In the first essay of Timothy W. Burns’s book Shakespeare’s Political Wisdom, he dubs Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar a “masterpiece.” Why does he consider Julius Caesar to be a masterpiece? Inn some ways, because Julius Caesar concerns itself with an Aristotelian examination of political life at its peak –a unique moment which stands apart as both the apex and the point of decline for the Roman republic. Even from the outset, the problem within the state of republic is apparent as two tribunes, Murellus and Flavius, publicly express frustration with the commoners for being idle and well-dressed on a holiday (the Lupercal) which is also a workday, no less.
“We see from the start, then, a principled division in the political class, even among members of the tribunate. The two tribunes embody each a different principle of republican rule. On the one hand the pious Murellus objects not to the imperial rule of Pompey but to Caesar’s ascent, precisely because it came at the cost of Pompey and his sons, to whose preeminence he shows no aversion and for whose just deeds on behalf of Romans he demands enduring gratitude from the people –a demand supported, in his mind, by divine justice. He demands that Romans accord the virtuous their just deserts and since Pompey was most virtuous, honoring his opponent is unjust. Flavius, on the other hand, wishes to take action against Caesar on opposite grounds. When he looks up it is not to another human being nor to gods, but to Rome, the exalted city, whose members are equal. He would not pluck the feathers from Caesar’s wings lest Caesar soar above the view of man and keep ‘us,’ all others, in servile fearfulness… While Murellus stands, then, for just desert and hence for the rule of the most deserving, Flavius stands for freedom grounded in a rough equality of virtuous men –though a freedom, as is here manifest, that depends on those men not exploiting the desires of the commoners in order to gain authority over other virtuous men. These two principles of justice, honoring the most virtuous and equality in virtue, which guide republican Rome, sit together uneasily. Their tension drives the action of the play, disclosing a problem within justice that rises to the surface when political life produces an outstandingly virtuous human being” (16-17).
According to Burns, this opening scene identifies the “central problem” which the play seeks to address –the decline of classical freedom and equality embodied in the singular ascendance of Caesar. The play primarily concerns itself not with Caesar’s actions and words, but rather with a failed conspiracy that attempts to eliminate Caesar resulting from the grave threat he poses to the republic. While the betrayal of Caesar is a noble act designed to salvage the republic, it nevertheless falters in its ambition. Caesar is murdered, but the republic of antiquity sadly does not return. Instead Caesar’s memory, spirit, and legacy live on in the figures of Antony and Octavius (“Caesar Augustus”) and later in subsequent roman emperors, Czars, Kaisers, and so on extending into the 20th century. Caesar’s singular rule marks the death of classical political life –“Caesar is as much a central problematic phenomenon of political life as he is a historical character or actual person, and as such he deserves our attention” (18).
The conspiracy to kill Caesar culminates with Brutus being persuaded to join the group of conspirators: “The conspirators are to kill Caesar as a purge –of a kind of disease or impurity—and hence as a necessity, reluctantly. It is a necessity of a medical but sacred sort, performed as a sacrifice to the gods, in order to rid the city of the spirit of Caesar” (29). And from this moment, Burns makes note of increasing superstitious beliefs among various characters throughout the play, especially Caesar and the soothsayer, his wife Calphurnia and her dreams, among many other characters who divine strange portents in the skies and interpret storms as sending a supernatural message, and even Brutus has a vision of Caesar’s ghost which influences his own demise. These dark Superstitions and prophecies have the singular defect of being interpreted in any manner imaginable –the horizon is limitless– and they spell a general decay among reasonableness in Rome.
In the end, Caesar’s death is contrasted with two other deaths in the play –Cassius’s death, which Burns describes as a “melancholy suicide,” and Brutus’s death, which is a “happy death.” The cost to the republic is the loss of heroes like Cassius and Brutus who struggle in vain to redeem the republic from the scourge of a myriad problems –widespread religious superstition, fanatical groupthink, expansive hedonism, and a broad decline in civic virtue. The grave decision to assassinate Caesar was indeed a noble act in the classical sense, especially for a republic that once prided itself on banishing the rule of kings, but the assassination was tragically not enough to prevent a rising tide toward empire. The cost of the conspiracy is the “loss of men like Brutus, who struggled mightily in the losing cause of trying to resolve the great dilemma of political life at its peak” (62).
Burns, Timothy W. Shakespeare’s Political Wisdom. Palgrave MacMillan. New York, NY (2013).
My notes here are brief but Professor Burns’s wonderful essay offers a far more extensive analysis of Julius Caesar proceeding scene-by-scene and examining each character in detail.