SOURCE: Taylor, Myron. “Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and the Irony of History.” Shakespeare Quarterly 24, no. 3 (summer 1973): 301-08.

[In the following essay, Taylor regards Julius Caesar as a drama concerned with clashing philosophical perspectives: the Epicurean philosophy of Cassius and the superstitious worldview of Caesar.]

Plutarch's account of the death of Julius Caesar at the hands of the republican conspirators Brutus and Cassius provided Shakespeare with a story ideally suited to his dramatic intents. In general politically neutral, the story as Plutarch recounted it contained many examples of supernatural phenomena commenting upon political events. In addition, Plutarch underscored the ironic implications in the actions of the plotters: in trying to end the tyranny of Caesar, they succeeded only in creating the worse tyranny of the Triumvirate. Ultimately the very swords that they had used against Caesar were conveyed into their own bosoms. In words drawn from Hamlet, the “enginer [was] hoist with his own petar.”¹

Shakespeare made little attempt to “distance” his material. Rome emerged in his version looking very like contemporary London, even to the notorious clocks, and Caesar, Cassius, and Brutus became recognizable English types who would have been perfectly at home in the reigns of Richard II or Henry IV. Indeed the lesson taught by Julius Caesar was the same lesson contained in the English history plays: not that killing a tyrant was wrong, but that men are not the masters of their own fates. A greater power than man's controls the events of history. What man actually accomplishes by his deeds is rarely what he had hoped to achieve. To quote Hamlet again: “Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own” (III. ii. 223). The Player-King in The Murder of Gonzago thus emerges as one of the greatest spokesmen of the Shakespearean world view. What we intend, and what we actually accomplish, are often vastly different. Man may propose, but he does not dispose. Whether the plot involves the assassination of a would-be tyrant, or revenge against a usurping uncle who has murdered his brother the King, the path to the goal is rarely direct. Shakespeare made this point transparently clear in both Hamlet and Julius Caesar.

The opening scenes of Julius Caesar present two vividly contrasted philosophical points of view, that of Caesar and that of Cassius. The men reason in different fashions. Cassius is clearly identified with an atheistic and materialist world view. “You know that I held Epicurus strong / And his opinion” he tells Messala (V. i. 77-78). An Epicurean was a man who did not credit the supernatural, feeling that the universe and man were self-governing, and that man was therefore the agent of his own destiny. In Shakespeare's plays the Epicurean was almost certainly a villain. Julius Caesar himself, according to Cassius, had been an Epicurean in his youth, but he had declined from that rigorous position in later life. Cassius says of Caesar:

For he is superstitious grown of late,
Quite from the main opinion he held once
Of fantasy, of dreams and ceremonies.

(II. i. 95-97)

There was evidence of Caesar's “Conversion” from atheism in Plutarch, but Shakespeare stressed the fact, giving the general question far more prominence in his dramatic treatment. The debate between naturalism and supernaturalism, Cassius and Caesar, is a major concern in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

Cassius, as Shakespeare presents him, is consistent in his philosophical naturalism. He explains the political situation of Rome in purely human and voluntaristic terms. He envies Julius Caesar the man, for he assumes that Caesar has achieved his dangerous political prominence by virtue of conscious intent and action, even deceit. He tells a more than slightly interested Brutus about Caesar:

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.

(I. ii. 135-38)

Caesar, in the view of Cassius, is no more than a man. “I had as lief not be as live to be / In awe of such a thing as I myself” (I. ii. 95-96), he affirms. And he gets his wish. He relates to Brutus several stories pointing to the fact that Caesar has no supernatural claims to strength. Cassius once had to rescue a drowning Caesar from the Tiber; once in Spain Caesar had been afflicted by a fever, and Cassius had watched him shake (I. ii. 106-34). Yet this mere man Caesar “Is now become a god, and Cassius is / A wretched creature and must bend his body, / If Caesar carelessly but nod on him” (I. ii. 116-18). The accents of envy are very apparent in all that Cassius says:

                    Ye gods, it doth amaze me
A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world
And bear the palm alone.

(I. ii. 128-31)

The structure of Cassius' logic is interesting. Caesar is only a man, and a rather frail man at that. And yet this same Caesar is master of the world. Cassius, being an Epicurean, must assume that this pre-eminence of Caesar has been achieved through Caesar's own efforts.

But quite another lesson could be read and learned from these materials. Caesar is only a frail man, and therefore could not possibly have achieved his present pre-eminence through his own actions. He is now all-powerful, and so therefore he has been aided. Obviously the hand of destiny is apparent in Caesar's successes. Fate intends that Caesar be emperor of Rome. This lesson is analogous to that taught in the English history play Richard II.

