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'A thing unfirm': the world of Julius Caesar

Shakespeare is of course not in any sense original in associating Rome with constancy. The equation of Roman and Stoic virtue had been a commonplace ever since Cicero. Many of the traditional Roman virtues, as defined by the Romans and by later tradition, can be seen as radiating from the central virtue of constancy: fortitude, justice, temperance, fides, gravitas, all involve steadiness and steadfastness, a refusal to be shifted from one's duty. Rome itself, the Eternal City, is an archetype of stability and permanence, with its straight roads and marble columns and arches, enduring even in ruins—though those ruins also imply the limits of worldly constancy. Rome's solidity, rationality and order are embodied in the 'Roman' simplicity and clarity of Julius Caesar's structure and language.

These Roman qualities are set, however, against a background of mutability, uncertainty, and mystery. It...

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1. Introduction
2. 'A thing unfirm': the world of Julius Caesar
3. 'True fixed and resting quality': Senecan constancy
4. Roman opinion
5. 'A Roman's part': Ciceronian decorum
6. 'Like Brutus, like himself
7. Copyright