Julius Caesar

Author: William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)
Written: c 1599
Editors: Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen
Publisher: Modern Library (2011 Edition)
Bought from: Book Depository


Introduction

Julius Caesar is one of Shakespeare’s Roman tragedies based on Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.

Ancient Rome was a republic from c 508 BC (when Tarquinius, the last king was overthrown by Lucius Junius Brutus) to c 27 BC (when the Senate gave Octavius the title Augustus). The main political institutions during this period were the Senate, the Legislative Assembly and the Executive Magistrates. The Senate controlled the treasury and foreign policy. The Legislative Assembly passed laws and elected magistrates. The Executive Magistrates were officials elected by Roman citizens. There were several classes of Magistrates, each with different powers. Each office was held concurrently by at least 2 people and lasted for only one year. The highest ranking Magistrates were the consuls. They were effectively the heads of state. When a consul was abroad, he commanded an army and his powers were effectively unlimited. When he was in Rome, his military powers were suspended.

Demographically, the Roman Republic period was characterised by conflict between the plebeians, common citizens, and the patricians, land-owning aristocracy.

Gaius Julius Caesar (100 - 44 BC) lived in this period. In 60 BC, he, Pompey and Crassus formed an informal political alliance that became known as the First Triumvirate. He was elected consul for the year 59 BC. At the end of his one year term, Caesar outmaneuvered the Senate and secured a position of governor (proconsul) of several provinces but more importantly command of a large army. He then embarked on his greatest military triumphs. First, he conquered Gaul (present day France) after the Gallic War (58 to 50 BC). He fought as far as what is now Germany and he even crossed the English Channel to Britannia (Britain) twice.

In the meantime, the First Triumvirate has broken down. Pompey sided with the Senate and ordered Caesar to disband his army and return to Rome. Caesar disobeyed the order and, in 49 BC, crossed the Rubicon River (which marked the border of Italy proper) with one legion of his army. This sparked the Roman Civil War. Pompey and his supporters fled Rome. Caesar spent the next 4 years pursuing and battling Pompey’s forces in Hispania (present day Iberian Peninsula), Greece, Egypt and Africa. Pompey was murdered in Egypt. In March 45 BC, Caesar finally defeated the forces then led by Pompey’s sons Gnaeus and Sextus.

Caesar returned in triumph to Rome in September 45 BC. He began to introduce wide-ranging reforms of everything from the political institutions to the calendar. Most importantly, he began to consolidate his power at the expense of the Senate. At some point between January and February 44 BCE he was appointed dictator perpetuo (dictator in perpetuity). There was unease amongst many Romans that Caesar will soon assume absolute power and rule as tyrant, effectively as king.


What is it about?

The play begins in Rome on February 15, 44 BC. Julius Caesar parades through the streets near the Palatine Hill in a triumphal procession celebrating his victory over Pompey in the Roman Civil War.

A group of Senators, led by Cassius, seek to persuade Brutus to join their conspiracy to kill Caesar. Cassius invokes the name of the earlier Brutus who overthrew the last king of Rome. In a soliloquy, Brutus voices his fear that only death will prevent Caesar’s rise to absolute power:

It must be by his death, and for my part,
I know no personal cause to spurn at him
But for the general. He would be crowned:
How that might change his nature, there’s the question.
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,
And that craves wary walking: crown him that,
And then I grant we put a sting in him,
That at his will he may do danger with.
Th’abuse of greatness is when it disjoins
Remorse from power: and to speak truth of Caesar,
I have not known when his affections swayed
More than his reason. But ’tis a common proof
That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,
Whereto the climber upward turns his face.
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend: so Caesar may;
Then, lest he may, prevent. And since the quarrel
Will bear no color for the thing he is,
Fashion it thus: that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these and these extremities.
And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg—
Which, hatched, would as his kind grow mischievous—
And kill him in the shell.
(2.1.10-34)

Brutus lead the conspirators and stab Caesar to death on the Ides of March, 14 March 44 BC. Then comes the centerpiece of the play. In prose, Brutus addresses the citizens and wins over the crowd by telling them that the reason he rose against Caesar was “not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more” (3.2.21-22). Then, he makes a fatal mistake in allowing Antony, Caesar’s second-in-command, to address the crowd after he leaves (“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears”). Antony uses a wonderful array of literary devices (and the promise of a substantial financial incentive) to completely undermine Brutus and manipulate the citizens to turn on the conspirators:

For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel. -
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him. -
This was the most unkindest cut of all.
For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors’ arms,
Quite vanquished him: then burst his mighty heart,
And, in his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey’s statue -
Which all the while ran blood - great Caesar fell.
(3.2.185-193)

Antony then forms an alliance, the so-called Second Triumvirate, with Octavius (Caesar’s heir) and Lepidus. The play ends in Philippi, Greece, in 42 BC, when Cassius and Brutus commit suicide after defeat to the forces of Mark Antony and Octavius.

