In these lines from Julius Caesar, act 1, scene 2, William Shakespeare uses a simile in the comparison that Cassius makes between Julius Caesar and the ordinary people of Rome. A simile is a comparison between unlike things for effect using “like” or “as.” In the simile

he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus ...

Cassius compares Caesar to the Colossus of Rhodes. One of the Seven Wonders of the World in ancient times, the Colossus was an enormous statue of the Greek sun-god, Helios. Located at the entrance to the harbor of Rhodes, a city on an island, the statue had one leg on side of the harbor so that ships passed between the legs. By “the narrow world,” Cassius refers to the Rome of his time.

The comparison continues as Cassius refers to ordinary humans, whom he sarcastically calls “petty men.” This group includes all of Rome’s people, not only himself and his companions. In the same way that normal-size people were tiny in comparison to the Colossus, so too do regular Romans seem insignificant compared to Caesar. Cassius is making this comparison not to support Caesar’s prominence but to criticize the excessive amount of power he has compared to everyone else in Rome.