Books and Literature

I'm reading Rain Storm by Barry Eisler which is great. Before that I finished reading one of Tom Clancy's Net Force books.

A CHALLENGER APPEARS!

I am the challenger.

Did you just divide by zero my ass?

...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

No, really. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

In this text we examine the supernatural forces and themes that are present in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, including the Soothsayer/Augur, Brutus’ possibly religious motivation and Caesar’s deification by the Roman populace and how all these forces influence the play and its actors.



TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
2. THE HARUSPEX
3. THE GOD-EMPEROR OF MANKIND
4. THE KNIFE IN YOUR BACK
5. THE HORUS HERESY
6. WORKS CITED


“Caesar.”

Uttered in Act 1, scene 2, Line 16 of William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. This first line, and the Soothsayer’s following warning to “Beware the Ides of March.” begins to set the theme of religious forces in the play of Julius Caesar, forces which greatly influence the characters motivations and actions, as well as fill in and give the entire play several new layers to discuss and ponder.


The Soothsayer is most famously known for his line “Beware the ides of March” (Act 1. Scene 2. Line 21), delivered to Caesar when they first meet. Caesar, after asking that the Soothsayer repeat himself, acts rather dismissively towards his prophecy, and states, “He is a dreamer. Let us leave him. Pass.”(Act 1. Scene2. Line 29). Caesar’s continued skepticism, or disregard, of the Soothsayer’s words — and the similarly prophetic words of his wife later on― are a massive error in judgment, had he heeded the Soothsayer’s warnings the play, and history, may have taken completely different course. Shakespeare’s intention on this particular aspect of the play is unknown; perhaps he was setting Caesar up as a victim of a fate he could not avoid, or portend of the arrogance that Cassius and Brutus fear he will develop upon assuming power. However this behavior on Caesar’s part seems rather suspect when you consider the historical information we have on Etruscan haruspicy.

First we must flesh out the Soothsayer as a character as simply leaving him as “The Soothsayer” leaves him as unidentifiable, as “that guy”, an unknown source, unreliable. To do this we turn to a historical source, namely The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by C. Suetonius Tranquillus. Written in 121 AD Suetonius identifies the Soothsayer as the haruspex Spurinna, and as such will be referred to as such from now on. Not much else is known on Spurinna, except that correspondence letters from Cicero in Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero: with his Treatises on Friendship and Old Age reveal that he was married to a woman named Cottia and that he was at least on friendly terms with Cicero (friendly terms to have Cicero send letters addressed to Spurinna and Cottia, and to refer to him as “my dear Spurinna” in his 30th letter). Furthermore we must realize that Spurinna is not, as a modern reader may assume, a random man who is spouting nonsense, the Roman equivalent of the 2013 homeless man telling us that the End is Near over the stench of his alcohol choked breath. As Suetonius The Life, Myth and Art in Ancient Rome by Tony Allan sheds some light on this manner, “A college of augurs, elected for life from the ranks of the ruling class, sought divine guidance by taking the auspices before important decisions were made.” (pg. 128). The same source then further expands on this, “The Senate, along with many private individuals, also turned for advice to the soothsayers known as haruspices, who practiced the skill the Romans called ‘the Etruscan science.’” So now we have a historical context to examine Spurinna from, not as a raving madman that Caesar so flippantly dismisses out of hand, but as a member of an elite class of government recognized prophets. The History of Etruria: Part III by translated by E.C. Hamilton Gray reveals that Spurinna was “assigned” to Caesar, leading to the idea that Spurinna was of high standing among the augurs and that, contrary to the play, Caesar already knew Spurinna before their meeting in Act 1, Scene 2. Perhaps Shakespeare was unaware of this relationship between Spurinna and Caesar, but for the purposes of this paper we are combining the historical with the play, in which case we are left to wonder why Caesar acted the way he did.


