“Julius Caesar is the story of a man who became a god,” begins Allan Bloom’s seminal essay “The Morality of the Pagan Hero” on William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. It is the fourth five of essays published in Bloom’s book entitled Shakespeare’s Politics. Regarding Caesar’s ambition of becoming a god, Bloom states “Beyond his merely human achievements –the destruction of the Republic and the establishment of a universal monarchy—he was worshiped as a divinity, as were many of those who inherited his name. His appearance ended forever the age of human heroes” (75). Bloom notes that Caesar’s singular unique accomplishment is to transform himself into a wholly “self-sufficient” ruler of Rome, a powerful demagogue who easily claims imperial glory for himself, though we never actually see Caesar in action. Instead we mostly learn of Caesar through his speeches and in the mirroring actions of themen who are beneath his great shadow which is steadily cast over the earth. Therefore, “a study of the lesser figures who surrounded Caesar is the only way to an understanding of the elements which made him what he was and enabled him to do what he did” (76).
I. Shakespeare’s Rome
In Part I of his essay, Bloom argues against Goethe’s claim that Shakespeare’s Romans are actually Englishmen dressed in ancient garb. On the contrary, Bloom convincingly shows Shakespeare’s great efforts to portray his Romans as they were; citizens of a classical pagan republic dwelling in an earlier pre-modern era. Shakespeare’s Romans are situated squarely in antiquity. “This is not to say that modernity or the fall of antiquity have changed human nature, but rather that new objects have been provided for its interest and that the new education forms it. It is precisely because human nature has not changed that the past is of interest” (76). Bloom says that Shakespeare’s “rediscovery of the atmosphere of ancient Rome is akin to the rediscovery, made in the Renaissance, of the beauty of classical sculpture. That art depicted men of a grace and nobility quite alien to what Europeans had grown accustomed to. It was attractive and enigmatic; it seemed to offer an alternative notion of humanity” (76).
This Herculean effort by Shakespeare to understand the ancients as they understood themselves –a key project of the Renaissance—was sadly burdened by layers of “prejudice” and “polemics” directed by the Church Fathers which poisoned centuries of scholarly understanding. We need only compare Augustine’s Rome with Machiavelli’s Rome in order to gain a better understanding of Shakespeare’s magnificent rediscovery of the heroes of antiquity. In Shakespeare’s day, the remnants of the Roman Empire were still very much alive across Europe, especially in the institutions, poetry, law, education, and politics of the Elizabethan England and later the British Empire. “Whether for good or ill, the Roman achievement was so stunning that it could not fail to impress men who were interested in establishing respectable political orders. This single city had conquered the world and produced a multitude of heroes in every age until the fall of the Republic” (78). For Shakespeare, “the Romans were the greatest political people who ever existed. They differed greatly from Elizabethan Englishmen” (78). Bloom argues that ancient Romans lacked two things possessed by Englishmen: “a single ruler and a single god.” Ancient Romans were not monarchists and Christians, but rather republicans and pagans. According to Bloom, Romans “were solely of this world, and their motivations were almost totally political or erotic. Some believed in gods, but those gods had to do only with political success or failure and did not give indications of a new transcendent dimension to life beyond that provided by civil society. The heroes were unabashedly ambitious of glory; their attention was not distracted by other charms or myths. They were an extraordinary number of able men, none recognizing a master, each honed to a superb edge of emulation” (78).
In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare has chosen to portray the “greatest” of these antique Romans. Amidst a culture mired in constant competition for the fruits of citizenship, a “victor” had finally emerged in Julius Caesar. Bloom says “this was the decisive moment in Roman history, the culmination of the Republic and the threshold of Empire.” Caesar’s legacy is to be inherited by Octavius, a man who is no hero, but rather “a dry opportunist with the capacity for neither loving nor fighting” (79). In contrast, it is Antony, in spite of all his decadence, who stands as the last of the Roman heroes –a man filled with wild eros and spiritedness. But it was initially Julius Caesar who paved this road:
“Julius Caesar has prepared the way for monarchy and peace; within that peace can be sown the seeds of a new faith which exalts peace. The old gods leave with the last warrior. The old order and its characteristic man must pass before the new one can grow. Caesar is the peak and the end of that old order. Republican Rome had existed and flourished on two conditions –external warfare and domestic faction. Caesar, in principle, ended both of these conditions, which are undesirable in themselves; in doing so, he rendered it no longer necessary to have Romans” (79).
