The play, "The Tragedy of Julius Caesar", was first performed in 1599. Queen Elizabeth was nearing the end of her 45 year regency, the Spanish Armada had been defeated, a period of brutal control and social unrest had come to its conclusion & Catholicism was almost purged from England. Shakespeare, composing some of his best work during this era, looks back to the historic assassination of Julius Caesar on the 15th of March, 44 BC as told through Plutarch's writings.
This play has been read as a tragedy wherein Caesar is noble but human and Cassius is a jealous social climber. Brutus comes from a noble line stretching back to the beginning of the Republic, and one might say that he himself has done little and is not worth much as a man so is easily drawn into a conspiracy to tear down the regency. A popular read of the play is that it is a critique of good men that get swept up in the moment and destroy a noble enterprise such as what Caesar was attempting.
It has also been read as a tragedy wherein Caesar is a grasping tyrant and noble men seek to thwart his plans by assassination. Their attempts fail, however, and tyranny dominates a once noble republic.
So which is it? Is Caeasr a noble man brought low by jealous conspirators? or is Caesar a grasping tyrant executed by noble men?
The play might be more aptly titled "Brutus" but I suppose that didn't sell too well on the marquee. More to the point, what if the play ISN'T really about Brutus (who is only one of the conspirators) nor is it about Cassius, or Casca, or even really about Julius Caesar the man? What if the play is more about the legend, the godlike status, that eventually became attributed to the name "Caesar" - a status that, though stemming from a less than statuesque man, eventually became concretized in statues and governments throughout Europe? What if the real tragedy is about England and the real tragic hero is English society itself? The Czar, the Kaiser, the Emperor, the King; all were divinely appointed to rule with autocratic control. "How did this monarchic regime begin?" asks Shakespeare. "Could it have been stopped? or is the cynical drive toward tyranny inevitable?" This is the big theme of the play embodied in that iconic, cutting, and powerful name of Rome's first great monarch.
First, we must consider Mark Antony and his power grasping nature. Furthermore, one must consider the uncanny ability of Caesar and Antony to work a crowd to their benefit - the implications therein of how power is maintained not by virtue and good policy but by showmanship (bread and circuses). One must take into consideration how Brutus never has sought fame or repute but has instead sought goodness and honor, and how this leads to his attempt to rectify what he sees as tyrannical usurpation and an end to his ideals. The play, it seems, is more of a complex warning by Shakespeare about the perils of dealing with powerful figures & meddling in things bigger than the Shire (to use Tolkien's image). Why, for instance does the play open with a triumph by Caesar over Pompey; a triumph which represents what is essentially the end of the Republic? Why, for instance, does Cassius say about honor and about freedom
I was born free as Caesar; so were you:
And why, for instance does Caesar's opening line - the line that so often in Shakespeare plays defines a character - consist of his wife's name "Calpurnia" - commanding her to stand where Mark Antony can touch her while he runs by in the victory race (so she might be blessed and no longer be barren). Caesar seems a weak, addled, superstitious man afflicted with epilepsy and desirous of power; not at all a noble ruler. Cassius, I think, is not seeking to become an emperor himself but is justifiably worried that this very mortal and flawed man is now milking his godlike reputation for all it is worth.
His motivation isn't so much ambition as it is an honest concern over tyranny and the ruin of a government set up to ameliorate tyranny. Even the "lean and hungry look" attributed to him by Caesar is not a condemning attribute partly b/c it is the look of the wolf-like hero (Lycurgus or Leonidas or Autolycus) and partly b/c Caesar himself prefers all his subjects to be fat, like sheep that he can fleece or cull when he wishes.
Cassius even addresses this wolf to sheep comparison when talking with Casca in scene III
In other words, Caesar's wolfish nature is exacerbated by the fact that the populace of Rome are such sheep; power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. In a different circumstance Caesar might not be a lion but that the Roman people are hinds (interesting play on words, not "deer" but "hinds" like "behinds"). The idea that the Roman people are trash, rubbish, offal, is born out at the very opening of the play when the reeking breath of the ungoverned crowds almost overwhelms Flavius and Marullus; also later when the crowd is whipped up by Mark Antony.
Cassius, Brutus, and the other conspirators (Casca) seem to be far more honorable men. And they are honorable. Otherwise Antony's ridicule of them in his speech would make no sense. Their honorable nature is reinforced after the murder of Caesar when they submit their act to the judgment of the populace. It is especially apparent later in the play when the squabbling camp of Mark Antony, Octavius, & Lepidus stands in direct contrast to the attempt at amity btwn Brutus and Cassius in IV, 2&3.
Cassius is thinking not for immediate gain in killing Caesar but for the long term effects of his actions. If they are to stop the shift in government towards absolute tyranny they have to act immediately and nip it in the bud. The tragedy of the play is not that Brutus gets swept into intrigue but that no intrigue can stanch the inevitable shift into tyranny. Shakespeare, writing in a Europe which had inherited such form of rule and even calcified it with the religious theory of the divine rite of kings, wouldn't directly critique his own monarch; but the indirect critique here (similar to the critique in Richard II and the "but save ceremony" critique in Henry V) seems pretty strong.
Writing in our own age, I read the play as a powerful critique of any leader transforming himself into a ruler. What sort of dilemma does that create for other citizens? Allow him to have his way and soon there will be black lists of enemies, violations of individual rights, purges, executions and terror squads. Try to stop him by force and he becomes a god and rallying point for other tyrants using his image as a cause celebre. What then must we do?
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