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Julius Caesar and the Tyrannicide DebateAuthor(s): Robert S. MiolaReviewed work(s):Source: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Summer, 1985), pp. 271-289Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Renaissance Society of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2861665 .Accessed: 13/01/2012 04:36

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Julius Caesar and the Tyrannicide Debate

by ROBERT S. MIOLA

The rich and important debate over tyrannicide, in which Julius Caesar figures centrally, engaged the best political minds of

antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance and raged with par- ticular intensity during Shakespeare's time.1 The tremendous up- heaval of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation ignited fiery polemics on the rights of subjects and on the nature and foundations of civil order. At various times Protestants and Catholics arose to challenge the authority of the earthly crown and to claim the right of deposition and tyrannicide. Monarchomachs like Christopher Goodman, John Ponet, George Buchanan, Francois Hoffman, The- odore de Beze, the author of Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos, the Ligue, and the Jesuits Robert Persons, Francisco Suarez, and Juan de Ma- riana drew upon the classics (especially Aristotle), the Bible, and other works (especially those of Aquinas, Salutati, and Bartolus) to reexamine fundamental assumptions about political order.

The question oftyrannicide (with all of its attendant inquiries) pre- occupied the England of Shakespeare's time as it did the rest of Eu- rope. The homilies against rebellion, the doctrine of passive obedi- ence, the rhetoric of the divine right theory, the ubiquitous condemnation of civil strife-all evidence presumptively the vitality and importance of the tyrannicide question in England. Preachers and politicians had good reason for protesting too much. Trouble menaced from the left, from moderate Protestant reformers like Thomas Cartwright andJohn Field, whose proposed system of pres- byterian organization threatened Elizabeth's authority. Elizabeth's campaign against radical Puritans resulted in the punitive Act Against Seditious Sectaries (1593) and in the executions of Henry Barrow, John Greenwood, and John Penry.2 Trouble also menaced

1For a historical overview of the debate see Oscar Jiszi and John D. Lewis, Against the Tyrant: The Tradition and Theory of Tyrannicide (Glencoe, Ill., 1957), pp. 3-96. See also John Neville Figgis, Studies of Political Thougthtfrom Gerson to Grotius, 1414-1625, 2nd ed. (1916; rpt. Cambridge, 1956); J. W. Allen, A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1928); Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge, I978). In quotation of early texts, I have expanded ab- breviations and contractions and followed modern typographical conventions in re-

spect to the use of i/j, u/v, and vv. 2See Patrick McGrath, Papists and Puritans under Elizabeth I (London, I967), passim,

esp. pp. 205-52, 300-38.

[271]

RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY

from the right, from Catholics who wanted to assassinate Elizabeth and replace her with Mary Queen of Scots. Pius V deposed and ex- communicated Elizabeth, "pretensa Angliae regina"; Sixtus V accused her of"exercysinge an absolute Tyrannie"; radical Catholics like Ro- bert Persons called upon Philip of Spain to invade and conquer the heretical kingdom.3 Elizabethan plays, especially Shakespeare's his- tories and tragedies, reflect the political turmoil and the current ab- sorption with tyrannicide.

A significant point of dispute in the tyrannicide debate was the controversial assassination ofJulius Caesar. Unlike Nero, Domitian, and Caligula-all universally reviled as hateful tyrants-Caesar evoked the full spectrum of Renaissance opinion and so did his assassination. Salutati, for example, praised Caesar as "the father of his country, the lawful and benignant ruler of the world" and justified Dante's consignment of the traitors Brutus and Cassius to the lowest circle of hell.4 Suarez, however, condemned Caesar as a usurper of sovereign power "through violence and tyranny," lauded the assassination, and seconded Cicero's praise of Brutus and Cassius's cour- age.5 The medieval John of Salisbury and the late Renaissance John Milton, like many others, took a position between the extremes: both recognized that Caesar unlawfully assumed power and in so doing acted the part of a tyrant; but both also expressed regret about the assassination, respecting Caesar's virtues and showing ambivalence toward Brutus and Cassius.6 Still others, like Richard Reynoldes and William Fulbecke, took no serious and consistent stand, contenting

3I quote from Pius V's papal bull, Regnans in Excelsis, as reprinted by G. R. Elton, ed. The Tudor Constitution: Documents and Commentary (Cambridge, 1960), p. 414; and from William Allen's translation of Sixtus V reprinted in Thomas A Kempis, "Ofthe Following of Christ, I636;" Pope Sixtus V, "A Declaration of the Sentence and Deposition of Elizabeth [I588]", ed. D. M. Rogers, English Recusant Literature, No. 370 (London, 1977), n.p. For an account of the Catholic threat see McGrath, Papists, passim, esp. pp. 100-24, 161-204.

4Coluccio Salutati, "De Tyranno," ed. and trans. Ephraim Emerton, Humanism and

Tyranny: Studies in the Italian Trecento (Cambridge, Mass., 1925), 70-II6 [93-II6], quotation on I Io. All further references to Salutati are to this text.

5Francisco Suarez, Defensio Fidei Catholicae (1613) trans. in Selections from Three Works of Francisco Suarez, S.J., The Classics of International Law, No. 20 (Oxford, I944), p. 7I I

6The Statesman's Book ofJohn of Salisbury, trans. John Dickinson (1927; rpt. New York, 1963), pp. 358-59; Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio in The Works ofJohn Milton, gen. ed. Frank Allen Patterson, I8 vols. (New York, 1931-38), VII. 336-37.

