And in one of those comparisons that Montaigne loved, he is more emphatic still:
Howbeit Caesars power and government when it came to be established, did in deede much hurte at his first entrie and beginning unto those that did resist him: but afterwardes unto them that being overcome had received his government, it seemed he had rather the name and opinion[165] onely of a tyranne, then otherwise that he was so in deed. For there never followed any tyrannicall nor cruell act, but contrarilie, it seemed that he was a mercifull Phisition, whom God had ordeyned of speciall grace to be Governor of the Empire of Rome, and to set all thinges againe at quiet stay, the which required the counsell and authoritie of an absolute Prince.... But the fame of Julius Caesar did set up his friends againe after his death, and was of such force, that it raised a young stripling, Octavius Caesar, (that had no meanes nor power of him selfe) to be one of the greatest men of Rome.[166]
On these isolated hints Shakespeare seizes. He amplifies them and works them out in his conception of the situation.
The vast territory that is subject to Rome, of which we have glimpses as it stretches north and west to Gaul and Spain, of which we visit the Macedonian and Asiatic provinces in the east and south, has need of wise and steady government. But is that to be got from the Romans? The plebeians are represented as fickle and violent, greedy and irrational, the dupes of dead tradition, parasites in the living present. They have shouted for Pompey, they strew flowers for Caesar: they can be tickled with talk of their ancient liberties, they can be cajoled by the tricks of shifty rhetoric: they cheer when their favourite refuses the crown, they wish to crown his “better parts” in his murderer: they will not hear a word against Brutus, they rush off to fire his house: they tear a man to pieces on account of his name, and hold Caesar beyond parallel on account of his bequest.
Nor are things better with the aristocrats. Cassius, the moving spirit of the opposition, is, at his noblest, actuated by jealousy of greatness. And he is not always at his noblest. He confesses that had he been in Caesar’s good graces, he would have been on Caesar’s side. This strain of servility is more apparent in the flatteries and officiousness of Decius and Casca. And what is its motive? Cassius seeks to win Antony by promising him an equal voice in disposing of the dignities: and he presently uses his position for extortion and the patronage of corruption. Envy, ambition, cupidity are the governing principles of the governing classes: and their enthusiasm for freedom means nothing more than an enthusiasm for prestige and influence, for the privilege of parcelling out the authority and dividing the spoils. What case have these against the Man of Destiny, whose genius has given compass, peace, and security to the Roman world? But their plea of liberty misleads the unpractical student, the worshipper of dreams, memories, and ideals, behind whose virtue they shelter their selfish aims, and whose countenance alone can make their conspiracy respectable. With his help they achieve a momentary triumph. But of course it leads not to a renovation of the republic, but to domestic confusion and to a multiplication of oppressors. So far as the populace is concerned, the removal of the master means submission to the unprincipled orator, who, with his fellow triumvirs, cheats it of its inheritance and sets about a wholesale proscription. So far as the Empire is concerned, the civil war is renewed, and the provincials are pillaged by the champions of freedom. Brutus sees too late that it is vain to strive against the “spirit of Caesar,” which is bound to prevail, and which, though it may be impeded, cannot be defeated. He is ruined with the cause he espoused, and confesses fairly vanquished:
O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet.[167]
(v. iii. 94.)
Again, though it may seem paradoxical to say so, the all-compelling power of Caesar’s ideal is indicated in the presentation of his own character. This at first sight is something of a riddle and a surprise. Shakespeare, as is shown by his many tributes elsewhere, had ample perception and appreciation of Caesar’s greatness. Yet in the play called after him it almost seems as though he had a sharper eye for any of the weaknesses and foibles that Plutarch records of him, and even went about to exaggerate them and add to them.
Thus great stress is laid on his physical disabilities. When the crown is offered him, he swoons, as Casca narrates, for, as Brutus remarks, he is subject to the falling sickness. There is authority for these statements. But Cassius describes how his strength failed him in the Tiber and how he shook with fever in Spain, and both these touches are added by Shakespeare. Nor is it the malcontents alone who signalise such defects. Caesar himself admits that he is deaf, though of his deafness history knows nothing.
And not only does Shakespeare accentuate these bodily infirmities; he introduces them in such a way and in such a connection that they convey an ironical suggestion and almost make the Emperor ridiculous. At the great moment when he is putting by the coronet tendered him by Antony that he may take with the more security and dignity the crown which the Senate will vote him, precisely then he falls down in a fit. This indeed is quasi-historical, but the other and more striking instances are forged in Shakespeare’s smithy. It is just after his overweening challenge to the swimming-match that he must cry for aid: “Help me, Cassius, or I sink” (i. ii. 3). In his fever, as Cassius maliciously notes,