Note to JULIUS CAESAR, 4.2.52, 'Let Lucilius and Titinius guard our door'

The final stage direction is: "Exeunt. Manent Brutus and Cassius." It means that everyone leaves except for Brutus and Cassius. I believe this is obviously inadequate. The next scene begins without any original stage directions at all, but Lucilius and Titinius, not just Brutus and Cassius, are there all the time, as we can see when Brutus tells them (at line 139) to tell both his forces and those of Cassius to set up camp for the night.

The engraving below, of Brutus and Cassius in the tent of Brutus, was drawn by Francis Hayman (1708-1776), who began his artistic career as a scene painter in London's Drury Lane theatre. The engraving shows the scene of the argument between Brutus and Cassius as it might have appeared on stage in Hayman's time, with a painted backdrop and a elaborate tent which lacks the door mentioned in Shakespeare's text. But there could have been no tent with a door and four walls in Shakespeare's Globe, either. The Globe was almost a theatre in the round, with spectators situated (some standing, some seated) in the front of, and at both sides of, the stage. Therefore what I think is intended, is that everyone leaves except for Brutus, Cassius, Lucilius, and Titinius. On Brutus's command, "Let Lucilius and Titinius guard our door," the two of them take up positions which indicate that they are in the front of the tent, and Brutus and Cassisus play out the scene between them, so that imaginatively they are in Brutus' tent.