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JULIUS CAESAR AND THE TYRANNICIDE DEBATE

themselves instead with solemn moralizations as well as various and contradictory political bromides about the evils of pride, tyranny, and rebellion.7

The tyrannicide debate, featuring Caesar in a prominent and po- lemical position, contributes much to the form and substance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.8 This debate defined precisely those questions important to the play: how to tell a tyrant from a just king; how to tell envious murderers from heroic republicans; how and when to justify assassination. The tyrannicide debate aired all the major issues of the play and set forth the criteria for judgment likely to be used by contemporary audiences. Moreover, it guided Shake- speare's adaptation of Plutarchan character and incident. By its light, Shakespeare transformed a confused welter of historical fact and leg- end into taut, balanced, and supremely ambivalent drama.9

* * *

I. Pleb. This Caesar was a tyrant. 3. Pleb. Nay, that's certain.

(III.ii. 69)10

7Reynoldes, A Chronicle of all the Noble Emperours of the Romaines (London, I57I). Fulbecke, An Historicall Collection ofthe Continuall Factions, Tumults, and Massacres of the Romans and Italians (London, 1601). For overviews of Caesar's reputation see Friedrich

Gundolph, The Mantle of Caesar, trans. Jacob Wittmer Hartmann (New York, 1928); Geoffrey Bullough, ed. Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, V (1964; rpt. Lon- don, 1977), 4-36. For a survey focusing on the tyrannicide tradition see M. L. Clarke, The Noblest Roman: Marcus Brutus and His Reputation (Ithaca, 198 ), pp. 79-I I I.

8Shakespeare's debt to this debate has been considered variously by W. A. Arm-

strong, "The Elizabethan Conception of the Tyrant," Review of English Studies, 22

(1946), I6I-8i and "The Influence of Seneca and Machiavelli on the Elizabethan Ty- rant," Review of English Studies, 24 (1948), I9-35; Irving Ribner, "Political Issues in

Julius Caesar, "Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 56 (1957), IO-22; Bernard R.

Breyer, "A New Look at Julius Caesar," in Essays in Honor of Walter Clyde Curry, Van- derbilt Studies in the Humanities, Vol. 2 (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1954), 6I6-8o; John W. Velz, "Clemency, Will, and Just Cause in 'Julius Caesar,' " Shakespeare Survey, 22 (1969), Io9-I8.

90n the ambivalence of the play see Ernest Schanzer, "The Problem of Julius Cae- sar, " Shakespeare Quarterly, 6 (I955), 297-308; Adrien Bonjour, The Structure of'julius Caesar" (Liverpool, 1958); Mildred E. Hartsock, "The Complexity of Julius Caesar," PMLA, 8I (1966), 56-62; Rene E. Fortin, "Julius Caesar: An Experiment in Point of View," Shakespeare Quarterly, 19 (1968), 341-47. According to this group, Shake-

speare does not play partisan politics inJulius Caesar but seeks instead to examine the inner workings of history and the cruel ironies of political process.

10The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston, I974). All further references are to this edition.

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The word "tyrant" and its cognates are crucially important to the

play. The plebeian identification of Caesar as tyrant echoes other references. Cassius avers that suicide can defeat "tyrants" and "tyranny" (I.iii. 92, 99); he queries: "And why should Caesar be a tyrant then?" (I.iii. 103). Brutus incites the others against "high-sighted tyranny" (II.i. II8). After the assassination the conspirators proclaim, "Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!" (III.i. 78). At the end of the

play Young Cato pronounces himself"A foe to tyrants" (V.iv. 5). Yet the plebeians who confidently pronounce Caesar a tyrant soon mourn the fallen leader and seek revenge on the traitors who slew him. The term "tyrant" in this play-as in Jacques Grevin's Cesar (156I), Orlando Pescetti's II Cesare (1594), Thomas Kyd's Cornelia (I594) (a translation of Robert Garnier's Cornelie [1574]), and the anonymous Caesars Revenge (I607), as well as in the accounts of Plu- tarch and Appian-evokes an important set of criteria forjudging the assassination. 1

Examination of the term "tyrant" can clarify the nature of these criteria. In antiquity the term referred to a ruler who came to power by usurpation, without constitutional warrant.12 In the works of Plato, Aristotle, and others, however, the term came to describe any evil ruler, any one who governed by whim for personal gain instead of by law for the general welfare. Deriving mainly from Aristotle, long lists like the exhaustive catalogue of Egidius Romanus Colonna itemized the distinctive characteristics of tyrants and kings and con- trasted their styles of government.13 Medieval and Renaissance theorists, notably Aquinas and Bartolus, officially recognized both the earlier and later conceptions of tyrants, declaring that a man could prove himselfa tyrant in entrance, ex defectu tituli, or in execution, ex

"For II Cesare I rely on Bullough's translated excerpts V, I74-94. The crucial term

appears as well in Bullough's reprint of the surviving epilogue to Richard Eedes's Cae- sar Interfectus (1582), V, I94-95.

12Jiszi and Lewis, Against the Tyrant, p. 4. Originally, however, the term "tyrant" was used to overlap with "king." See Aristotle, Politics I285a, I295a; Isidore of Seville, Etymologia (Augsburg, 1472), fol. 46.

13See Plato, Republic VIII.565-69; Aristotle, Politics I285a, I295a, I3Iob-I3I5b, Ethics I i6oa-b; Colonna, De Regimine Principum (Venice, 1502), Book III, Part II, Ch. vi ff. See also A Defence of Liberty Against Tyrants: A Translation of the "Vindiciae Contra

Tyrannos" byJunius Brutus, intro. by HaroldJ. Laski (London, 1924), pp. 184-89 (here- after cited as Vindiciae); Desiderius Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince, trans. Lester K. Born (New York, 1936), pp. i57ff.

