Shakespeare’s Roman plays, Julius Cæsar, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus are all formally tragedies. That’s not to say that they all follow a similar pattern, such as the pattern of a noble, admirable hero destroyed by a trafic flaw, which may be detectable in the first play.

The first of Shakespeare’s works that I encountered was Julius Cæsar, which I studied for Inter Cert (that’s Intermediate Certificate, predecessor of the current Irish Junior Cert) when I was 13 and 14. While studying the play, we were told that the typical Shakespearean tragic hero was an admirable man of high principles who was ultimately destroyed by a “fatal flaw” in his character. Julius Cæsar’s Brutus seemed to fit that template very neatly. For Leaving Cert we studied Coriolanus, whose title character and protagonist was less obviously admirable and whose flaws seemed manifold and glaring, but that simply made it all the more interesting to try to work out how the pattern applied to him. At that stage, it hadn’t occurred to me to question what we’d been told about tragic heroes and their flaws.

So, when I went to university, I was surprised to hear from my friends who were studying English that one of the first things they had been told was to forget all that guff about a fatal flaw. That didn’t seem to make sense to me. Sure enough, when I eventually got around to studying for an English degree, nineteen years later, one of the first-year essay topics was “Why is Julius Cæsar so titled?” I wrote an essay defending the idea of Brutus as the play’s hero. I didn’t get to read it out, and got no direct feedback on it, but the lecturer put forward the argument that Cæsar himself is the important figure, the character who dominates the action (even though he dies early in the third act). He’s the hero.

As I read more, I came to believe that it’s best to approach any work of literature with as few a priori ideas as you can manage, and that each work is the best key to its own interpretation. (That applies to any work, not just to Shakespeare.) So, it may be that Brutus is a good example of a noble, high-minded individual, brought to destruction by the flaw in his character (however you may describe it), but it doesn’t follow that we should expect to find such a character in any and every Shakespearean tragedy. Similarly, we shouldn’t take our reading of The Merchant of Venice or Othello and try to apply it whole to any other play. It’s frankly a relief not to have to perform mental contortions to make Coriolanus seem noble, and it’s hard to imagine how one could begin to do that for Macbeth. So, Julius Cæsar is one example of Shakespearean tragedy, and it happens to be the first example that I read, but that doesn’t make it a pattern for Shakespearean tragedies in general.

Anyway, I’ve been coming to see that, for all his nobility, Brutus has more flaws than the “tragic hero” reading would seem to allow for. He is a descendant of Junius Brutus, who drove the last of the kings, Tarquinius Superbus, out of Rome, leading to the establishment of the Roman republic in (or about) the fifth century BC. (Shakespeare’s narrative poem, The Rape of Lucrece recounts these events.) Brutus feels a particular responsibility to preserve the republic and he fears that Julius Cæsar, who has returned to Rome in triumph after conquests in Northern Europe, and is extremely popular as a result, will accept a crown and set himself up as a new monarch.

Brutus joins a conspiracy led by Cassius to assassinate Cæsar. They kill him at the Capitol, where Cæsar has gone to meet the Senate (and possibly accept a crown if it is offered to him again, after he has ostentatiously refused it three times). Cassius argues that they should also kill Antony (Marcus Antonius), Cæsar’s friend and follower, but Brutus talks him out of it, wanting to keep assassinations to a bare minimum. Antony makes a rhetorically very effective speech over Cæsar’s body and turns the citizenry against the conspirators, who are forced to flee Rome.

Brutus’s insistence that Antony should be spared turns out to be catastrophic for himself, the other conspirators and ultimately for his beloved republic, as it leads to the installation of Cæsar’s great-nephew and adopted son, Octavian, as the emperor Augustus. Brutus makes other disastrous mistakes, particularly when he insists on going to engage Antony’s and Octavian’s forces at Philippi instead of following Cassius’s advice to let the opposing army come looking for them, so depleting its resources and tiring the soldiers out. He is not an effective military leader. That’s not necessarily a fault but his failure to recognize his unsuitability for that role, and his overruling of the wilier, more worldly Cassius might be seen in that light.

His reputation for probity and high-mindedness is carefully cultivated and to some degree misleading. He reproves Cassius for corruption. Brutus had “condemn’d and noted” (IV.iii.2) Lucius Pella for accepting bribes in Sardinia, and given no weight to Cassius’s letters on Pella’s behalf. Cassius is aggrieved at this slight, saying:

Cas: In such a time as this it is not meet
That every nice offence should bear his comment.
Bru: Let me tell you Cassius, you yourself
Are much condemned to have an itching palm,
To sell and mart your offices for gold
To undeservers. (IV.iii.7–12)

As soon as this little misunderstanding has been cleared up, Brutus complains that Cassius has been withholding the money that Brutus needs so that he can conduct the war against Antony and Octavian:

For I can raise no money by vile means:
By heaven, I had rather coin my heart,
And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash
By any indirection. I did send
To you for gold to pay my legions,
Which you denied me: was that done like Cassius? (IV.iii.71–77)

But an “indirection” is exactly what this looks like: he is not himself prepared to pillage from the local peasantry, but relies on Cassius to share the proceeds from his questionable fundraising.

