ENACT.
What did you enact? I did enact
Julius Cæsar, I was killed in the Capitol.
Brutus killed me.
III, 2, 107.
Besides writing a play called “Julius Cæsar,” Shakespeare introduces his name on several occasions; apparently he was one of the poet’s favourite characters. I am afraid Shakespeare did not verify his quotations; many simple errors occur through Shakespeare copying them from other authors, whilst the critics, from sheer ignorance, always lay them on Shakespeare’s shoulders, thus making him the scapegoat for other’s mistakes. Of course, from the point of view of modern scholarship, it is a grave error in placing Cæsar’s assassination in the Capitol; Plutarch expressly states that Cæsar met his death at Pompey’s portico, where a statue of his famous rival stood in the centre. The dramatist was on the right track when Marc Antony, in his oration, describes the place where Cæsar fell:
“Then burst his mighty heart,
And in his mantle, muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey’s statue,
Which all the while ran blood, great Cæsar fell.”