Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

  Yet Pompey had done his best to earn senatorial approval. On returning to Italy in 61 b.c. after his victories, he had disbanded his army and had taken his place in Rome as a private citizen. This had merely gained him a total loss of influence. He could not even persuade the Senate to approve the award of bonuses to his faithful soldiers.

  Pompey was forced to turn elsewhere. He formed an alliance with Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest man in Rome, and with a skillful and charming orator and politician, Julius Caesar. Caesar was then an impoverished aristocrat (who nevertheless opposed the Senators) in the employ of Crassus.

  The three together, in 60 b.c., formed the First Triumvirate (triumvir means "three men") and ruled Rome.

  The three took advantage of their power to parcel out provinces for themselves. Caesar, born in 100 b.c., and by far the most capable of the three, obtained for himself the governorship of that portion of Gaul ruled by Rome (a portion that included what is now northern Italy and southern France). He used that as a base from which to conquer the rest of Gaul. Fighting his first battles at the age of forty-four, he surprised everyone by showing himself to be a military genius of the first rank.

  Pompey, who was assigned the governorship of Spain, but who let deputies run it while he himself remained in Rome, was not entirely pleased by Caesar's sudden development of a military reputation. As for Crassus, he was jealous enough to take an army to the east to fight the Parthians, who ruled over what had once been the eastern part of the Persian Empire. In 53 b.c. he lost a catastrophic battle to them at Carrhae, and lost his life as well.

  Pompey and Caesar now shared the power, with no third party to serve as intermediary.

  By now the senatorial conservatives, frightened by Caesar's success and recognizing Pompey as far the less dangerous of the two, had lined up solidly behind the latter.

  Pompey, flattered by aristocratic attentions, let himself be wooed into open opposition to his erstwhile ally. When Caesar's term as governor of Gaul came to an end, the Senate, buoyed up by Pompey's support, arrogantly ordered Caesar to return to Rome at once without his army. This was technically in order since it was treason for any Roman general to bring a provincial army into Italy.

  Caesar, however, knew that if he arrived in Rome without his army, he would be arrested at once on some charge or other, and might well be executed.

  So after hesitating at the Rubicon River (the little Italian creek which was the boundary of Italy proper, in the Roman view) he made his decision. On January 10, 49 b.c., he crossed the Rubicon with a legion of troops and a civil war began.

  Pompey found, much to his own surprise, that Caesar was far more popular than he, and that soldiers flocked to Caesar and not to himself. He was forced to flee to Greece and the senatorial party fled with him. Caesar followed and at a battle in Pharsalia, Greece, on June 29, 48 b.c., Caesar's army smashed that of Pompey.

  Pompey had to flee again, almost alone, to Egypt, which was then still independent of Rome. The Egyptian government, however, was afraid to do anything that might displease Caesar, who was clearly the coming man. They therefore assassinated Pompey the instant he landed on Egyptian soil.

  Caesar followed, and remained in Egypt for a while. There he met Cleopatra, its fascinating young queen.

  Caesar next traveled to Asia Minor, and then to Africa, to defeat die-hard armies allied to those who shared the views of the dead Pompey and the senatorial party. Only then did he return to Rome for his quadruple triumph.

  … Pompey's blood

  In no part of that quadruple triumph did Caesar commemorate his victory over Pompey himself. In fact, as a deliberate stroke of policy, Caesar forgave such of the Pompeian partisans as he could and did his best to erase hard feelings. His mission, as far as possible, was to unite Rome and put an end to the civil broils through conciliation.

  And yet the Roman tribunes in their harangue to the populace bring up Pompey, reproachfully, in connection with this last triumph of Caesar, and Marullus says to the gathered people:

  And do you now put on your best attire?

  And do you now cull out a holiday?

  And do you now strew flowers in his way

  That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?

  —Act I, scene i, lines 51-54

  By "Pompey's blood" is not meant Pompey's death in defeat, as might seem, but Pompey's kinsmen.

  Pompey had two sons, the elder of whom shared his father's name and was Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus also. We can call him Gnaeus Pompeius to differentiate him from his father, whom we can still call simply Pompey.

  Gnaeus Pompeius remained with the senatorial party after his father's death. He had a fleet in his charge and he brought it to Africa (where the modern nation of Tunis exists), putting it at the service of the largest remaining senatorial army. When Caesar defeated it in April 47 b.c., Gnaeus Pompeius escaped to Spain.

  After the quadruple triumph, only Spam was left in opposition. Caesar took his legions there and in March 45 b.c. a battle took place at Munda in southern Spain.

  The senatorial army fought remarkably well and Caesar's forces were driven back. For a time, indeed, Caesar must have thought that years of invariable victory were going to be brought to ruin in one last battle (as had been the case of Hannibal of Carthage a century and a half earlier). So desperate was he that he seized a shield and sword himself, rushed into battle (he was fifty-five years old then), and shouted to his retreating men, "Are you going to let your general be delivered up to the enemy?"