The editor of the Arden edition believes that there’s an error in the First Folio, in that it includes two apparently inconsistent passages about the death of Portia, Brutus’s wife. He speculates that the later passage is a revision and that the earlier one should have been deleted but the need to remove it was overlooked. I’m not willing or able to argue with the textual scholarship about this crux, but it does seem to me that the inclusion of both passages, mutually contradictory though they may be, is dramatically effective. At IV.iii.146–156, their quarrels resolved, Brutus tells Cassius that Portia is dead, having “swallow’d fire” (IV.iii.155), at which Cassius exclaims:

How ’scap’d I killing, when I cross’d you do? (IV.iii.149)

But later in the same scene, Messala, bringing news from Rome, informs Brutus of Portia’s death. Brutus responds:

Bru: Why, farewell, Portia. We must die, Messala
With meditating that she must die once,
I have the patience to endure it now.
Mes: Even so great men great losses should endure. (IV.iii.189–192)

Error or not, this needn’t necessarily seem inept in performance. It shows Brutus possibly using his foreknowledge to appear stoically imperturbable in the face of terrible news. That suggests that the appearance of being able to endure great loss is as important to him as the actual consolation offered by his philosophy. To say so is not to accuse him of hypocrisy, but only to imply that his reputation for stoicism is less straightforward than it seems.

The artificial nature of reputation is evident at several points in Shakespeare’s Roman plays. Over Brutus’s dead body, Antony declares:

This was the noblest Roman of them all.
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar;
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them. (V.v.68–72)

But if Antony is sincere in this eulogy, he probably doesn’t maintain his high opinion of the defeated enemy. In the later play, Antony and Cleopatra, he asserts that it was he, not Octavian, who defeated the “lean and wrinkled Cassius” and “the mad Brutus” at Philippi (Antony and Cleopatra III.xi.37–38).

Some editors and critics have found an inconsistency between Brutus’s expressed opinion on suicide and his actions. He says to Cassius:

Even by the rule of that philosophy
By which I did blame Cato for the death
Which he did give himself, I know not how,
But I do find it cowardly and vile,
For fear of that which might fall, so to prevent
The time of life, arming myself with patience
To stay the providence of some high powers
That govern us below. (V.i.101-108)

Immediately afterwards, though, he says that he will not be bound and led in triumph through Rome: implying that he’ll kill himself first (as he does in the event). The apparent contradiction can fairly easily be resolved, though. He presumably means that misfortune and disaster should be borne with patience, for as long as they can be borne, but there are always going to be some things one can’t and shouldn’t bear, including being paraded through the streets in a humiliating posture.

Cassius’s attitude to self-slaughter is less complicated. Early on, having been told by Casca that the Senate plans to give Cæsar a crown that he will wear everywhere but in Italy, Cassius replies:

I know where I will wear this dagger then;
Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius:
Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong;
Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat.
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit;
But life, being weary of these worldly bars,
Never lacks power to dismiss itself. (I.iii.89–97)

Casca agrees, adding “every bondman in his own hand bears | The power to cancel his captivity” (I.iii.101-102).

When the moment comes, Cassius may have the “power” to end his life, but he’s not obliged to get his own hands bloody. Facing defeat at Philippi, he gives his bondman, Pindarus, one final order:

In Parthia did I take thee prisoner;
And then I swore thee, saving of thy life,
That whatsoever I did bid thee do,
Thou shouldst attempt it. Come now, keep thine oath.
Now be a freeman; and with this good sword,
That ran through Cæsar’s bowels, search this bosom.
Stand not to answer. Here, take thou the hilts,
And when my face is cover’d, as ’tis now,
Guide thou the sword. — Cæsar, thou art reveng’d,
Even with the sword that killed thee. (V.iii.37–46)

Like the other characters who kill themselves at the end of these plays, Cassius would prefer not to act entirely alone; he requires assistance, even if that puts a nearly insupportable burden on their servants and followers. At least Pindarus has an incentive: he will regain his freedom in obeying Cassius’s order. Brutus asks for similar help from Strato, a loyal follower of his though not, it seems, a bondman:

Thou art a fellow of a good respect;
Thy life hath had some smatch of honour in it.
Hold then my sword, and turn away thy face,
While I do run upon it. (V.v.45–48)

So, Brutus is a little more active in ending his life than Cassius was, and therefore a little less exigent in his demand of Strato than Cassius was of Pindarus. In the later play, Antony’s suicide is much less neatly executed, coming close to farce. He asks for help from Eros, who was once his bondman but whom he enfranchised some time previously.

When I did make thee free, swor’st thou not then
To do this when I bade thee? Do it at once,
Or thy precedent services are all
But accidents unpurposed. Draw, and come. (Antony and Cleopatra IV.xiv.81–84)

But Eros kills himself instead, leaving Antony to end his own life unaided.

