Julius Caesar

Many of the senators of Caesar's time thought that he was becoming too powerful and that he may try to present himself with the position as Emperor.

Caesar: “Hence! Wilt thou lift up Olympus?

Here we see that Caesar already saw himself as the greatest  single being alive he even thought that he was greater than the gods.

Caesar:  “I could be well moved, if I were as you;.......

              ........And constant do remain to keep him so.”

 

 Here again we see that Caesar sees himself as God unaffected and untouchable by normal men. This was exactly what the senate was afraid of. Caesar was murdered to prevent  the position of Emperor  from  being reintroduced into Rome’s  power structure, but it still happened even after the death of Caesar with Octavius becoming Emperor. Maybe the senators secretly organised the assassination of Caesar. This may have been another point that Shakespeare was trying to get across to the public. Maybe he meant by this that  some of the  important people of his time were getting too powerful. For example the Earl of Essex who helped Mary Queen of Scots try to dethrone Queen Elizabeth the first. He may of meant for  the play to warn people to be aware  of people who were willing to challenge the heavens appointed ruler of the time.

The real life Julius Caesar was one of the greatest rulers of the ancient world, he single handedly created the vast Roman Empire which dominated the world for centuries. He was a excellent leader for men in both war and peace. However in the play he is portrayed as a vain, foolish weak and cowardly man.

Casca: “He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at the mouth, and was

 speechless.”

Here we see an example of the way Shakespeare potrayed Caesar as a weak cowardly man.

He has very few if any qualities of the real Caesar. However Shakespeare had good reason to portray Caesar in this way. He needed to put Brutus in a good light so that the audience of Shakespeare's time could and would relate and feel sympathetic towards Brutus and his way of thinking. Because of the way Shakespeare made Caesar look, there's is some indication that Caesar may be evil and bad for  Rome, so it gave Brutus good reason to kill him. However, despite the picture of the ruler being an unflattering one, the chaos that follows his killing is worse than the situation which was around while he was alive.

Shakespeare was trying to get the idea of Pandora's box across to the public. Once you open the box of treachery it leads to all kinds of deaths and chaos and once opened it  cannot be closed until all the evil has been destroyed or everybody involved has been destroyed, in the way that Octavius  and Antony hunted down and destroyed the conspirators. Yet part of the chaos was caused by the deaths ordered by Antony and Octavius.

3 plebeian:          “ Your name, sir truly.”

Cinna the poet:  “Truly, my name is Cinna.”

1 plebeian:          “ Tear him to pieces, he’s a conspirator.”

Cinna the poet:  “I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet.”

4 plebeian:          “Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad verses.”

Cinna the poet    “I am not  Cinna the conspirator.”

4 plebeian:           “It is no matter, his name’s Cinna. Pluck but his name out of

                 his heart and turn him going.”

Here we see a perfect example of the chaos caused by  Antony and Octavius’s ordered deaths of the conspirators. The public (plebeians) are totally out of control and cause chaos and misery due to the orders of Antony and Octavius.

 So yes I do agree that despite its Roman setting it was relevant  to the England of Shakespeare’s time where the Monarch lived in fear of betrayal and treachery, like Caesar after the encounter with the soothe sawyer. I believe that history repeats itself so I  strongly believe