There is no historical justification for such a delineation of the greatest man of antiquity. Plutarch’s account may not be sympathetic, but the modest author of the Commentaries is nowhere depicted as a vain, pompous, vacillating boaster. It is indeed difficult to account for such a characterization. Muretus may have fixed in his drama a conception of Caesar supposedly current in his day. But it must be remembered that this tragedy of Muretus was a youthful product, and one cannot expect of the student of eighteen, the mature judgment of the scholar of forty. Grévin followed Muretus, and since his drama is frankly an enlarged version of his predecessor’s work, it is not surprising that the young physician took over the humanist’s characterization of Caesar with scarcely any alterations. But Pescetti’s livelihood depended upon his knowledge of the classics,[[80]] and his work bears unmistakable evidence of wide reading in both Latin and Greek authors. Unlike Muretus, he was over thirty when he wrote “Cesare”; surely his acquaintance with the sources must have made him well aware of the falsity of the traditional estimate of Caesar’s character, if indeed in his time such an estimate was popularly current. There can be no question of the influence of Muretus in his own work, yet just why he should choose not only to follow the former, but further to emphasize the weaknesses of Caesar must remain purely speculative. Pescetti’s position in the matter is all the more curious because he dedicated his work to Alfonso D’Este, a supposed descendant of his titular hero. Under such circumstances it certainly would have been much to his advantage to have cast his Caesar in the most heroic mold, instead of presenting him in such a manner as to provoke resentment in the very quarters where he expected praise.[[81]] Is it possible that Pescetti possessed sufficient dramatic technique to endeavor to present Caesar not as he really was, but as he appeared to the conspirators, and thus to give their action some excuse?
That Shakespeare so presented him has been contended by some critics, but the motives that actuated the dramatists are not the point at issue. The total impression we gain in both dramas is singularly alike, while in some details the coincidence is striking; as where Caesar says,
“Cowards die many times before their death;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear:
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come, when it will come” (II., 11, 32).[[82]]
There is nothing novel in these views; one is directly traceable to Plutarch; the others are often repeated in the classic drama, but it is at least curious that the same thought occurs frequently in Pescetti. Thus the Nurse, trying to comfort Calpurnia, says:
“Che più? certo è ciascun d’aver un giorno