Shakespeare could have found his matter in Pescetti. There is nothing more repugnant to the Brutus of “Cesare” than the idea of slavery, and he voices his opinion time and again throughout the play. To quote but one instance: Cassius and Brutus are discussing liberty and Brutus says:
“Il Tiranno è peggior dell’ omicida,
Perchè la vita l’omicida toglie;
Ma con la dignità toglie il possesso
Della vita il Tiranno, e chi ad altrui,
Non à se, vive, è viè peggior, che morte:
Perciò saggio Caton, saggio et ardito,
Ch’anzi morir, che viver servo elesse.”—Ces., p. 89.
The possibility that the address of Antony, as recorded by Appian, furnished Shakespeare hints for the oration in the play, has recently been investigated by Prof. MacCallum.[[13]] He concludes that while Appian’s account bears little resemblance to the oration, it nevertheless contains some parallels in details. Antony both in the history and in the drama calls attention to his friendship for Caesar; to the honors the latter had bestowed on his murderers; he proclaims his own readiness to avenge his benefactor’s death; he recites Caesar’s triumphs and the spoils he sent to Rome; he uncovers Caesar’s corpse and displays the bloodstained robe; he makes Caesar cite the names of those whom he had pardoned and advanced only to destroy him.
Professor MacCallum confesses that the evidence is not very convincing, but that it is strengthened greatly by the apparent loans from the same author discernible in Shakespeare’s treatment of various passages in “Antony and Cleopatra.” The question at present is not whether the hints in “Julius Caesar” were derived from Appian, but whether they were derived from the English translation. The likelihood that Shakespeare knew and used this translation when he wrote his later tragedy, does not exclude the possibility that he was not acquainted with it when he composed the earlier work, nor that he received the hints attributed to Appian not at first hand, but through his knowledge of Pescetti’s drama.[[14]]