Bloom continues by examining the polity of Rome as shown in Coriolanus and Julius Caesar, delineating the “two cities” of the Patricians and Plebians. Regarding the Patricians, “the city of the rich contains all that is noble and interesting; these are the men who make up the Senate and lead the wars. They are the soul of Rome,” whereas regarding the Plebians, Bloom states: “the poor, the body of the nation, are tied to their physical needs; their visions are limited by necessity. They possess none of the qualities of statesmanship and are easily led and misled. They change their convictions on the slightest occasions; they are governed by fear” (80). Coriolanus failed in his role because he could hardly tolerate the people, but Caesar has actually betrayed his own class and won over the lower classes by appealing to what is basest in them. “This is the hidden theme of the Roman plays –the corruption of the people is the key to the mastery of Rome” (80). Both Coriolanus and Julius Caesar demonstrate the unique power of the people –both plays begin with scenes of the Plebians which soon devolve into serving as the cause of Rome’s prevailing unrest. In Coriolanus, the Plebians are fearful and impetuous, but in Julius Caesar, they have become heartless and fickle. The ascendant Caesarean regime is actually instigated by a segment of the patriciate which serves under the pretense of defending the people, but this poses a threat to the governance of the Tribunes who courageously stand against the rule of a single man.
To highlight this class distinction, Bloom notes the differences between the two funeral oration speeches delivered by Brutus and Antony. First, Brutus speaks in prose as a gentleman addressing fellow gentlemen, appealing to the public’s sense of virtue above all else; while Antony’s speech is delivered in verse like a flattering rhetorician. The dichotomy shows us the popular appeal of populist demagoguery, while also simultaneously hailing the last gasp of the senatorial class whose laws and edicts are now subordinate to the whims and passions of a mob devoted to the sole elevation of a singular person.
II. The Failure of Coriolanus
In Part II, Bloom examines Caesar’s character by briefly glancing at his opposite –Coriolanus and his infamous failure during the early Roman republic. Full of “hatred and bitterness” Coriolanus despises the plebs in his gentlemanly wish for his own senatorial class to dominate the republic. He is hungry for honor above all else –possessing the virtue of a god– but his tragedy is that he is dependent upon the city, with all of its virtues and vices. In this instance, Plutarch and Shakespeare share a certain kinship in blaming Coriolanus, “not for his opinion of the people, but for caring about them” (84). Bloom notes that “there is a myth that the man who obeys the laws and is courageous in war will be rewarded; actually, the man who is best adapted to the popular temper of his nation is the one who succeeds” (84-85).
Aristotle says that a man without a city is either a god or a beast, and Coriolanus’s attempt to live without a city shows him to be like a god at first, but it quickly proves him to be a beast. “The lesson to be drawn for our purposes is that a man cannot become a god, in Rome at least, in the patrician principles. The people’s love is necessary; a god unworshipped is no god. The people’s love is not won by mere heroic virtue. In other words, a man who wishes to become a god, who is conscious of the extent of his ambition, cannot behave as gods are popularly understood to behave. The base tribunes who fear that Coriolanus will become a god are able to prevent it; the noble tribunes and conspirators, in trying to forestall Caesar’s becoming a god, are themselves destroyed” (86).
III. Caesar’s Character and Legacy
Caesar uses military might as a means of gaining the people’s love, rendering the senate impotent, and subverting the constitution. Caesar is willing to undergo every form of degradation of the old Patricians in order to achieve his highest ambitions. In effect, he builds his palace on the ruins of the old republic. “Of course, there is every indication that it [Rome] was already corrupt. But the man who takes advantage of corruption is not particularly admirable” (87). Caesar’s legacy was, therefore, in founding a regime that was woefully inferior to what had preceded it.