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parte exercitii.14 By Shakespeare's day, then, the term "tyrant" could apply to any usurper of power by force as well as to any lawful ruler who governed viciously.

Does Shakespeare depict Caesar as a tyrant "in entrance," ex defectu tituli? Cassius repeatedly emphasizes the unnaturalness of Cae- sar's rise to power. According to him, Caesar is a feeble mortal who has, incredibly, now "become a god" (I.ii. 16). Cassius queries: "Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed / That he is grown so great?" (I.ii. I49-50). Images of hideously unnatural growth, op- posed to the normal processes of maturation and development, appear again in the storm scene. The monstrous portents of the strange night, according to Cassius, reflect the disorder of "A man no mightier than thyself, or me, / In personal action, yet prodigious grown" (I.iii. 76-77). After pointing to Caesar's human frailty-his near-drowning in the Tiber, his fever in Spain-Cassius compares him to a "Colossus," a huge, artificial, and empty construction. Cas- sius here echoes several contemporary tyrannicide discussions, wherein the Colossus simile likewise describes the tyrant about to fall. Castiglione's Courtier, as Robert C. Reynolds noted, compares the tyrant and Colossus: both appear magnificent but are filled with "towe and ragges"; both "throughe their owne waightinesse over- throwe them selves." La B6etie echoes the latter point when urging people to withhold support from the tyrant: "then you will behold him, like a great Colossus, whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces."15

Shakespeare takes pains to corroborate Cassius's opinion of Cae- sar's unnatural usurpation. To open the play, he takes his cue from Plutarch, who observes that Caesar's triumphal celebration

did as much offend the Romanes, and more, then any thing that ever he had done before: bicause he had not overcome Captaines that were straungers, nor barbarous kinges, but had destroyed the sonnes of the noblest man in Rome, whom fortune had overthrowen. And bicause he had plucked up his race by

14Aquinas distinguishes between ad modum acquirendi praelationem and ad usum praela- tionis: Commentum in Quattuor Libros Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi in Opera Om- nia, VI (New York, 1948), p. 788 (Dist. XLIV. Quaest. II. Art. II). Cf. Bartolus of Sassoferrato, "Tractatus de Tyrannia" in Emerton, Humanism and Tyranny, I26-54 (all further references to Bartolus are to this text); Vindiciae, p. 182.

15"Ironic Epithet inJulius Caesar," Shakespeare Quarterly, 24 (i973), 329-33 (332); Estienne de La B6etie, Anti-Dictator, trans. Harry Kurz (New York, 1942), pp. I2-I3.

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the rootes, men did not think it meet for him to triumphe so, for the calamities of his contrie.16

In the play Murellus and Flavius rebuke the populace for celebrating Caesar's victory over "Pompey's blood" (I.i. 5I). Not merely guilty of impropriety, these commoners are guilty of hypocrisy, self- interest, and ingratitude. The reference to "Pompey's blood," i.e., to his sons, also suggests the sin ofimpietas. These Romans applaud the conqueror whose sword carves up Roman families and cuts the line of future Roman citizens.

The references to Roman history also suggest the unconstitution- ality of Caesar's entrance to power. The story ofJunius Brutus's re- volt against the tyrannical Tarquin, twice alluded to in the play (I.ii. I58ff., II.i. 53ff.), reminds the audience, as it does the later Brutus, that Roman government was representative. Government by a sin- gle ruler violated Roman constitutional and legal traditions and sig- nalled the degeneration of the city and its inhabitants. Cassius ex- claims: "Age, thou art sham'd! / Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods! / When went there by an age since the great flood / But it was fam'd with more than with one man?" (I.ii. I50-53). Other references to past glory days and to present decay emphasize the point. Cassius calls fellow Romans "sheep," "hinds," and "weak straws," and equates present-day Rome with "trash," "rubbish," "offal," and "base matter" (I.iii. Ios-Io). Pertinent too are the allu- sions to Cato, admired avatar of Republicanism who died rather than submit to Caesar's rule; and to Pompey, who shared glory, fame, and power with Caesar. Cicero's very presence reminded an audience who had parsed their Latin on his orations that Roman government was representative.

Clearly, evidence in the play indicates that Shakespeare's Caesar, then, is a tyrant ex defectu tituli. From this perspective Brutus' re- solve to think Caesar "as a serpent's egg, / Which, hatch'd, would as his kind, grow mischievous" and to "kill him in the shell" (II.i. 32-4) is perfectly proper and expedient. For the tyrant in entrance, a significant number agreed, had to be slain as soon as possible, before his tyranny could gain rooting or, worse yet, legitimacy through oath or

16Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Englished by Sir Thomas North, Anno I579, 6 vols. The Tudor Translations (London, 1895-96), V, 57.

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pact. With a marginal reference to Brutus, Pierre Charron gives two counsels: "at his [the tyrant's] entrance to stay and hinder him lest he get the mastry; being enstalled and acknowledged, to suffer and obey him."17 The conspirators do not kill Caesar prematurely, then, as is often alleged, but at the last morally defensible moment.

Shakespeare, however, does not let the case rest so easily; he takes care to justify Caesar's entrance to power. Cassius, the man who paints a picture of Caesar as a tyrant, is lean and hungry, a character with questionable motives and methods. Adroitly he flatters Brutus and appeals to his ambition:

Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that "Caesar"? Why should that name be sounded more than yours?

