Julius Caesar

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1. 
   sagetrieb Teacher
   Doctorate

   If you refer specfically to Caesar's body in the play, the crowd burns it. Shakespeare's play speaks of Caesar's "funeral" (3.1.270-75), and when Antony speaks to the crowds after the assassination, he specifically says "I come to bury Caesar" (3.2.83). Later, a plebeian says "stand from the hearse.  Stand from the body" (3.2.178). Glosses on the play explain "hearse" probably refers to a "bier," and then the same plebeian later says, "We'll burn his body in the hold place," intending to use that fire to then burn the houses of the "traitors."

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   Posted by sagetrieb on Saturday December 1, 2007 at 5:20 AM
   
   

2. 
   amy-lepore Teacher
   High School - 12th Grade

   Bodies were burned in a funeral pyre to help the spirit go to the next place via air and ashes.  It was a public display.  In towns or cities on water, the body was often placed on a wooden raft and set afire either before it was floated off into the water or after it was set afloat by use of burning arrows fired by archers.

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   Posted by amy-lepore on Monday December 3, 2007 at 1:38 PM
   
   

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