controlled a large army. Option two says that because he was very strong. Option three says because he was very ambitious and option four is because he brought back lots of loot and wealth from his military victories. So pause the video, have a think about the four options, and I want you to choose the two that you think are correct. Off you go. Okay, welcome back. Which two did you get? Hopefully you chose option one and option four because controlled a large army, and because he brought back lots of loot. The army, because he was able to tell the army what to do. If you're the head of an army, obviously you've got some power because you've got an army to carry out your decisions. And he was also popular because the people of Rome loved him because he brought them lots of loot and that helped to make them wealthy. But some of the senators weren't so keen on this because they were wealthy anyway, and they thought he was becoming too powerful as one man, and he could become a tyrant. So, let's ask the question, what did the Senate think about Julius Caesar? Now, we've already got an idea, haven't we? Because we've talked about it already, but let's have a look. The Senate did not like Caesar. They thought he was too powerful. They thought he had the potential to become a tyrant. And when they put these two things together, they thought, hmm, maybe we should assassinate him. And that's what some of the senators, obviously in secret wanted to do. They wanted to assassinate Caesar and remember assassinate means kill. Some of the senators wanted to assassinate, wanted to kill Julius Caesar. So, that's one of the main themes of the play, the fight for power between the Senate or some of the senators and Julius Caesar. And that's why I said if you remember, right back at the beginning of the lesson, I said, one of the main themes of the play is the fight of power. And now you can see what I mean. We've talked about tyranny. We've talked about tyrants. Some of the senators thought Julius Caesar had the potential to be a tyrant. And some of them because of that thought hmm, we should maybe assassinate him. We should have the power back with the Senate, not with Julius Caesar. So it was a fight for power between some of the senators and Julius Caesar himself. Okay, one of the main themes of the play there. So, why did the Senate not like Julius Caesar? Again, there's two correct answers here. Let's have a read through the options. Option one, he won lots of military victories. Option two, he ignored them, he ignored the Senate. Option three, he brought back lots of loot, or option four, they worried he might become a tyrant. So have a think, pause the video, read through the options and come back when you think you've got the two correct answers. Off you go. Okay, welcome back. Hopefully you chose option two and option four. And if you did, great work, you've obviously been paying great attention because you've got the correct answer yet again. They didn't like him because he ignored them. He didn't do what they said or he didn't consult them about the things he was going to do, and also they worried he might become a tyrant. And obviously if a tyrant controls a big army, that's doubly bad. So, let's have a look at some questions to end the lesson. I want you to answer the following question on your paper with your pen. In ancient Rome, who was power divided between? Get your pen, get your paper and write the answer to this question. When you're done, come back and I'll go through the answer with you. Off you go. Okay, welcome back. Hopefully you wrote something like this, in ancient Rome, power was divided between the Senate. Alternatively, you could say in ancient Rome, power was divided between elected senators. And remember what's the difference between the Senate and the senators? Yes, the senators are the people, and the Senate is the place that they met to make their decisions, but sometimes we refer to the senators as the Senate, if we want to talk about all of them at the same time, okay? Well done. Let's have a look at the next question, question two. This says, why was Julius Caesar so powerful? Why was Julius Caesar so powerful? Again, get your pen, get your paper, write down your answer. After you've written your answer, unpause the video, come back to me and I'll go through the answer with you. Off you go. Okay, welcome back. Let's have a look at what you might have written. So, an answer to why was Julius Caesar so powerful, might look something like this. Julius Caesar was powerful because the people of Rome loved him. He controlled a very large army and won lots of military victories. When he returned to Rome, following his victories, he brought lots of loot, which he distributed among the people, okay? So remember, he brought lots of loot back, that made people love him and he had a big army. So, you need to get both those things in your answer. One, there was lots of loot that he brought back from his military victories that made the people love him because he made them wealthy. Secondly, because he controlled a large army. If you missed any of those from your answer, pause the video now and just improve your answer, so its got both of them in. Okay, let's have a look at question three. This says, why did the senators want to assassinate Julius Caesar? And then it says, try to include the word tyrant in your answer. So, this is a bit more challenging because you've got the question and you've got a specific word that you need to include in your answer, and that word is tyrant. So three, two, one, off you go. When you're finished, unpause your video, come back to me and I'll give you the answer. Okay, let's have a look at the kind of thing you might have written. So your answer might look something like this, the senators wanted to assassinate Julius Caesar because they were worried he was becoming too powerful. He had stopped listening to them and they thought he could become a tyrant. And remember I've got that word tyrant in right at the end, just in time. So hopefully, your answer looks something like that and it includes the word tyrant. If you've got it wrong or you missed a couple of bits out, pause the video now, take your pen and improve your answer. If your answer was good and you're ready to move on, we'll move on to the final question of today's lesson. Guys, you've done really well so far. So, the last question sorry of today's lesson says, what is the main theme of the play? What's the main theme of the play? So take your pen, take your paper and write your answer to this question, off you go. Guys, welcome back. So, let's have a look at what you wrote for your final answers. Let's see the kind of thing you might have written. So, this is what you should have written. The main theme of the play is the fight for power. Now, hopefully you've got that one right because it is what we've been talking about for this whole lesson. So, if you didn't, maybe I need to get a new job, but hopefully you wrote down the main theme of the play is the fight for power. Guys, you've done really well today. I'm really pleased to have been your teacher and I hope you've enjoyed it. And I'm really looking forward to seeing you for lesson two, when we're actually going to get stuck into the play itself. We're going to meet Brutus, we're going to meet Cassius. Brutus is honourable, Cassius is ambitious. He's scheming, he's got a few tricks up his sleeve and he's a very, very interesting character indeed. But before we move on to lesson two, you need to do your review quiz. So when you've finished the lesson in a minute when a video ends, please make sure you click on the quiz so you can check what you've learned today. I've been really privileged to be your teacher. I've really enjoyed it. And I'll see you next time for some more learning about Julius Caesar. Great work, guys.

Background and context: Power in ancient Rome

Background and context: Power in ancient Rome

Slide deck

Lesson details

Key learning points

Licence

Video

Exit quiz

5 Questions

Lesson appears in

UnitEnglish / Julius Caesar, Shakespeare, Act 1

English