(I.ii. 142-43)

In a soliloquy early in the play, he makes a sinister observation: "Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet I see / Thy honourable mettle

may be wrought / From that it is dispos'd" (I.ii. 308-Io). He rejoices at the success of his plot in language that suggests corruption and deceit: "For who so firm that cannot be seduc'd?" (I.ii. 3 I2). In order to enlist Brutus in the conspiracy he resorts to forgery:

I will this night, In several hands, in at his windows throw, As if they came from several citizens, Writings, all tending to the great opinion That Rome holds of his name; wherein obscurely Caesar's ambition shall be glanced at.

(Ii. 315-20)

Shakespeare radically changes Plutarch here, who records in the "Life of Caesar" and in the "Life of Brutus" that the people wrote letters to Brutus and cast them upon his chair (V, 63; VI, I9I). The changing of the popular appeal into a cheap trick darkens the character of Cassius and makes suspect his motivations and judgment.

The impression that the conqueror of"Pompey's blood" is, ipso

facto, a tyrant in entrance is also counterbalanced and qualified. Again Shakespeare alters received tradition to legitimize Caesar's rise to

power. Most historians and commentators agreed that Antony's offering of the crown and Caesar's subsequent refusals were parts of a

170f Wisdome, Samson Lennard (London, 1612?), p. 414; cf. Vindiciae, pp. 192-93; Suarez, p. 712.

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political charade, a test of the people by the ambitious would-be ruler. 8 Shakespeare, however, leaves the entire matter in some question. He does not stage a reprise of Gloucester and Buckingham at Baynard's Castle, but places the action off stage. We hear only the shouts of popular acclaim and the biased account of Casca, a future conspirator:

I can as well be hang'd as tell the manner of it: it was mere foolery, I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown-yet 'twas not a crown neither, 'twas one of these coronets-and as I told you, he put it by once; but for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offer'd it to him again; then he put it by again; but, to my thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he offer'd it the third time; he put it the third time by.

(I.ii. 235-43)

The nervous rhythms here, the tone of ridicule, and the tendency to qualify and interpret all vividly characterize the speaker and make the account personal not objective. By repeating "I" four times in nine lines and "to my thinking" twice, Casca emphasizes the subjectivity of his account. His impressionism simply does not constitute suf- ficient evidence to conclude deception. Similarly, Shakespeare does not depict the well-known historical conflict between Caesar and the Senate, strong evidence of a tyrant in entrance, of one who arrogates to himself unlawful prerogatives and powers.19 Instead, we are twice told that the Senate plans to crown Caesar in the Capitol on the ides of March (I.iii. 85-88; II.ii. 93-94).

Nor do the references to Roman history and to past Republicans conclusively mark Caesar as a tyrant ex defectu tituli. As Aristotle out- lined and as Elizabethans well knew, history consisted of various changes in government, of a cyclical series of political metamorphoses. The conspirators may depict Caesar as a subversive revolu-

18See Plutarch, v, 62; Appian, An Ancient Historie and Exquisite Chronicle of the Ro- manes Warres, both Civile and Foren, trans. W. B. (London, 1578), pp. 135-36. All further references to Appian are to this text.

19This conflict looms large in the accounts of Plutarch, Appian, Livy, and Sueto- nius. See also Eutropius, A BriefChronicle, trans. Nicholas Haward (London, 1564), fols. 67-68; Lodowick Lloid, The Consent of Time (London, 1590), p. 536; Francis Ba- con, "Julius Caesar," in The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, et. al., I4 vols. (London, I868-90), VI, 342-43.

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tionary, but he depicts himself as a man of destiny, as one uniquely fitted to assume command of Rome. Magisterially upholding one of his decrees, he declares:

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. 60-62)

John W. Velz rightly points to the "unmistakable connotations of

kingship" in these lines and observes that Ovid is probably the source for Caesar's self-apotheosis.2) The reference to the stars and the submerged allusion to Metamorphoses evoke an imperial vision of Roman history that strongly contrasts with the Republican vision of the conspirators. According to the imperial view, that held variously by Horace, Vergil, and Livy, Julius Caesar was destined to precede Augustus and to establish the glorious Roman empire, "imperium sine

fine" (Aen. I. 279). Later Christian historians, espousing the theory of the world's four monarchies, supported this view by according the Roman empire the special distinction of hosting the birth of Christ.21

* * *

Whatever one decides about Caesar's status as a tyrant ex defectu tituli, one must still determine whether he is a tyrant in practice, de parte exercitii. These questions are related but distinct. Bartolus dis- cusses the practical necessity of working with tyrants in entrance in order to lessen their injuries, i. e., in order to prevent them from be- coming tyrants in practice. The author of the Vindiciae notes in- stances of violent intruders who in time became mild rulers. Both Robert Bellarmine and Theodore de Beze cite Caesar as an example of a tyrant in entrance who eventually became a good and lawful ruler. Conversely, Suarez (with blazing eyes fixed on Whitehall) ar-

gues that a tyrant in practice can suffer deposition and thereby become a tyrant ex defectu tituli.22

20"Clemency, Will, and Just Cause," p. IIo. 21See the fully documented account ofJ. Leeds Barroll, "Shakespeare and Roman

History," Modern Language Review, 53 (I958), 327-43.

22Bartolus, pp. I46-47; Vindiciae, pp. 182-83, I93; Bellarmine, De Laicis or The Treatise on Civil Government, trans. Kathleen E. Murphy (New York, I928), p. 30; Beze, Du Droit des Magistrats, ed. Robert M. Kingdon (Geneva, I970), pp. 13-14; Suarez, pp. 717-18.