      Thrice nobler than myself,
Thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what
I should, and thou couldst not. (IV.xiv.96–97)

Antony falls on his sword but doesn’t die until the next scene, 100 lines later, during which he’s carried to Cleopatra’s monument, where she has retreated before Octavian’s army. She has sent out for a basket of figs containing an asp. Like Brutus (and Antony: see IV.xiv.72–77), she is appalled at the prospect of being displayed as a defeated enemy in Rome. Octavian has promised her better treatment than that but she advisedly doesn’t trust him.

In these scenes, the bondmen, Pindarus and (formerly) Eros, were in effect enslaved men who had previously fought against Rome and been defeated in battle. Cassius’s speech to Pindarus refers to the process of enslavement. A victorious party in a war had, according to the ius gentium (law of nations) the right to kill the defeated outright, even if they had surrendered. It was lawful for a defeated combatant to save his life by agreeing to become a bondman. Philosophers and thinkers as far apart in time as Aristotle in the fourth century BC and Grotius in the seventeenth century of our era justified enslavement on the ground that those bondment were bound by their agreement though it was made under threat of death.

That is, obviously, a brutal and reprehensible way of looking at things but it’s a long way short of purporting to justify the slave trade, under which thousands of Africans each year were kidnapped from their villages and farms and transported across the Atlantic. The African people who were forcibly enslaved hadn’t been fighting in a war, their lives hadn’t been legitimately under threat, and they hadn’t agreed to their enslavement. The Roman practice of slave-owning was horrific and inhuman but there was an enormous gulf between that and the depravity of the Atlantic slave trade.

There’s no doubt that bondmen could be treated harshly. We’ve already seen the demands made by Cassius and Antony of Pindarus and Eros respectively. At one point, Antony has had Thidias, an emissary from Octavian, whipped. He does so out of furious jealousy, having seen Thidias kiss Cleopatra’s hand. (Thidias is, in effect, trying to seduce Cleopatra on Octavian’s behalf, to turn her against Antony.) Sending the injured Thidias back to Octavian, Antony says:

      If he mislike
My speech and what is done, tell him he has
Hipparchus, my enfranchèd bondman, whom
He may at pleasure whip, or hang, or torture,
As he shall like, to quit me. Urge it thou.
Hence with thy stripes, be gone! (Antony and Cleopatra III.xiii.147–152)

Note that Hipparchus is already a free man (“enfranchèd”), but Antony apparently still regards him as his property, so that an injury to Hipparchus ought to satisfy (“quit me”) Octavian’s grievance against Antony.

There’s one particular exchange of dialogue (not a complete scene) in Antony and Cleopatra that shows how nuanced and complex (and arguably artificial) the rules as to honour, nobility and reputation could be. Antony, Octavian and Lepidus have been meeting with Sixtus Pompeius to see if they can resolve the conflicts between them without having to fight over them. While they are all enjoying a banquet aboard Pompey’s ship, Pompey’s follower, Menas, suggests to Pompey that he could rule the world, if they sneakily put out to sea and then slaughter the three Roman rulers. Pompey’s reply is illuminating:

    Ah, this thou shouldst have done,
And not have spoke on’t. In me ’tis villainy;
In thee’t had been good service. Thou must know
’Tis not my profit that does lead my honour;
Mine honour it; Repent that e’er thy tongue
Hath so betrayed thine act. Being done unknown,
I should have found it afterwards well done,
But must condemn it now. Desist, and drink. (II.vii.73–80)

Pompey doesn’t seem to be at all angry with Menas, either for suggesting the subterfuge or for failing to act on it silently. In contrast, Menas (who is friendly with and in part resembles the sometimes plain-speking Enobarbus) is exasperated by his leader’s nitpicking about “honour”.

This episode is not Shakespeare’s invention: he takes it from Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch, which was Shakespeare’s source for this play, as well as for Julius Cæsar and Coriolanus. One of the things that Shakespeare adds is an element of suspense, as Pompey initially resists Menas’s attempts to draw him away from the banqueting table, to avoid being overheard. In North, Pompey tells Menas, “I was never taught to break my faith nor to be counted a traitor”, though he would have been prepared to take advantage of a faithless act by an underling.

I had intended to write something about Coriolanus but I’m going to have to stop here if I’m ever to send this post out. One of the things I was going to do was to compare Menenius in that play with Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra, whom I described above as “sometimes plain-speaking”. Both characters alternate between prose and blank verse and moderate their tone according to their audience. Maybe I’ll do a separate post about Coriolanus in the fairly near future.

Editions: Julius Cæsar The Arden Shakespeare, ed. T S Dorsch, 1955, reprinted 1989; Antony and Cleopatra The New Penguin Shakespeare, ed. Emrys Jones, 1977; Coriolanus Penguin Classics, ed. G R Hibbard, intro. Paul Prescott, 1967, 2015.