Brutus is arguably the protagonist of the play. Even his mortal enemy Antony praises him in the final scene of the play:

This was the noblest Roman of them all:
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar.
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, “This was a man!”
(5.5.73-80)

Themes

Shakespeare’s contemporaries, who were well versed in ancient Greek and Roman history, would very likely have detected parallels between the play’s portrayal of the shift from republican to imperial Rome and the Elizabethan era’s trend toward consolidated monarchal power. In 1599, when the play was first performed, Queen Elizabeth I had sat on the throne for nearly forty years, enlarging her power at the expense of the aristocracy and the House of Commons. As she was then sixty-six years old, her reign seemed likely to end soon, yet she did not have any heirs (the same as Julius Caesar). Many feared that her death would plunge England into the kind of chaos that had plagued England during the fifteenth-century Wars of the Roses. In an age when censorship would have limited direct commentary on these worries, Shakespeare could nevertheless use the story of Caesar to comment on the political situation of his day.

Shakespeare is fond of symmetries and often repeats scenes, conversations, or even characters. In Julius Caesar, the two female characters Portia, Brutus’s wife, and Calpurnia, Caesar’s wife, tried but failed to persuade their husbands from the events on the Ides of March.

The play also offers a primer to two major schools of Greek philosophy. The first is Epicureanism, founded by Epicurus (342 - 270 BC). He believed in gods who did not control nature; they lived a life of infinite bliss which would be spoilt if they worried about human affairs (source: The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy and Philosophers, Urmson & Ree, 1991). As the gods were indifferent to human affairs, omens did not influence the course of events. The second is Stoicism, founded by Zeno (c 333 - 262 BC). The Stoics believe that unhappiness was the result of pursuing what was not wholly under the control of the individual and the only thing completely in our power is the correct moral attitude of mind which is virtue (source: The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy and Philosophers, Urmson & Ree, 1991). The Stoics came up with was a strategy of emotional disengagement from life, apathia (apathy) and they acted only from reason, never from passion (source: Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, Cathcart & Klein, 2007).

In the beginning of the play, Cassius declared himself an Epicurean. He dismissed various omens appearing all over Rome and said, “Men at some time are master of their fates. / The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves, that we are underlings” (1.2.145-147). By the end of the play, he has changed his mind (at least a little). He now said that he “... partly credit things that do presage” (5.185) and believed that he has seen omens that predicted the defeat of his army. Brutus on the other hand was initially a Stoic. Even when faced with defeat, he felt it was cowardly and vile (ie. not Stoic) to contemplate suicide (5.1.109-116). In the end, however, his forces and his spirit broken, he admitted:

Our enemies have beat us to the pit;
It is more worthy to leap in ourselves
Than tarry till they push us in ...
(5.5.27-29)

So how is the book?

Each of the books in the RSC Shakespeare series published by The Modern Library comes with very informative footnotes, helpful scene-by-scene analysis and, best of all, commentary on past and current productions that comes with interviews with leading directors and actor. The books are also very reasonably priced. Best of all, the introductions are not overly long and focus on a few talking points for each play. The paper quality is not particularly good though. Unlike the other titles in this series, I actually like the cover for this title (a bloodied knife).

The proof-readers made an unforgivable error in Scene 2. On the eve of the assassination of Caesar, Brutus asks his young servant: “Is not tomorrow, boy, the first of March?” (2.1.40). It should of course have been the “fifteenth” of March.


Et cetera

In Dante’s The Divine Comedy, Brutus and Cassius are punished in the lowest level of Purgatory (together with Judas Iscariot).

In Hamlet (written one to two years after Julius Caesar), there is a sly reference to Julius Caesar. Polonius say: “I did enact Julius Caesar / I was killed in the Capitol; Brutus killed me.” To which Hamlet replies, “It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there” (3.2).