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Shakespeare's Caesar has some of the salient characteristics of the tyrant in practice. He fears plots and conspiracies, twice observing early in the play that such men as Cassius are "dangerous" (I.ii. 195, 21o).23 Despite stirring denunciations of fear, Caesar orders a sacrifice in response to the unnatural portents of the storm. Calphurnia persuades him of the threat to himself and he fashions an excuse for staying home, "Mark Antony shall say I am not well" (II.ii. 55). He shows superbia, arrogant pride, another distinguishing characteristic of the tyrant.24 Shakespeare's Caesar considers himself a special crea- tion, far superior to ordinary mortals. Cimber's supplication, Caesar avers, "Might fire the blood of ordinary men" (III.i. 37), but not his. Others are "flesh and blood, and apprehensive," but only Caesar "unassailable holds on his rank, / Unshak'd of motion" (III.i. 67, 69-70). Such superbia leads Caesar to willfullness, another identifying mark of the tyrant. Citing Erasmus's discussion of tyrannical will, Bernard R. Breyer observes that Caesar continually talks of his will in Act II Scene ii.25 After changing his mind and resolving not to go to the Senate, Caesar responds to Decius's request for a reason: "The cause is in my will, I will not come: / That is enough to satisfy the Senate" (71-72). Such nonchalant substitution of personal caprice for

just cause and law marks the tyrant in execution. That Caesar

changes his mind once again and decides finally to go to the Senate underscores the arbitrariness of his will and, by extension, the insta-

bility of his tyrannical rule.

Shakespeare's Caesar not only looks and sounds like a tyrant, he acts like one. From Plutarch's brief and bland account of the petitions preceding the assassination (V, 67), Shakespeare creates a highly

230n the fear of plots as characteristic of the tyrant, see St. Thomas Aquinas, De Regimine Principum ad Regem Cypri et De Regimine Judaeorum, ed. Joseph Mathis (Taurini, 1948), p. 5. (Although the title and textual history of the first work are ex-

tremely problematic, a check against G. B. Phelan's translation, rev. I. T. Eschman, On Kingship to the King of Cyprus [Toronto, 1949] confirms the authenticity of the pas- sages cited in this essay.) Cf. Bartolus, p. 14I; Erasmus, p. 163; Pierre de La Pri-

maudaye, The French Academie, trans. T. B. (London, 1618), p. 262; George Bu- chanan, The Art and Science of Government among the Scots, trans. Duncan H. MacNeill

(Glasgow, I964), p. 62. 24See Salutati, pp. 75-78; Bartolus, pp. 127-28. In Ravisius Textor's Officina (Ven-

ice, I606), Julius Caesar is listed under "Arrogantes, Superbi, Gloriosi & Ambitiosi" as well as "Clementes et Humani" (fols. 251, 260). Cf. Cesare Ripa, Iconologia (Padua, I6I I) rpt. in The Renaissance and the Gods, No. 21 (New York, I976), p. 516.

25Breyer, pp. 175-76; cf. Vindiciae, pp. 184, I98.

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charged scene of tyrannical action. First, Caesar announces that he and "his Senate" (III.i. 32) are ready to redress grievances, thus as- suming ownership of the Roman legislative and judicial body. Then he imperiously refuses to repeal the decree banishing Cimber's brother: "If thou dost bend, and pray, and fawn for him, / I spurn thee like a cur out of my way" (III.i. 45-46). Caesar does not discuss the crime committed or the merits of the petition, but simply refers to his past decision, in other words, to his will. As Caesar was justly famous for his clemency and since, as Seneca and others declared, clemency was a characteristic virtue of a good king, Shakespeare takes pains here to mark Caesar's rule as tyrannical.26

The self-love so flagrantly evident in Caesar's disregard for senatorial authority and for kingly virtue appears earlier in more subtle and more dangerous form. Caesar, we are told, puts the tribunes Murellus and Flavius "to silence" for pulling scarves off his images (I.ii. 285-86). Shakespeare changes Plutarch's "diadems" to scarves to stress the triviality of the offense and thus to underline the severity of the punishment. Whereas Plutarch tells us that Caesar deprived the tribunes of their office (V, 63), Shakespeare leaves their fate omi- nously uncertain, hinting at the possibility of murder. These altera- tions portray Caesar as vain, ruthless, and unjust, as a tyrant who ca- priciously punishes citizens who displease him.27 No wonder the stock animal metaphors for the tyrant cluster around Caesar.28 Cas- sius describes him as a wolf who preys on sheep, a lion on hinds (I.iii. 104, I06). Brutus, we have noted, sees him as a serpent and later draws an image from falconry "So let high-sighted tyranny range

26See Velz, "Clemency, Will, and Just Cause," Io9-I8. Cf. Erasmus, p. 209; Sir Thomas Elyot, The Book Named The Governor, ed. S. E. Lehmberg, (London, I962), pp. 115-20. Andrea Alciati, "Principis clementia," Emblemata (Padua, 1621), rpt. in The Renaissance and the Gods, No. 25 (New York, 1976), pp. 632-37. But some Ro- mans protested that Caesar's clementia was actually arrogance as it assumed the right of a citizen to grant pardon, Ronald Syme, Sallust, Sather Classical Lectures, Vol. 33 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964), p. I I9; Bacon thought it a ploy to gain popularity, Works, VI, 345.

27Appian calls the Tribunes' office "holy, inviolate by lawe, and auntient oth" and declares that Caesar's treatment of the Tribunes "dyd most of all confirme, that he... was utterly become a Tyrante," p. 13 5.

28For a sampling of these metaphors see Plato, Republic VIII, 566 (wolf); John of

Salisbury, pp. 335, 343 (serpent, lion); Vindiciae, pp. 183-84, i88, 190 (viper, wolf, lion); Erasmus, pp. 163, i66, 168 (dragon, wolf, lion, bear, eagle, viper). The lion and

eagle are also symbols of kingship and, therefore, ambivalent in the play.