But Cassius explicitly rejects any explanation employing a supernatural hand manifesting itself in human destiny. His position is consistently naturalistic:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Brutus, and Caesar: what should be in that ‘Caesar?’
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; Conjure with 'em,
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Caesar.

(I. ii. 140-47)

The approach is atheistic: he thinks neither name will conjure any spirits. Cassius' seductive appeal to the vanity of Brutus is obvious, and Brutus is not sufficiently immune to the flattery. Caesar is a man as Brutus is a man; why therefore should Caesar be ruler of the Roman Empire and Brutus his mere underling? Cassius assumes that man creates his own destiny; the fault, he affirms, is not in the stars. Therefore he plots to take the action into his own hands and destroy Caesarism by murdering Caesar. These arguments ultimately persuade Brutus, who joins the plot to destroy the would-be tyrant. The stoic philosophy of Brutus is not sufficient protection against the conclusions of Cassius and his naturalistic metaphysics and politics.²

If Cassius is the Epicurean in Julius Caesar, Caesar himself has moved in the opposite direction. Experience has forced him to abandon his earlier materialistic views. The bent of his mind is interesting. The contrast of the two points of view is vividly presented in the opening act of the play. Scarcely has Cassius completed his analysis of Caesar's rise to power, an analysis presented in terms of a voluntaristic politics and a materialistic psychology, than Shakespeare introduces his hero, Caesar, who presents a radically different type of thought. While Cassius operates empirically and rationally, Caesar's mind operates intuitively, and he employs common-sense notions out of folk psychology. Seeing Cassius in the crowd, Caesar tells Antony:

Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o'nights;
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

(I. ii. 192-95)

The credulous and good-natured Antony replies that Caesar need not fear Cassius, for he is “a noble Roman, and well given” (I. ii. 197). Antony is willing to trust Cassius for the simple reason that he is an aristocrat. But Caesar debates the matter in his own mind:

Would he were fatter! But I fear him not:
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;
He is a great observer and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men; He loves no plays,
As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;

(I. ii. 198-204)

Such an approach to psychological analysis brings a smile to modern lips. But we must remember that Caesar is right. As “Caesar” he does not permit himself to fear anything, but as the man Julius he has a hunch that Cassius means harm. The contrast between Antony, who hears “music” and attends plays, and Cassius, who “thinks” and “reads,” but hears no music and attends no plays, is neatly made. Antony's education ultimately proves superior.³

Employing his folk psychology, Caesar depicts Cassius as “envy” in terms so pure that they might easily have been drawn from an allegorical representation in a morality play. The psychology may be primitive, but the analysis is subtle and profound.

Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort
As if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spirit
That could be moved to smile at anything.
Such men as he be never at heart's ease
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,
And therefore are they very dangerous.

(I. ii. 205-10)

Interestingly, when Caesar follows his intuitions, he is always right. He ought to fear Cassius, as his “hunch” tells him. His approach serves him well. But he permits his will to intervene.

I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd
Than what I fear; for always I am Caesar.
Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf. …

(I. ii. 211-13)

Certainly this is a brilliant touch. As a man, Julius Caesar fears Cassius, but as Caesar he permits himself to fear no one. And yet the admission that “this ear is deaf” neatly emphasizes the fragility of the imperial posture. Although an emperor, Caesar remains a fallible man and therefore mortal.

The contrasting points of view are clearly presented. Cassius, the Epicurean who discounts the supernatural and thinks that man creates his own destiny, is matched against Julius Caesar, who has rejected his earlier materialism and become superstitious. However Caesar refuses to allow himself to obey his inclinations and intuitions, and the refusal costs him his life. By virtue of his philosophical system, Cassius assumes that in killing Caesar he can destroy Caesarism, an argument that Brutus also ultimately accepts. If Caesar has created Caesarism, then Cassius is right. But the play obviously refutes the idea. The materialistic and voluntaristic assumptions are flatly rejected by the drama. While the play presents two different philosophies, that of Cassius and that of Caesar, the plot itself validates only one—the supernatural. Caesar is not his own master, and neither is Cassius. Both are agents of destiny. The death of Caesar does not end Caesarism.

The rejection of the philosophical assumptions of the conspirators is immediate and explicit. The mysterious warnings of the Soothsayer that Caesar should “beware the Ides of March” prove only too true. Rome is filled with supernatural portents that Caesar ought to consider.

A lioness hath whelped in the streets;
And graves have yawn'd and yielded up their dead;
Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds,
In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol;
The noise of battle hurtled in the air,
Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan,
And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.

