5 - Julius Caesar: Conscience and Conspiracy

Summary

Messer Iacopo … se n'andò alla piazza del Palagio chiamando in suo aiuto il popolo e la libertà. Ma Perché l'uno era dalla fortuna e liberalità de’ Medici fatto sordo, l'altra in Firenze non era cognosciuta, non gli fu risposto da alcuno.

(Machiavelli, Istorie Fiorentine; B 933-4; ‘Giacopo … went to the Market place of the Pallace, calling the people to aide him, and recover their libertie. But the people by the fortune and liberallitie of the Medici made deaffe, gave no eare to helpe him, and the Florentines had so much forgotten their libertie, as he received no aunswere at all', Bedingfield, p. 200.)

come intervenne a Roma di Cesare, che per forza si tolse quello che la ingratitudine gli negava.

(Discorsi 1.29; B 157; ‘as happened in Rome with Caesar, who took by force what ingratitude denied him'.)

ONCE he had brought the Henriad to its triumphal conclusion, Shake- speare resumed his interest in Roman themes, as seen earlier in Titus Andronicus and The Rape of Lucrece. Both those works demonstrate the importance to him of the theme of violation, and the implications it carries for such questions as tyranny and personal freedom. Julius Caesar pursues similar speculations in the larger arena of political debate (involving members of the senate directly in the action) and again dramatically portrays the tension between tyranny and liberty, in particular liberty of conscience. The play may also, if only to a limited extent, raise thoughts nearer home about the relationship of monarchy to republicanism. This aspect of Julius Caesar in turn requires that we extend our comparison with Machiavelli beyond the Principe and the Discorsi to include his Istorie Fiorentine, which reflects a similar and thought-provoking conflict between republicanism and monarchy.

Critics have also remarked on similarities between Julius Caesar and Elizabeth I, both of them strong and popular, yet both of them prone to individual weaknesses, he physically infirm, she aging, and each of them wilfully precipitating a crisis in political affairs. How far Shakespeare wished to pursue the analogy is difficult to say. Robert S. Miola notes one kind of parallel by identifying those Catholics who wished to assassinate Elizabeth and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. However, this affords an analogy with the succession crisis rather than with republicanism.