  Stung into action, the retiring legions lunged forward once more and carried the day. The last senatorial army was wiped out. Gnaeus Pompeius escaped from the field of battle, but was pursued, caught, and killed. (Pompey's younger son escaped and lived to play a part in the events that took place some six years later, and in another of Shakespeare's plays, Antony and Cleopatra.)

  Now, returning from Spain, Caesar was celebrating Ms victory over Gnaeus Pompeius and it was in this sense that he came in "triumph over Pompey's blood."

  … the feast of Lupercal

  The populace disbands and leaves the stage, presumably returning to their houses in guilt. The tribune, Flavius, then suggests that they tear down the decorations intended for the triumph. Marullus hesitates, for it may be sacrilege. He says:

  May we do so?

  You know it is the feast of Lupercal.

  —Act I, scene i, lines 69-70

  The Lupercalian festival was an ancient fertility rite whose origins are lost in antiquity and probably predate civilization. It involved the ritual sacrifice of goats, which were noted for being ruttish animals.

  Strips of the skin of the sacrificed goats were cut off by the priests in charge. They then ran about the Palatine Hill, striking out with those thongs. Anyone struck would be rendered fertile, supposedly, and sterile women therefore so placed themselves at the rites as to make sure they would be struck.

  The "feast of Lupercal" was held each year on February 15 and this was not the day of Caesar's last triumph at all (as would appear from the play), but four months later. Shakespeare, however, commonly compresses time in his historical plays (a compression that is a dramatic necessity, and even a dramatic virtue), and here he lets the four months pass between the driving off of the populace and the next speech of the tribunes. There is no further talk of the triumph.

  One would suppose from this first scene that the triumph was somehow aborted and never took place. It did take place, of course. The chief point of the scene is to show that there is opposition to Caesar.

  … in servile fearfulness

  Flavius shrugs off the possibility of sacrilege. It is more important to resist Caesar's pretensions. He says:

  These growing feathers plucked from Caesar's wing

  Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,

  Who else would soar above the view of men

  And keep us all in servile fearfulness.

  —Act I, scene i, lines 75-78

  The battl
e in Caesar's time did not really involve liberty in our modern sense. On the one hand was a time-honored but distorted and corrupt senatorial government, inefficient and dying. On the other was the one-man dictatorship of Julius Caesar, intent on fundamental reform and a centralized government.

  There would have been no freedom for the common people anywhere, even in Rome, under either form of government. Under Caesar, however, the government would certainly have been more efficient and the realm more prosperous. That this is so is demonstrated by the fact that when Caesar's heir and successor founded a Caesar-type government (the Roman Empire), it led to two centuries of unbroken peace and prosperity.

  During that peaceful tune, however, literary men had leisure to look back on the decades before the establishment of the Empire and to regret the hurly-burly of politics and the active drama of contending personalities. It seemed to them that they and their senatorial patrons lived in a gilded prison (and indeed the senators sometimes suffered, when suspicious emperors suspected treason among them). It became fashionable to look back with nostalgic sadness to the days of the Roman Republic.

  The senatorial party of Caesar's time then came to be called "Republicans" and to be viewed as exponents of "liberty." They were entirely idealized and in this fashion were passed on to Shakespeare and to us. We need not be deluded, however. The senatorial notion of "liberty" was the liberty of a small group of venal aristocrats to plunder the state unchecked.

  Calphurnia

  The scene shifts now to another part of Rome, where Caesar and many with him are on their way to attend the Lupercalian rites. Caesar's first word in the play is to call his wife:

  Calphurnia!

  —Act I, scene ii, line 1

  Caesar had three wives altogether. He married his first wife in 83 b.c. when he was not yet seventeen. She was the daughter of a radical antisena-torial politician, and it was from this connection, probably, that Caesar began to get his own antisenatorial philosophy. When Caesar's father-in-law was killed and the conservatives gamed control and initiated a blood-bath (the radicals had had their turn previously), Caesar was ordered to divorce his wife. He refused! It might have then gone hard with him as a result, but the young man's aristocratic connections saved his life.

  Caesar's first wife died in 67 b.c. and he made a politically convenient second marriage, taking as wife Pompeia, the daughter of Pompey, who was then at the height of his career.

  In 62 b.c. a certain young scapegrace named Publius Clodius (called "Pulcher" or "good-looking") played a rather foolish practical joke. He dressed himself in women's clothing and got himself into Caesar's house at a time when a religious festival was in process which only women could attend.

  He was caught and it was a great scandal. Many whispered that it could not have been done without the co-operation of Pompeia and even wondered if Clodius might not be Pompeia's lover. Pompeia was almost certainly innocent, but Caesar divorced her at once with the famous remark that "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion." Actually, he was probably tired of her and was glad of a face-saving excuse for the divorce.

  After Caesar had formed the triumvirate with Pompey and Crassus, he married again, for the third and last tune, to Calpurnia (or Calphurnia, as Shakespeare calls her). She was a daughter of one of Pompey's friends, and it was therefore, in a sense, another political marriage.

  … in Antonius' way Caesar has a simple direction for Calphurnia:

  Stand you directly in Antonius' way When he doth run his course.

