The play Julius Caesar is not as much about Caesar himself than the circumstances surrounding his assassination. The fate of Caesar the man would have been sealed by the third act, by the too famous words which may or may not have been said by Caesar “Et tu Brute?” Not until you have the context of the relationships between these figures would you understand the gravity of those words. For much of the play, it is heavily borrowed from Plutarch’s accounts of the period. Caesar had already been dead for a millennia and a half, but it seems that Ancient Roman history still reverberates into the Victorian era to the punters of the Globe Theatre. And to us.
The world behind Julius Caesar behind Shakespeare’s mind
I am curious though. Would the average groundling who attend the Globe would have understood the context behind the play? Even for myself, with my educational background and appreciation of history, I wouldn’t know who’s who unless I would have read Suetonius, Plutarch or Livy. The life of Julius Caesar is well documented by many, many historians. But aside from knowing that he was killed by Brutus and other senators, and practically ruled Rome with an iron fist, what else do we know about Julius Caesar?
Would the average person know that Caesar was never an emperor, but he was a dictator perpetuo? Would they know that Brutus was adopted? Would they know all the side characters in the play that had their own cameos in history, such as Artemidorus who was on the verge of warning Caesar, or any of the collaborators, let’s say such as Caska? Because I certainly didn’t. In fact, I’d be embarrassed to admit that it wasn’t until last year that I found out that Caesar had never been emperor. If you had listed him in the list of Roman Emperors and their achievements, he would be sorely missing. Yet, his legacy remains, and at the very least we enjoy it for 31 days a year in the month of July.
For the Victorian era, at the time of the play’s first performance, Elizabeth reigned and the times were blighted with controversy over the succession of the throne. Elizabeth was old and getting senile by then, with no direct heirs as Julius Caesar was (Brutus was like a son, but not a son). After the death of Julius, Rome was thrown into turmoil of civil wars and power grab which eliminated promising candidates for the leader of the Republic. This would have been a similar scenario if Elizabeth had passed away, where the throne can descend into an Ancient Roman style power-grab. For this reason, it was as controversial at its early performances as it is now.
Just like the real Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar is hard to pin down
Julius Caesar is difficult to rank among Shakespeare’s plays, but how does one go about that anyway? It is not a character-focused play, such as Macbeth or King Lear which relies heavily on the motivations of the title character as focal points to drive the play along. Yet, we can study each character’s motivations deeply. Its soliloquys and speeches rank highly in Shakespeare’s plays but they are less known, such as Cassius’s speech to convince Brutus’s involvement to the murder plot. Yet, Julius Caesar managed to seep its way into our contemporary culture. Like I mentioned, “Et tu Brute?” is almost synonymous to Caesar, John Green’s novel The Fault in Our Stars borrows the line from Cassius’s speech. The story itself has been regurgitated multiple times by Hollywood.
Yet for all this, Julius Caesar is relevant to our times. It is a forewarning of how personal vendettas can reverberate, how these decisions which may be personal can affect politics. The senators had been wronged in some way by Julius Caesar — thus their hatred are mostly personal. However, in the fulcrum lies Brutus. History still cannot make up its mind of the purity or corruption of Brutus. In the play, Brutus can be viewed as a tragic hero. Would the assassination of Caesar had continued without his collusion? He was a powerful figure in the Senate, and at the knowledge of his involvement, Caesar’s will to survive buckled after having been stabbed 23 times.
Though Brutus’s relation with Julius Caesar may be filial, his loyalty remained with the state. Brutus is conflicted, and having been convinced by Cassius that “the fault… is not in our stars but in ourselves”, he decided to what is best for the state. Ironically speaking, his decision to murder Caesar to maintain the republic kickstarted the new reign of emperors when the dust is done and dusted. He had “rather be a villager / Than to repute himself a son of Rome / Under these hard conditions as this time / Is like to lay upon us”, therefore admitting the festering reputation of Roman leadership and being embarrassed to be in such a position.
Though nation states are more apt to adopt a republic than have an active monarch, Julius Caesar is still relevant. We may not look it solely in the political context in the nation-state level but also in a more micro level on how organisations manage change, and how the same petty relationships, loyalties and strains of virtue play out in any corporate world, or even in our acquaintances. Brutus can be us, struggling with our principles to forego personal relationships for the greater good. He failed miserably in his goals and killed himself as a result. But this is not to say that what he did was wrong. It is a difficult virtue to follow, one which I personally won’t venture on, but can perhaps respect in others if they betray their relationships over reaching for what they truly believe is good.