As You Like It

Author: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Written: c 1599

Editors: Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen

Publisher: Modern Library (2010 Edition)

Bought from: Book Depository

Introduction

This is one of Shakespeare’s “pastoral comedies”. It features Rosalind, one of his most famous female characters and the only one who delivers the epilogue.

What is it about?

The main characters Rosalind and Orlando are forced into exile in the Forest of Arden and find love. There is the inevitable cross dressing and mistaken identities. The play ends with four weddings (and happily no funerals).  

What about the book?

Each of the books in the RSC Shakespeare series published by The Modern Library comes with very informative footnotes, helpful scene-by-scene analysis and, best of all, commentary on past and current productions that comes with interviews with leading directors and actor. The books are also very reasonably priced. Best of all, the introductions are not overly long and focus on a few talking points for each play. The paper quality is not particularly good though. Also, the covers are not very attractive.

Finally ...

This play is the source for the famous quotation “All the world’s a stage / And all the men and women merely players” (2.7.142-143).

I don’t much like this!

Prometheus Bound and Other Plays

Author: Aeschylus (c 525 - 456 BC)

Translator: Philip Vellacott

Publisher: Penguin Books (1961)

Bought from: Book Depository

Introduction

Aeschylus is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays are extant. In terms of career, his started earlier than both Sophocles and Euripides. He is sometimes known as the Father of Greek Tragedy. Aeschylus wrote more than 70 plays. He is said to have won 14 - 15 dramatic competitions in Athens. In comparison, Sophocles won between 20 - 25 competitions (sometimes beating Aeschylus to second place) while Euripides may have won only 4 or 5.

Only seven of Aeschylus’ plays have survived intact. The Oresteia - consisting of Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides - is his most famous work.

What is it about?

This volume contains Aeschylus’ other 4 surviving works.

The first play in the volume, Prometheus Bound (written about 463 BC), is probably the best known. The titular character is the Titan who stole the secret of fire from the Olympian gods and gave it to humankind. This play tells of the punishment for his crime and a visit from Io (another victim of the Olympian gods). Prometheus Bound is the first play of a trilogy which includes the now lost Prometheus Unbound and Prometheus the Fire Bringer.

The last play in the volume is The Persians (written c 472 BC). It depicts the reaction of the Persian royal court to news that the Persian forces have been routed at the Battle of Salami (480 BC), a key battle in the Greco-Persian Wars. That is pretty much it. Nonetheless, the play is notable because it references an event that took place a mere 8 years earlier. Aeschylus himself took part in the Greco-Persian Wars. His epitaph reads:

Beneath this stone lies Aeschlyus, son of Euphorion, the Athenian,
who perished in the wheat-bearing land of Gela;
of his noble prowess the grove of Marathon can speak,
and the long-haired Persian knows it well.

The two plays bookend The Suppliants and Seven Against Thebes.


What about the book?

This book, part of the Penguin Classics series, is a verse translation. It is a very slim volume. The introduction is useful but the notes are very skimpy.

Finally …

Not as good as The Oresteia.

The Histories

Author: Herodotus (c 484 BC – 425 BC)
Written: c 450 – 420 BC
Translator: Aubrey De Sélincourt, revised by John Marincola
Publisher: Penguin Books (2003 Edition)
Bought: NoQ Store


Introduction

Herodotus was born in Halicarnassus, a Greek settlement in Asia Minor, modern day Bodrum, Turkey. Little is known of his personal history. It is believed that at some stage he moved to Athens. The Histories is his masterpiece and the only work he is known to have produced. It is written for Athenian readers.

The title of the work Historia (in Greek) actually means “inquiry” or “investigation” before the word was transformed by Latin and took on its modern meaning of history. The work is therefore not simply a straightforward historical account of the period Herodotus was writing about but also a record of the geography, culture, mythology, custom and even biology of the various people and places mentioned in his work. Herodotus has been called the “Father of History”.

Halicarnassus was a Dorian colony. But Herodotus wrote The Histories in the Ionic dialect of classical Greek, the same dialect Homer wrote his epic poems in. The Ionic alphabet was later adopted in Athens and eventually became the standard Greek alphabet still in use today.


What is it about?

The work is mainly about the Greco-Persian Wars, a true clash of civilizations between East and West that took place between 499 BC - 449 BC and so very recent history for Herodotus.