(II. ii. 17-24)

Calpurnia dreamed that Caesar's statue ran pure blood. Calpurnia herself, like Caesar, had formerly been a skeptic: “Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies, / Yet now they fright me” (II. ii. 13-14). The augurs are instructed to make sacrifice and to examine the entrails; but they “could not find a heart within the beast” (II. ii. 42). And the entire sequence is played during a dreadful night of storm that adds yet another symbolic dimension to the ominous significance of the warnings.

Shakespeare, in a flagrant violation of decorum, brings the mighty Caesar into this scene dressed in his nightgown (II. ii.), surely a stark reminder that he is mortal and ought to beware of the dangers encompassing him. At first he agrees to remain at home and not go to the Capitol, using Calpurnia's warnings as excuse. But his will again intervenes, overcomes his intuition, and sends him to his death at the hands of the conspirators. He insists on the courage of Caesar rather than the fears of Julius.

The will to play the role of emperor dooms Caesar at every turn. Artemidorus begs him to read a clear warning of danger that “touches nearer.” But Caesar magnificently replies that what “touches us ourself shall be last served” (III. i. 5-8). When Cassius traitorously kneels to beg enfranchisement for Publius, Caesar responds:

I could be well moved, if I were as you;
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me:
But I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.

(III. i. 58-62)

Cassius, the skeptic who insists that Caesar is only a man, then draws his dagger to slay Julius Caesar, whose error lies precisely in believing that he is no longer a man. Playing the role of Caesar has cost Julius Caesar his life.

The hope of Brutus and Cassius that in killing the tyrant they have destroyed tyranny is refuted on every level. Announcing Caesar's death to the Roman mob, Brutus is met with the ironic cry of the crowd: “Let him be Caesar” (III. ii. 57). The populace has created Caesar, and not Caesar the mob. When Brutus refuses to play the role of Caesar, the Triumvirate moves in to fill the vacuum. Their reign is less merciful than that of Julius Caesar, and Mark Antony emerges as Caesar's rightful heir.⁴ The ironic refutation of Cassius is total.

But more than the political assumptions of the conspirators are refuted by the play. They have killed Caesar's body, but they have not destroyed his spirit. The ghost returns to emphasize the futility of the assassination. The ghost of Caesar appears to Brutus on the eve of the final battle. Brutus reveals his skepticism in his response.

How ill this taper burns! Ha! Who comes here?
I think it is the weakness of mine eyes
That shapes this monstrous apparition.
It comes upon me. Art thou anything?
Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil,
That makest my blood cold and my hair to stare?
Speak to me what thou art.

(IV. iii. 275-81)

The ghost twice warns Brutus that he will see him again at Philippi. But the warning draws from Brutus only the laconic response “Why, I will see thee at Philippi, then” (l. 287). The intention of this curious confrontation is reasonably clear. Brutus, like Cassius, is an agnostic if not an atheist; the ghost for him remains “the weakness of mine eyes.” But Brutus ought to take warning from the ghost, for Philippi is a disaster for his cause. Shakespeare's predilection for supernaturalism is explicit.⁵

Shakespeare manipulated the plot of Julius Caesar to refute as clearly as possible the assumptions upon which the conspirators have acted. Men are not the masters of destiny, nor is history without moral significance. A strong element of irony exists in Julius Caesar, giving added point to its philosophical message. In killing Julius Caesar, the conspirators create a greater and worse Caesarism. But the irony is made even more explicit. In the final battle at Philippi, Cassius is misled by error into thinking that what is actually a victory for his forces is a defeat. This leads to his suicide and the ultimate defeat of the republican cause. Using error to refute man's proud rationalism is a favorite device in Shakespeare's drama. The man who feels he can control his fate is refuted by his inability to control simple events. Upon being told by his servant Pindarus that his messenger Titinius “is enclosed round about / With horsemen” (V. iii. 28-29) [in actuality he is joyfully surrounded by the victorious troops of Brutus], Cassius assumes his cause is lost and prepares for his suicide. Ironically his death occurs on his very birthday. But additional elements of irony are present. The dying Cassius realizes the significance. As the servant Pindarus plunges the sword into his master, Cassius exclaims:

                    Caesar, thou art revenged,
Even with the sword that kill'd thee.

(V. iii. 45-46)

Most explicitly, the “engineer [is] hoist with his own petar.” Cassius has plotted and executed the death of Caesar. But the same sword is conveyed to his own bosom. That his death is needless and occasioned by common human error serves as additional refutation of his skeptical pride.