Caesar brings about an alleged peace between the plebs and patricians, and his enemies ultimately fulfill their conspiracy before the Caesarean party proves triumphant in the end. Caesar’s ambiguity as both hero and tyrant is made apparent throughout the play. His vision for his coronation over Rome is only aided by the conspirator’s efforts. “Caesar conceives of himself as a god. Unlike mortals, his will is not determined by reason; his will is sufficient reason” (90).
“Caesar’s name became identical with monarchy of the grandest kind. His own person would not have sufficed to this role; but the edifice carefully constructed by him plus the memory of his martyrdom formed an almost eternal imperium. If the republican senators had not slain him. He might well have gained the odium of most Romans, as is indicated by the people’s initial reaction to the tendering of the crown. The conspiracy saved Caesar from himself. From the moment the daggers are withdrawn the corpse, Caesar’s spirit comes alive to dominate the rest of the play’s action” (91).
IV. The Pagan Hero
According to Bloom, Caesar’s universalist empire represents the fulfillment of his ambitions. “Only the situation of a god could satisfy his thirst, and he did achieve this satisfaction –eternal fame and worship.” With this in mind, Shakespeare presents a tragedy both of Caesar and of Rome via a conspiracy which is designed to put an end to Caesar’s endless ambition and restore Rome to its former glory. The conspiracy is composed of a group of men like Casca, the “model of the decent, blunt, independent men who are typical of that class.” But the de facto leaders of the conspiracy are Brutus and Cassius –one an Epicurean, the other a Stoic (at least according to their own self-proclamations). Here Bloom examines the virtues and vices of both men and why the conspiracy requires the duality of two leaders, rather than one single leading conspirator.
In the end, the conspiracy to assassinate Caesar is a success, but the redemption of the republic is proven to be a complete failure. It is, for example, “an act of gross conspiratorial stupidity to leave Mark Antony alive.” And there are numerous other mistakes made by the conspirators, including the exclusion of Cicero, and Brutus’s missteps on the battlefield. Regarding Cicero’s inclusion in Shakespeare, Bloom contrasts Cicero’s character with that of Casca:
“The one glimpse we get of him [Cicero] is most revealing. Casca meets him in the midst of the great storm which seems to give cosmic support to the unrest within Rome. Casca is struck with awe; he is a moral man and a superstitious one. The gods, the guardians of morality, are sending signs. Cicero is calm and unmoved and implies that he does not believe that these storms have anything to do with human affairs. He remains reasonable, whereas the religious Casca gives himself over to tormented speculations. Casca then meets Cassius, who is also a nonbeliever, but whom the storm has stimulated to wild impiety and defiance of the heavens. He uses the events to intensify the hostility to Caesar. Cicero is a golden mean in the scene between the terrified believer and the fanatic unbeliever. He is not a man to see ghosts, nor is he one who has renounced morality. Perhaps he could have mediated between Brutus’ moral passion and Cassius’ calculation” (98).
Their conspiracy ends in failure and suicide, despite both conspirators being Good men, albeit clumsy and erring. Both the Stoic and the Epicurean are shown to be insufficient without the luxurious support of the empire behind them.
“Brutus and Cassius performed a most important function. Their failure, as Brutus saw, won them more glory than Octavius and Antony attained by their success, for they are the eternal symbols of freedom against tyranny. They showed that men need not give way before the spirit of the times; they served as models for later successors who would re-establish the spirit of free government. Their seemingly futile gesture helped, not Rome, but humanity. Men in foreign lands and with foreign tongues have looked to Rome and to the defenders of liberties against Caesarism for inspiration in the establishment of regimes which respect human nature and encourage a proud independence. Shakespeare, the teacher of the Anglo-Saxon world, was such a man. He saw that the times were against Brutus and Cassius; but their cause was right. New times and new energies might resurrect what is best in ancient Rome. Brutus and Cassius were good men and types which any polity should boast of producing. The next time, however, they would need a mind comparable to that of Julius Caesar to teach them and lead them” (105).
Bloom, Allan. Shakespeare’s Politics. University of Chicago Press. 1964.