Casca: The Cynic Who Strikes the First Blow

Casca is the play's chief deflator. Where other characters discuss Caesar in grand political terms, Casca watches the Lupercalia ceremony in Act 1, Scene 2 and reports back to Brutus and Cassius in the driest possible way: the crowd smelled, Caesar's epileptic fit ruined the theatre of it, the whole thing was 'foolery.' He has contempt for political spectacle and the people who buy into it.

He joins the conspiracy in Act 1, Scene 3, rattled by the storm's omens in a way that reveals his scepticism about human affairs does not extend to natural ones. He strikes Caesar first in Act 3, Scene 1 ('Speak, hands, for me!'), which reads as either courage or the relief of a man who has been building to this moment.

After the assassination he largely disappears from the play, his function discharged. He gave the conspiracy its most cynical voice and delivered its opening blow. Whether he has any feelings about what happens next is not something the play bothers to show us.