Julius Caesar

Even as a child, when I knew nothing of Roman history, Caesar’s assassination and his famous ‘Et tu Brute’ dialogue were familiar to me. Looking back, I wonder if Caesar’s enduring influence in popular culture is all thanks to Shakespeare.  What if the play was never written and the assassination never dramatized? Would he have been an obscure historical figure known only to the pundits?

In the play, after the assassination, Cassius mouths these lines:

How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over
In states unborn and accents yet unknown!

Shakespeare was sure of his influence.

The challenge of reading a fictional dramatization of a real-life incident is the dichotomy between the real and the imagined. Before picking up the bard, I browsed through Adrian Goldsworthy’s Caesar: Life of a Colossus, to brush up my knowledge of Ancient Rome. Caesar was undoubtedly a colossus. His exploits in Gaul, raids into Britain, crossing of the Rubicon, military journals, chase of Pompei to Egypt, affair with Cleopatra, the Nile cruise and eventual murder are all the stuff of legend. Each of these episodes could, in themselves, inspire entire movies.

In Shakespeare’s imagination, the inner torment of Brutus was something that caught me by surprise. The bard summarising Brutus’ motives:

As Caesar loved me, I weep for him;
as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it;
as he was valiant, I honour him;
but, as he was ambitious, I slew him.
There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune;
honour for his valour; and death for his ambition

 The 1970 movie adaptation starring Charlton Heston is streaming on YouTube. However, the most enjoyable on-screen adaptation of Caesar’s life is HBO’s ‘Rome’. I finished the first Season which ends with the Ides of March. The second I believe, is around the rise of Augustus and the death of Antony and Cleopatra. The violence and of course the sex depicted in it explains why many consider GoT to have been modelled on its lines. The dramatized Netflix docudrama ‘Roman Empire’ is also not too bad.

Check out Damian Lewis’ attempt at Antony’s funeral oration:

and Marlon Brando’s intense effort in 1953:

The Shakespeare Project so far: Macbeth | The Tempest | The Merchant of Venice | Twelfth Night | As You Like It | Much Ado About Nothing | King Lear | Hamlet

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