There is a phrase that runs through Julius Caesar like a silent thread: every slave has in his own hands the power to extirpate his captivity. It summarizes the harsh way in which the Stoics viewed voluntary death, and it is this that decides the ending of the tragedy.
The last freedom
For Stoicism, the only truly good thing is virtue, and the wise man remains indifferent to what he does not control, fame, pain, death itself. From this arises a radical consequence: when life stops allowing an existence in accordance with virtue, death can be a rational and free exit. Not as despair, but as an act of sovereignty over one's own existence.
That's why the Stoics said that voluntary death is the freedom that no tyranny can achieve. A tyrant can take away property, the country, public honor. You can't force anyone to stay alive. As long as man retains this power, there is a limit that external power cannot exceed.
No tyrant owns your life as long as you can leave it.
Freedom, not escape
You need to read this carefully, and in its own historical context. The Stoic tradition did not celebrate death as an escape from ordinary pain, nor did it recommend it lightly. The point was philosophical: to show that inner freedom is invincible, that there is a core of the person that no chain can bind. Voluntary death was the limit case that proved the thesis, not an easy invitation.
The end of Brutus and Cassius
In the battle of Philippi, the play takes the idea to its ultimate consequences. Cassius, mistakenly thinking that all is lost, orders a freedman to kill him with the same sword that wounded Caesar. Brutus, already defeated, throws himself on his own sword, held by a servant, and dies as he lived, controlling until his own end.
In the stoic reading that Shakespeare stages, the two do not die defeated: they die exercising their last freedom. It's the same sentence from the beginning, now fulfilled in the harshest way possible. And this is what gives the tragedy its final gravity: the republic falls, but the man who governs himself from within remains, until the moment he decides to leave.
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See recommended readingsFrequently asked questions
How did the Stoics view suicide?
For the Stoics, when life no longer allowed an existence in accordance with virtue, voluntary death could be a rational and dignified solution. It was seen as the last form of freedom, the one that no tyranny can take away.
What does it mean to "uproot one's own bondage"?
It is the Stoic idea that every man, even a slave, holds in his own hands the power to end his captivity through death. For the school, this makes inner freedom invincible: no tyrant owns your life as long as you can leave it.
Brutus and Cassius committed suicide?
Yes. In the battle of Philippi, Cassius orders a freedman to kill him, and Brutus throws himself on his own sword. In the stoic reading of the play, the two die exercising their last freedom, controlling their own end.
Go deeper: What is stoicism · Stoicism and Epicureanism: the difference · What is preventive tyrannicide
Source class (YouTube): Júlio César, de Shakespeare (NousCast)