“What means this shouting? I do fear the people Choose Caesar for their king.” (Act 1. Scene 2. Lines 85-86). During Cassuis’ temptation of Brutus, they both question the cheering and hooting they hear from the outside and question that “these applauses are For some new honors that are heaped on Caesar.” (Act.1 Scene 2. Lines 141-2). While the play does not expand on these honors, they are immensely important from a historical perspective and especially from a religious perspective. It seems probable that Shakespeare used the wrong term, as a Roman honor is awarded to victorious Roman generals on their return from battle, while a much higher award, a Roman triumph, referred to civil and religious ceremonies celebrating, and sanctifying, military successes. Piecing together from other sources, namely Cicero’s notes and speeches and Suetonius’ historical texts, it seems likely that Caesar was awarded the latter, Roman triumphs, while Shakespeare called them “honors”. According to Cicero among the awards heaped upon him: his person was made sacrosanct, he was awarded a wreath which he wore “whenever and wherever he could” a golden chair and he had a temple built to deify his sense of mercy. Clemency and Cruelty in the Roman World by Melissa Dowling, page 27, sheds light on this matter by expanding on the idea of clemency in Roman times. “We do not know what motivations Caesar privately acknowledged to himself, but we do know that when the Roman senate vowed to erect a temple to the deified spirit of his clementia, Caesar did not demure.” In addition to this Mark Anthony, his closest assistant, had been made into a priest in this temple and presided over sacrifices given in his honor.

This may seem easier to understand considering Caesar’s supposed ancestry. The Encyclopedia Britannica, under the entry for Aeneas, a mythical hero of Troy and Rome who is claimed to be the son of the goddess Aphrodite and Anchises, is claimed to be an ancestor of Julius Caesar, which of course gives rise to the idea that Caesar is of divine blood. Taken in context, Caesar was already an immensely powerful man in the political and military world, adding in the fact that he was said to be of a divine lineage and had temples created in his honor, his mercy being decreed to be divine, it is not surprising that after his death Suetonius notes that “He died in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and was ranked amongst the Gods, not only by a formal decree, but in the belief of the vulgar.” Thus we have a greater understanding of the fear that Brutus expressed in Act 1, Scene 2, he was not lamenting that Caesar was being given a new medal or a shiny trinket, but that he was being built up as a godlike being, of divine blood, who had raised Rome to untold heights of power. In essence, he was worried that Caesar was being made to be infallible. It should be noted that Caesar, despite receiving several of these honors, did not appear to put any stock in the religious aspects of them. Dowling notes that “Cicero believed that the clemency that Caesar advertised sprang from the latter motivation: a purely rational calculus of the benefit to be gained from acts of clemency against the security and satisfaction found in executing his enemies.” Suetonius notes this, commenting that “He was never deterred from any enterprise, nor retarded in the prosecution of it, by superstition.” It is likely that in the play he was letting this get to him, his line “Hence. Will thou lift up Olympus?” (Act 3. Scene 1. Line 81) shows that he did begin to believe himself divine… or at least remembered that his supposed divinity could be used as a tool to get what he wants.


Brutus’ motivations are, like the rest of the conspirators, unclear in the play, but as we have been exploring some of the religious implications Caesar was receiving due to his power and fame we begin to see a greater picture as to why the conspirators may have acted against him, of course it is most likely that Caesar was killed because of his populist policies, but Brutus’ own ancestry may have also played a role in this. Brutus notes that “My ancestors did from the streets of Rome The Tarquin drive when he was called a king.” (Act 2. Scene 1. Lines56-7). This bears great symbolic importance, as one of Caesar’s honors was, as we learn in Act 3, Scene 2, Line 105. Thus, in Brutus’ own mind we have the idea that he was, in a fashion, emulating his famous ancestor by overthrowing a king that sought to twist Rome to his own needs. Anne Paolucci in her paper “The Tragic Hero in Julius Caesar”, Brutus’ motivations are of the religious inclination and that he had already had doubts about Caesar’s rise to power even before Cassius began to speak to him of Caesar’s failings and near absolute power. Brutus’ motivation, at least the one he voices to us as the audience, are based on what Caesar, with so much power, could become:


These comments are baffling for Brutus to make, as the snake was identified with Saturn, god of time, in Roman religion and as such had no negative imagery attached to it. Brutus comments make no sense from the point of view of a Roman citizen… but they do make sense from the point of view of an author writing for a Christian audience some thousand years later. Keeping this in mind, that here Brutus’ words are not his own but Shakespeare’s, though of course they are all Shakespeare’s, it is easy to see how this was intended to be a religious metaphor for Satan. Interestingly enough this mixing of modern Christian symbolism works in another way, as it gives Cassius the role of Lucifer during his “seduction” of Brutus.
Myron Taylor’s view of Cassius in “Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and the Irony of History”, add more layers to a religiously inspired conspiracy. Taylor points out that Cassius views Caesar as “no more than a man” and points out several of Caesar’s natural failings, among them how he cried when he was sick, nearly drowned when swimming in the Tiber, and was a man of “feeble temper” in Act 1. Scene 2. Lines 97-138. Among pointing out that Caesar, who is as frail and weak as anyone else, at least in Cassius’ opinion, has reached divine ascendancy and that Caesar would “So get the start of the majestic world And Bear the palm alone.” (Act. 1. Scene 2. Line 137-138) and can now “bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus” (Act 1. Scene 2. Line42-43). He further goes on to point that their position in life is not caused by some divine capabilities, but by purely natural means, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” (Act 1. Scene 2. Lines 47-48), and so seeks to diminish Caesar’s power in Brutus’ eyes. As pointed out before, Cassius is taking on a Lucifer/Satan role in this scene if we abandon Roman religious thought in favor of a Christian view, as he is tempting Brutus into committing a sin, murder, by preying on his existing doubts on Caesar’s character. As a Lucifer/Satan role he is also attempting to start a revolt against Caesar the Divine and perhaps more Paradise Lost-esque readings can be made into that.


Added together, all these religious influences can be added into a new reading of Julius Caesar. Firstly we have Caesar, a man who through political and military power began to ascend to divine status by the well of the government and, seemingly, the people. We now have Brutus with the desire to destroy a man who had the hubris to dare assume he was God. Cassius can have a few interpretations, as a man who rejected Caesar’s divinity and wanted to reign in the mounting religious fervor around Caesar or who, jealous of Caesar’s rising divinity sought to destroy him before he reached his full apotheosis. And Spurinna, the haruspex who was ignored by Caesar, his prophecy ignored either because Caesar had long ago abandoned religious belief or because Caesar, letting all his supposed divinity get to his head, began to think that he was beyond the powers of prophecy to shackle. There are several new ways you could view Julius Caesar if examined through religious lenses, as an Icarus parable of a man who flew too close to the Sun and was killed via envy, as the story of hubris and failing of a supposed god, of the story of mortals holding the gods accountable and freeing themselves from their tyranny, or as a metaphor for opposing religious views between Caesar’s Roman religion and Brutus’ seemingly Christian motivations to slay a snake.


Allan, Tony. Life, Myth, and Art in Ancient Rome. Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005. Print.
Cannadine, David, and S. R. F. Price. Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire: Cambridge UP, 1987. Print.
Cicero, Marcus. Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero. Trans. William Melmoth. Vol. 9. New York: Coolier, 1909. Print.
Dando-Collins, Stephen. The Ides: Caesar's Murder and the War for Rome. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2010. Print.
Dowling, Melissa Barden. Clemency & Cruelty in the Roman World. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2006. Print.
Muller, Karl. The History of Etruria ... Trans. Elizabeth Caroline Johnstone Gray. London: J. Hatchard and Son, 1843. Print.
Paolucci, Anne. "The Tragic Hero in Julius Caesar." Shakespeare Quarterly 11.3 (1960): 329-33. JSTOR. Web. 22 May 2013. <http://api.ning.com/files/TpH3GRQjXIOamQ8GqNSbOrSHiDbxVUhFYEhsDJIIW5re5-wbsExYhB-JaPCXLneqzE59kKD6vKMfudvuP6Z5l-tLGDkS5eNy/TragicHeroinJuliusCaesar.pdf>.
Taylor, Myron. "Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and the Irony of History." Shakespeare Quarterly 24.3 (1973): 301-08. JSTOR. Web. 23 May 2013. <http://talkbacktv1.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/taylor-myron-julius-caesar-and-the-ironies-of-history-1.pdf>.
Tranquillus, Suetonius. THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS. Trans. Alexander Thomson, M.D. and T. Forester, Esq., A.M. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Project Gutenberg. 22 Oct. 2006. Web. 30 May 2013.

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