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on, / Till each man drop by lottery" (II.i. I I8-I9). For such a ruler, classical, medieval, and Renaissance authorities insisted, there could be only one end: a sudden and violent death. The assassination of Caesar in Act III, then, testifies strongly, if circumstantially, to his

tyrannical character. Although Shakespeare endows Caesar with some of the attributes

of a tyrant, he draws the portrait in light and shade, with many quali- fying brushstrokes. Caesar may fear plots but he loves and trusts his fellow Romans. He is close to Antony and warmly invites Brutus and the other conspirators to share wine: "Good friends, go in, and taste some wine with me, / And we, like friends, will straightway go together" (II.ii. 126-27). How unlike the typical tyrant who lives

sequestered from his people, surrounded by a guard of foreign mer- cenaries.29 Kindly, he leaves to the people his "private arbors and

new-planted orchards, / On this side Tiber" (III.ii. 248-49), thus

making all citizens "heirs for ever" (250). This provision for the dis- tribution of personal possessions neatly opposes the avarice described in I Sam. 8:14, a passage that portrayed the typical tyrant for many, including Erasmus, Ponet, and Goodman: "And he wil take your fieldes, and your vineyardes, and your best olive trees, and give them to his servants."30 In direct contrast to the typical tyrant's greed, Cae- sar's posthumous generosity unites all Romans as familial legatees and characterizes him as the magnanimous paterpatriae. And though, granted, Caesar shows superbia, he places self last and others first on at least one crucial occasion. After Artemidorus urges him to read a letter exposing the conspiracy, Caesar responds, "What touches us ourself shall be last serv'd" (III.i. 8), and sweeps on to his death.

Shakespeare here diverges from Plutarch's account (V, 66), wherein Caesar tries many times to read the letter but cannot because of the crowd; he portrays instead the self-sacrificing ruler more concerned with public welfare than his own.

29See Plato, Republic VIII, 566; Aristotle, Politics I285a, I3IIa; Bartolus, p. 142;

Vindiciae, p. 186; La Primaudaye, p. 262; Franqois Hotman, Francogallia, ed. Ralph E.

Giesey, trans. J. H. M. Salmon (Cambridge, I972), pp. 286-88. 30I quote from the Geneva Bible (I560). Cf. Erasmus, p. 166; Christopher Good-

man, How Superior Powers oght to be Obeyed, The English Experience, No. 460 (I558; facs. rpt. Amsterdam, 1972), p. 150; John Ponet, A Shorte Treatise of Politike Power, The English Experience, No. 484 (1556; facs. rpt. Amsterdam, 1972), sig. Fiiir-v. In some recollections of the passage the word "orchard" appears (see Goodman, e.g.).

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It is true that Caesar is willful but so are others in the play. Brutus overrules the wishes of his fellows on at least three important deci- sions: I) he urges the sparing of Antony; 2) he allows Antony to speak at Caesar's funeral; 3) he meets the enemy at Philippi. In fact, as some have noted, Brutus resembles Caesar in significant ways: both command the respect of Romans, both have night scenes with their wives, both proclaim their honor and Romanitas, both spurn fear of death.31 In quarrel with Cassius, Brutus sounds the note of self-glorification prominent in Caesar's northern star speech:

There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats; For I am arm'd so strong in honesty That they pass by me as the idle wind, Which I respect not.

(IV.iii. 66-69)

This series of parallels may ironically reveal tyrannical tendencies in the self-proclaimed tyrant-slayer. Yet, it may just as well suggest that Brutus has those qualities of willfullness necessary in any leader, especially in one who undertakes so great a task. Antony, who leads the countermovement of the play, is also willful as is Octavius, who stubbornly defies Antony and holds to the right side of tihe bat- tlefield, saying "I will do so" (V.i. 20).

Upon closer examination then, Shakespeare seems to qualify Cae- sar's tyrannical characteristics by dramatic context. Caesar refuses clemency but so do many good rulers, we uneasily realize. Brutus says he knows "no personal cause to spurn at him" (II.i. I I) and ad- mits his innocence: "to speak truth of Caesar, / I have not known when his affections sway'd / More than his reason" (19-21). He agrees perfectly with Plutarch: "it seemed he [Caesar] rather had the name and opinion onely of a tyranne, then otherwise that he was so in deede. For there never followed any tyrannicall nor cruell act ...." (VI, 237). Flatly concluding that the quarrel will "bear no color for the thing he is" (29), Brutus fashions justifications. Later he mentions a record of offences (III.ii. 37-40), but we never see it. The conspirators do not make an issue of Caesar's silencing the tribunes

31For discussion of the similarities see Norman Rabkin, "Structure, Convention, and Meaning inJulius Caesar,"Journal ofEnglish and Germanic Philology, 63 (1964), 240- 54; John W. Velz, "Undular Structure in 'Julius Caesar,' " Modern Language Review, 66

(1971), 21-30. For an extreme reading of Brutus as more willful than Caesar, see Gor- don Ross Smith, "Brutus, Virtue, and Will," Shakespeare Quarterly, Io (I959), 367-79.