Brutus also dies recognizing the irony of the situation. “Caesar, now be still: / I kill'd not thee with half so good a will” (V. v. 50-51). The threat of Caesar's ghost has now been fulfilled. The epitaph on both Cassius and Brutus might well be the line of Titinius: “Alas, thou hast misconstrued everything!” (V. iii. 84).

Brutus and Cassius have acted upon the basis of their materialist and voluntarist philosophy, and the play has explicitly proven these assumptions to be wrong. The magnificent statement of his philosophy of history by Brutus is too often taken as Shakespeare's own idea. It must be remembered that this statement is refuted by the action of the play.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

(IV. iii. 218-24)

Certain that he can judge the tides, Brutus commits his forces at Philippi, against the warnings of Cassius. The conspirators “take the current,” but lose their “ventures.” It is interesting that the imagery of the speech is materialistic, nicely underscoring the philosophical limitations of their position. Their philosophy does not do justice to the limitations placed upon human conduct and achievement by providential destiny.

Mark Antony is less simple-mindedly philosophical than Brutus and Cassius, and therefore more successful. His education in the theater has served him more successfully than Brutus' education among the Stoic philosophers. Sidney's Defense of Poesy had insisted that this would be the case. Antony's final magnificent tribute to the dead Brutus has baffled critics unnecessarily. Being less voluntaristic in his ideas, Antony is less likely to blame human conduct, and therefore more ready to forgive. At any rate, his final lines are great theater and great politics by a man who is master of the one because he understands the other. Poetry and power go hand in hand in Julius Caesar. Once victory is assured for his cause, Antony is ready to practice clemency as good politics. When Lucilius, a soldier from the conspirator's army, is captured, Antony orders his soldiers to “Keep this man safe; / Give him all kindness: I had rather have / Such men my friends than enemies” (V. iv. 27-29). It is precisely because Antony recognizes the limitations of human action that he can pay his moving tribute to Brutus as “the noblest Roman of them all.” Antony's view of human nature, while less rigidly philosophical than that of the conspirators, is deeper in its awareness of the significance of destiny in the determining of the events of history. Therefore Antony is better prepared to forgive human failings, Shakespeare's lesson in the irony of history is finished.

Notes

1. III. iv. 206-207. All Shakespeare quotations are from The Complete Works, ed. Hardin Craig (Glenview, Illinois, 1961).

2. The play presents a far more sinister insight into the motives of Cassius than is necessary to my purposes in this essay. In an early soliloquy Cassius affirms about Brutus:

   Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet I see,
   Thy honorable metal may be wrought
   From that it is disposed: therefore it is meet
   That noble minds keep ever with their likes;
   For who so firm that cannot be seduced?
   Caesar doth bear me hard; but he loves Brutus:
   If I were Brutus now and he were Cassius,
   He should not humour me.

   (I. ii. 312-19)

   The clear intent of the speech is morally despicable. His use of the term “seduction” is revealing, for Brutus has literally been seduced. Brutus has the “harmlessness of the dove” while Cassius has the Biblical “wisdom of the serpent.” The materialism of the position is obvious, and ties neatly into the general materialism of the Epicurean position. Cassius is no ideologue in politics. It goes without saying that the stand taken by Cassius is the moral opposite of the Golden Rule of doing to others as we would be done by. “If I were Brutus now and he were Cassius, / He should not humor me.” The line that connects Cassius to Iago could not be more explicit.

3. Shakespeare, whose living depended on the theater, obviously sided with Antony's “education.” Brutus, in many respects quite puritanical, detests the plays and discounts Antony (with deadly results) as a mere “playboy.” But the knowledge of human nature that Antony has gained from the theater serves him well in the brilliant oratorical duel with Brutus over Caesar's body. Antony's theatrical oration (and theatrical in a good sense) quite literally changes the course of the play as it changed the course of history.

4. Objections to Shakespeare's play upon the Aristotelian grounds that it lacks a “tragic hero” are quite beside the point. Shakespeare, a Christian, could not accept Aristotle's voluntaristic ethics and aesthetics. Kenneth Burke made the same point from within the drama (“Antony in Behalf of the Play,” The Philosophy of Literary Form [New York, 1957] 279-90). Upon Caesar's death, Caesarism still lives on in the person of Antony. Continuity is preserved.

5. The same issue opens Hamlet, and the same problems lead to the same results. The two plays are obviously very closely related. For a persuasive treatment of the use of ghosts and the supernatural to buttress arguments for Christianity, the reader might consult the chapter “Glanvill, More, and a World of Spirits in an Age of Reason,” in Jackson I. Cope's Joseph Glanvill, Anglican Apologist (St. Louis, 1956). While Cope is dealing with a later figure, what he says applies to Shakespeare.