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 3-4

  Antonius, it seems, will be one of those who will race along wielding the goat-hide thongs at the Lupercalian festival. Since Calphurnia has had no children, and Caesar would like a direct heir, it will be useful for her to be struck.

  The Antonius referred to is Marcus Antonius, far better known, in English, as Mark Antony. He was born in 83 b.c. and was thirty-eight years old at the time of this Lupercalian festival. He was related to Julius Caesar on his mother's side and had joined the general while he was in Gaul. He had remained loyally pro-Caesar ever since.

  Mark Antony had been tribune in 49 b.c. when Pompey and the Senate were trying to force Julius Caesar to come to Italy without his army. Mark Antony and his fellow tribune did what they could to block senatorial action, then fled to Caesar's army, claiming they were in danger of their lives. Since tribunes were inviolate and might not be harmed, Caesar had the excuse he needed to cross the Rubicon with his army.

  While Caesar was in Greece and Egypt fighting the civil war, Mark Antony held the fort in Rome itself and didn't do a very good job of it.

  Caesar continued to value him for his absolute loyalty, however, and they remained together to the end.

  … the ides of March

  And then a voice calls Caesar's name. It is a soothsayer, a man who foresees the future. This time his message is a simple one:

  Beware the ides of March.

  —Act I, scene ii, line 18

  To understand the matter of "the ides" we must consider the Roman calendar, which must set some sort of record for inconvenience.

  Each of the Roman months has three key dates and the other days are defined as "so many days before the such-and-such key date." Nor are the key dates regularly spaced or quite the same from month to month.

  The first day of each month is the "calends" of that month.

  Not long after the calends come the "nones." The nones fall on the fifth day of January, February, April, June, August, September, November, and December, and on the seventh day of March, May, July, and October.

  The word "nones" means "nine" because it falls nine days before the third key date, the "ides," where the nine days count the day of the ides itself. The ides, therefore, fall on the fifteenth day of March, May, July, and October, and on the thirteenth day of the other months.

  From all this we gather that the "ides of March" is what we could call March 15 today. The Lupercalian festival, which falls on February 15, is not, however, on the "ides of February," for that date would be what we now call February 13.

  I am not gamesome…

  Calmly, Caesar ignores the mystic warning and passes on to the festival. The incident of the soothsayer is not a Shakespearean invention, but is referred to in Plutarch.

  That, of course, does not necessarily make it authentic. The event of the ides of March was so dramatic and so clearly a turning point of history that numerous fables arose afterward of all sorts of supernatural omens and forebodings preceding it. The incident of the soothsayer is only the most restrained and dramatically satisfying one of them.

  After Caesar and his party pass on, two men remain behind: Brutus and Cassius. Cassius asks if Brutus intends to watch the festival and Brutus says he won't, for:

  / am not gamesome: I do lack some part

  Of that quick spirit that is in Antony.

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 28-29

  No, he is not gamesome (that is, "merry" or "gay"). The Romans, somehow, usually aren't in literature. They are generally presented as grave, portentous, dignified men, given to declamations in high-sounding phrases, and that is exactly how Brutus is presented.

  He is Marcus Junius Brutus, born in 85 b.c., and therefore just past forty at this time.

  Brutus was the "Republican" most idealized by later historians, but he was by no means an admirable character in real life.

  To begin with, he was a nephew of Cato, one of Caesar's most obdurate and steadfast enemies. It is not surprising, then, that Brutus was also an enemy of Caesar's to begin with. Indeed, he fought on Pompey's side in Greece and was taken prisoner when Pompey was defeated.

  Caesar, however, followed a consistent policy of leniency toward his enemies, feeling, perhaps, that in this way he converted them to friends and healed the wounds inflicted by civil war. So Brutus was pardoned and set free.

  The policy seemed to have worked in Brutus' case, for he behaved as though he were converted from a Pompeian into a sincere Cae
sarian. When Caesar went to Africa to take care of the senatorial armies there, those had, as one of their most important leaders, Cato, who was Brutus' uncle. And yet Brutus remained one of Caesar's lieutenants and served him loyally in the province of Cisalpine Gaul (in what is now northern Italy).

  Later on, crucially and fatally, he abandoned Caesar once again. The later idealization of Brutus has him acting out of conviction and principle, but a glance at his career before the opening scenes of Julius Caesar would make it seem that he was, rather, a self-serving turncoat.

  … Cassias.. .

  Brutus is unwilling that his lack of gamesomeness should interfere with Cassius' pleasures. He says:

  Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires;

  I'll leave you.

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 30-31

  Cassius' full name is Gaius (or Caius) Cassius Longinus, and he is a capable soldier. He went with Crassus to the East as second-in-command. After the disastrous defeat which almost destroyed the Roman army, thanks in good part to Crassus' incapacity, Cassius took over and brought what was left of the army safely back to Roman territory.

  He was also with Pompey at first, but after Pompey's defeat he reassessed the situation. He had not been captured, but it seemed to him that Caesar was sure to win, and Cassius intended to be on the winning side. He followed Caesar into Asia Minor and threw himself on the conqueror's mercy. Caesar pardoned him and let him serve under him.