The story kicks off with Croesus, king of Lydia. According to Herodotus, Croesus is “the first man to injure the Greeks” when he conquer the Greek colonies in Asia Minor. He tries to take on but is ultimately defeated by the Persians led by Cyrus.

Cyrus is the first of 4 kings of the Achaemenid Empire who appear in The Histories:
Cyrus 557-530 BC
Cambyses 530-522 BC
Darius 521-486 BC
Xerxes 486-479 BC

These are names that are familiar to anyone with an interest in history.

When Darius learned that the Athenians and their allies have sacked the major Persian city of Sardis during the Ionian Revolt, he memorably called for his bow. Then, he “took it, set an arrow on the string, shot it up into the air and cried: ‘Grant, O God, that I may punish the Athenians.’ Then he commanded one of his servants to repeat to him the words, ‘Master, remember the Athenians’, three times, wherever he sat down to dinner” (Book 5 chap 105).

Darius also participates in an astonishing episode known as the Constitutional Debate. Seven Persian nobles meet to discuss what type of government Persia should adopt after ousting a usurper. Three, including the future King Darius, deliver speeches highlighting the benefits and weaknesses of democracy, oligarchy and monarchy, respectively. As relevant now as it was 2,500 years ago (Book 3 chaps 80 - 82).

At the start of his campaign, Xerxes ordered the building of bridges across the Hellespont that divides Asia from Europe. The bridges were damaged by a storm. He “was so angry when he learned of the disaster, and gave orders that the Hellespont should receive three hundred lashes and have a pair of fetters thrown into it. I have heard before now that he also sent people to brand it with hot irons” (Book 7 chaps 35).

The work also features famous episodes from Xerxes’s campaign:
* Miltiades’ famous victory at Marathon in 490 BC (but no mention of anyone running 26 miles from Marathon to Athens to deliver the good news – supposedly the origin of the modern marathon)
* The last stand of King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans at Thermopylae in 480 BC and
* The destruction of the Persian naval forces by Themistocles at Salamis also in 480 BC.

Postscript: In the aftermath of the battle at Salamis and mop up operations in the next couple of years, Xerxes returned to Persia never to attack Greek soil again. The Achaemenid Empire however would last until about 330 BC when Alexander the Great captured Persepolis, the Empire’s capital. Meanwhile, Sparta and Athens, reluctant allies at best during the Greco-Persian Wars, would jostle for influence until, a mere 50 years after Salamis, the Peloponnesian War (431 BC - 404 BC) broke out.


Themes

See the Introduction to the book.


How is the book?

The Introduction written by John Marincola is accessible and extremely helpful. It is not too long and covers exactly what a general reader wants or needs to know before plunging into the story proper – Herodotus’ life and work, the subject matter of The Histories, Herodotus’ sources and method, structure and themes in The Histories and Herodotus’ later reputation. Why can’t all introductions be written this way?

The book also contains a section called “Structural Outline”. This is incredibly useful – it is a road map of the work. Herodotus has a habit of digressing from the central narrative. In Book Four chap 30 for example, he made one of this disgressions and actually wrote, “I need not apologise for the digression – it has been my habit throughout this work”. So, if one were minded to read or reread only the historical narrative, or any thread, say on Sparta, one could use the Structural Outline to identify the passages that relate to this and skip those passages that do not.


Finally …

Great read. Timeless.

Ten Plays

Author: Euripides (c 485 BC – 406 BC)
Translator: Moses Hadas and John McLean
Publisher: Bantam Book (2006 reissue)
Bought from: Borders


Introduction

Euripides is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays are extant. In terms of career, his came later than both Sophocles and Aeschylus. Euripides is said to have written more than 90 plays but only 18 or 19 survive (there is much debate over the authorship of one play). Apparently, Euripides does not write connected trilogies like Sophocles or Aeschylus. Euripides won 4 or 5 dramatic competitions in Athens. Aeschylus is said to have won 14-15 while Sophocles won between 20-25.


What is it about?

This, as the name suggests, is a collection of 10 of Euripides’ extant plays.

Medea

“Woman in most respects is a timid creature, with no heart for strife and aghast at the sight of steel; but wronged in love, there is no heart more murderous than hers.”

First performed in the Dionysia festival 431 BC, won 3rd prize. Medea, a barbarian (non-Greek) princess betrays her own family and even kills her own brother to help Jason steal the Golden Fleece from her homeland Colchis. Jason abandons her and their young sons for another woman. Medea kills her rival in love and her father and then, most shockingly, her own children. This is an unremittingly tragic play.