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and Shakespeare likewise ignores other incriminating material from Plutarch: the bribing of magistrates (V, 3 I); the dream of incest with his mother (V, 3 5); the war against Pompey (V, 3 5ff.); the robbery of Saturn's temple (V, 38); the affair with Cleopatra (V, 50-51); the burning of the library at Alexandria (V, 51); the promotion to "per- petuall Dictator" (V, 57); the desire to be called "king" (V, 60). In- stead, he gives us a man who wants "great Rome" to suck his "Re- viving blood" (II.ii. 87-88) and to take from it "tinctures, stains, relics, and cognizance" (89). This aspiration marks the difference between Caesar and the typical tyrant, who is himself blood-thirsty. Like the "man-eater" of Homer's famous description (Iliad I. 23I) and subsequent accounts, the typical tyrant devours others.32 In contrast, the vision of Caesar nourishing Rome with his blood borrows from Christian myth and ritual as well as from the stock political im-

age of the king as fountain to characterize Caesar as a ruler just and

good. The hints and half-guesses of tyranny in this play look slight and

insubstantial next to the lurid obscenities of Shakespeare's other tyrants, of Richard III and Macbeth, for example. It is no small irony that the conspirators, not Caesar, shock the audience with bloody butchery. And it is the new triumvirate, not Caesar, who exhibits tyrannical ruthlessness and cruelty in the Proscription (IV.i.).

* * *

The debate over tyrannicide naturally focused on the assassins as well as on the tyrant. In Renaissance treatises the right to resist or slay the tyrant rested precariously on two ideological foundations: I) on the religious conception of earthly authority as divinely granted and, therefore, subject to the will of God; 2) on the secular conception of earthly authority as popularly granted and, therefore, subject to the will of the people. A just tyrannicide, then, acted on authority dele- gated to him, explicitly or implicitly, from God or from fellow citizens or, more usually, from some combination of the two.33

32See, e.g., Erasmus, 170-72. 33For a summary of opinion with reference to ancient, medieval, and Renaissance

views, see the erudite discussion ofSuarez, pp. 705-I9. Cf. the succinct formulation of Robert Persons: "Kingdomes are not immediatly instituted from God, but mediatly only by meanes of the people; which people therfore may change their formes of gov-

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If the mandate for assassination was primarily religious, then the murder became a sacrifice to God. This line of reasoning is especially pertinent toJulius Caesar, a play steeped in the language and imagery of religious ceremony. The conspirators continually invoke the gods to witness and approve their sacrifice. Brutus exhorts the gods to "speed" him, for example; Cassius swears by them several times (I.ii. 128, 148) and envisions them as strengthening the weak and de- feating tyrants (I.iii. 91-92). Brutus unequivocally identifies the murder as a holy offering to the gods, exhorting his followers:

Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully; Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods, Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds.

(II.i. 172-74)

The will of the gods inJulius Caesar, however, is not so easily read. The conspirators invoke them to justify the assassination; Artemi- dorus invokes them to protect Caesar (II.iii. 8). Antony calls upon the gods to witness Caesar's love for Brutus: "Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar lov'd him" (III.ii. 182). Both Brutus and Cassius call upon the gods in their quarrel (IV.iii. 41, 46). Cassius's prayer that the gods "stand friendly" at Philippi (V.i. 93) so that he and Bru- tus might see old age is flatly denied. The play simply does not support the conspirators' assumption of divine approval for the assassination. Instead it plunges the viewer into a strange, unfathomable universe, wherein the gods are capricious and inscrutable, wherein characters continually misconstrue and misunderstand their wishes. Caesar believes that the gods send the augury of a heartless beast to shame cowardice (II.ii. 41) and confidently walks off to his death. Brutus confronts Caesar's spirit in astonished perplexity: "Art thou any thing? / Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil?" (IV.iii. 278-79). He, too, proceeds to his death. The divinely inspired storm evokes different reactions and conflicting interpretations. Casca fears that there is "civil strife in heaven" or that the gods are punishing the world (I.iii. I 1-13); Cassius, rejoicing, thinks that the storm and portents are "instruments of fear and warning" which signify divine dis- approval of Caesar (I.iii. 70). Brutus calmly reads by the light from

ernment." TheJudgment of a Catholicke English-Man (I608), intro. William T. Costello (Gainesville, Florida, I957), p. 121.

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"exhalations whizzing in the air" (II.i. 44); Cicero adamantly refuses comment and withdraws (I.iii. 33-36). The sacrifice of Caesar itself, the repeated stabbings in the Capitol and the gory blood smearing, looks more like foul treason than divine sacrifice.34

Although the gods in Julius Caesar are mysterious shadows, the people are tangible presences. Much evidence in the play suggests that the conspirators act on behalf of the populace for the public good, just as the various tyrannicide theorists prescribed. The word "Rome" and its cognates recur frequently in the planning and signify the heroic community, past and present, whom the conspirators re- vere and obey. Cassius urges the conspirators to show themselves "true Romans" (II.i. 223). Brutus slays his best lover "for the good of Rome" (III.ii. 45). Judgment of the motives and character of the conspiracy will largely reflect judgment of Brutus, who never hopes for personal gain or satisfaction but perseveres though he loses much-his friend Caesar, Portia, his place in the city, and finally his life. Shakespeare alters Plutarch in order to illuminate Brutus' character and his role as public defender. In Plutarch's account Brutus visits Caius Ligarius to enlist his aid (VI, I9I); in Shakespeare's ver- sion, Caius Ligarius comes to Brutus. Hailing Brutus as "Soul of Rome" (II.i. 321), Ligarius discards his sickness, healed and revi- vified by Brutus' magical presence, and vows to follow his leader anywhere. Even Antony in his moving elegy commends Brutus for "general honest thought" and concern for the "common good to all" (V.v. 71-72). Clearly, Shakespeare depicts the conspirators as acting on public authority with the consent of the people.