Hippolytus

“Neither the flash of fire nor the bolt of the stars is more deadly than the shafts of Aphrodite which Eros, Zeus’ boy hurl from his hands.”

First performed in the Dionysia festival 428 BC, won 1st prize. The gods play key roles in this play. Aphrodite is angry that Hippolytus, son of Theseus, worships Artemis and ignores her. In reprisal, she causes Hippolytus’ stepmother Phaedra to fall in love with him. When her secret is revealed, Phaedra kills herself. She leaves a suicide note accusing Hippolytus of raping her. Theseus asks his father Poseidon to punish Hippolytus. Poseidon causes the death of his own grandson. Artemis, who does not intervene to save Hippolytus, appears at the end of the play to reveal the truth to Theseus. Theseus, king of Athens and one of the leading heroes of Greek mythology, is not portrayed in a good light here. He is deceived by his wife and condemns his son “untried, without examination of oath or pledge or prophet’s oracle.”

The Trojan Women

“Sorrow outsorrows sorrow.”

First performed in the Dionysia festival 415 BC, won 2nd prize. In the aftermath of the Trojan War, the surviving women of the Troy are divided as spoils. Hecuba, wife of Priam, will be Odysseus’ slave (note: she does not feature in Homer’s The Odyssey). Cassandra, Hecuba’s daughter, will be Agamemnon’s concubine (but at least she has the comfort of foreseeing Agamemnon’s murder in the hands of his wife). Most pathetic of all is Andromache, widow of Hector. She will be taken by Achilles’ son Neoptolemus as “a special gift”. She learns the fates of her children with Hector: their daughter Polyxena has already been sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles and (at Odysseus’ instigation) their baby son Astyanax will be killed by being hurled off the battlements of Troy. What about Helen, the casus belli? Menelaus threatens his wanton wife with a death sentence but the audience and reader know she will win a reprieve. At the climax of the play, the Greeks burn down the city of Troy. This is a heartbreaking account of the effects of war.

Electra

“Women are their husbands’ friends … not their children.”

Performed c 413 BC. Electra and Orestes kill their mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus to avenge the murder of their father Agamemnon. The events in this play are largely similar to that in Sophocles’ play of the same name and Aeschylus’ The Libation Bearers.

The Bacchants

“Talk wisdom to the stupid and they will think you foolish.”

 First performed posthumously in the Dionysia festival 405 BC as part of a tetralogy that also included Iphigenia at Aulis, won 1st prize. Pentheus, the king of Thebes, is alarmed by news of the approach of Dionysus and the maenads, his female followers. He forbids the worship of this self-professed new god. Dionysus, who is actually his cousin, has come to his home city Thebes to spread his religion. This clash of ‘old’ and ‘new’ religions ends in Pentheus’ gruesome death in the hands of his own mother (now a maenad).

Iphigenia at Aulis

“One’s own child is a fine price to pay for a harlot. We buy what we loathe with what we love.”

First performed posthumously in the Dionysia festival 405 BC as part of a tetralogy that also included The Bacchants, won 1st prize. The Greek naval forces mustered for the Trojan War are stuck in Aulis because Artemis has stayed the winds. Agamemnon must sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to appease Artemis. Clytemnestra is distraught her daughter has to die just so Menelaus can reclaim his runaway wife Helen. The scene is set for the events told in Aeschylus’ The Oresteia.

The other plays are Alcestis, Andromache, Ion and Iphigenia among the Taurians. I do not know if the plays in this volume are Euripides’ best plays. They probably are. For comparison purposes, there is another compilation of 10 Euripides plays, translated by Paul Roche, which contains the same plays except The Cylops replaces Andromache.


How is the book?

The translation is in modern English prose. There is a general introduction and a very brief introduction to each play. There is a glossary at the end of the book. But my biggest complain is that there are no notes. For example, in The Trojan Woman, Hecuba describes Helen as “that affront to Castor, that scandal of the Eurotas.” What is that all about?

This is a no-frill compilation. But it is a cost efficient way of getting 10 Euripides plays in one go. In complete collections, these plays are spread out over 3-5 books with the better plays found (as expected) in different volumes. Given the variable qualities of some of Euripides’ works, it would be a luxury to splurge on any of the complete collections available in the market.


Finally …

No bad. A better set of notes would have make the reading more enjoyable.