And yet, the lines between public and private in the play are tenu- ous and fluctuating. Brutus may believe that he acts on behalf of the Romans, but the audience, like Antony, may suspect "private griefs" (III.ii. 213). Persistent concern about the appearance of virtue, not the substance, and about the manipulation of appearances for "the common eyes" (II.i. I79) raises doubts about Brutus' conception of himself and the assassination. Brutus encourages the conspirators to comport themselves like "Roman actors" (II.i. 226) and to let their hearts "as subtle masters do, / Stir up their servants to an act of rage, / And after seem to chide 'em" (II.i. 175-77). His two major

340n the ironic ambivalence of ritual in the play see Brents Stirling, "Or Else This Were a Savage Spectacle," PMLA, 66 (I95I), 765-74.

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miscalculations appear in the play as attempts to curry public favor: Brutus spares Antony so the course will not "seem too bloody" (II.i. 162); he allows him to speak, thinking that such generosity "shall ad- vantage more than do us wrong" (III.i. 242). Such attempts to gain popular support ill sort with the conception of Brutus as public defender, as the appointed instrument of the general will.

Even more disturbing, however, are the revelations of petulance, vanity, and hypocrisy in the quarrel scene. Brutus angrily accuses Cassius of having "an itching palm," of contaminating his fingers "with base bribes" and selling "the mighty space" of their large hon- ors for gold (IV.iii. 10-25). While haughtily claiming that he "can raise no money by vile means," Brutus condemns Cassius for not sending the gold to him. The shadows thus cast over Brutus and the conspirators lengthen further when we recall that Caesar does inspire popular adulation, as the first scenes illustrate, and does win all but formal approval from the Senate.

These shadows grow darker as the play progresses. The bloodshed of the Proscription, portrayed in the casual bartering of human lives (IV.i. I-6), and the reports of the senatorial purge (IV.iii. 173-80), undercuts justification of the murder as necessary tyrannicide. So too does the civil war which rages at the end of the play and which fulfills, at least in part, Antony's grim prophecy of civil discord:

A curse shall light upon the limbs of men; Domestic fury and fierce civil strife Shall cumber all the parts of Italy; Blood and destruction shall be so in use, And dreadful objects so familiar, That mothers shall but smile when they behold Their infants quartered with the hands of war; All pity chok'd with custom of fell deeds; And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge, With Ate by his side come hot from hell, Shall il these confines with a monarch's voice Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war, That this foul deed shall smell above the earth With carrion men, groaning for burial.

(III.i. 262-75)

According to the traditional view, one could licitly slay a tyrant only if by so doing he could spare his country from future outrage. Aquinas is clear on the point: "utilius est remissam tyrannidem tolerare ad

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tempus, quam contra tyrannum agendo multis implicare periculis, quae sunt

graviora ipsa tyrannide." And Suarez, summarizing past opinion, likewise stipulates that one may slay a tyrant only if"there is not fear lest the state suffer, in consequence of the slaying of the tyrant, the same ills as it endures under his sway, or ills even more grave."35 The domestic fury following Caesar's death, then, provides damning evidence against Brutus and Cassius.

Since no one could licitly slay a tyrant without the consent (ex- press or tacit) of the people, Shakespeare's portrayal of the Roman citizens takes on special importance. After first appearing to celebrate Caesar's triumph, they, abashed by the tribunes' rebuke, quietly withdraw, only to appear again as the crowd thronging about Cae- sar, then Brutus, then Antony, then Caesar again. Their vacillation in the Forum scene, wherein they change from doubt to admiration to anger, and their cruel fury toward Cinna the poet characterize them as dangerously unstable. These incidents render meaningless the question about whether the people consent (expressly or tacitly) to the assassination. Such consent could be only capricious whim. Shakespeare's portrayal of the fickle mob here, largely an innovation from Plutarch, does not merely reflect anti-democratic prejudice or suggest the necessity for a strong ruler. Instead, it completes his de- piction of a society without any divine or secular basis of authority. In the arbitrariness of their will the plebeians are the exact counter- part of the feckless Senate, the conspiring patricians, and, most im-

portant, the ambitious Caesar.36 In Julius Caesar no trustworthy source of sovereignty arises to direct Rome; there is only the politics of the marketplace, a confusing cacophony of claims and counter- claims. In this world the origins of civil government and sovereignty lie in the possession of power, pure, simple, and amoral.

The treatises on tyrannicide shapeJulius Caesar in important ways: they define its political and moral framework and structure its am- bivalences. From the tyrannicide debate Shakespeare creates a work which challenges its origins, those confident, fiercely advocative polemics on politics and morals. For the play dramatizes the differences between history, mysterious and unpredictable, and political theory; life resists legal definition and the formulations ofjurists. Julius Cae-

35Aquinas, De Regimine Principum, p. 7; Suarez, pp. 712-I3.

36Shakespeare thus dramatizes the venerable Aristotelian dictum that there is little difference between extreme democracy and tyranny, Politics I292a.

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sar reveals only too clearly the difficulty ofjudging rulers, of catego- rizing them as tyrants or kings.37 It exposes also the difficulties inher- ent in tyrannicide-the temptation of self-interest, the lurking corruptions of deceit and political demagoguery, the ever- threatening danger of the untrammeled consequence. Human judgment is uncertain, the play suggests, and men regularly "construe things after their fashion, / Clean from the purpose of the things themselves" (I.iii. 34-3 5). The images of public hero and vain self- deluder are every bit as protean as those of tyrant and just king. LOYOLA COLLEGE, MARYLAND

37Contrast the confidence of the King in Henry V, also 1599: "We are no tyrant, but a Christian king" (I.ii. 24I).

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