The modification of Brutus’ character typifies and involves the modification of the whole story, because the tragic interest is focussed in his career. This must be remembered, if we would avoid misconception. It has sometimes been said that the play suffers from lack of unity, that the titular hero is disposed of when it is half through, and that thereafter attention is diverted to the murderer. But this criticism is beside the point. Really, from beginning to end, Brutus is the prominent figure, and if the prominent figure should supply the name, then, as Voltaire pointed out, the drama ought properly to be called Marcus Brutus. If we look at it in this way, there is no lack of unity, though possibly there is a misnomer. Throughout the piece it is the personality of Brutus that attracts our chief sympathy and concern. If he is dismissed to a subordinate place, the result is as absurd as it would be were Hamlet thus treated in the companion tragedy; while, his position, once recognised, everything becomes coherent and clear.

But when this is the case, why should Shakespeare not say so? Why, above all, should he use a false designation to mix the trail?

It has been answered that he was wholly indifferent to labels and nomenclature, that he gives his plays somewhat irrelevant titles, such as Twelfth Night, or lets people christen them at their fancy, What You Will, or As You Like It. Just in the same way, as a shrewd theatrical manager with his eye on the audience, he may have turned to account the prevalent curiosity about Caesar, without inquiring too curiously whether placard and performance tallied in every respect.

And doubtless such considerations were not unknown to him. Shakespeare, as is shown by the topical allusions in which his works abound, by no means disdained the maxim that the playwright must appeal to the current interests of his public, even to those that are adventitious and superficial. At the same time, it is only his comedies, in which his whole method is less severe, that have insignificant or arbitrary titles. There is no instance of a tragedy being misnamed. On the contrary, the chief person or persons are always indicated, and in this way Shakespeare has protested in advance against the mistake of viewing King Lear as a whole with reference to Cordelia, or Macbeth as a whole with reference to Lady Macbeth.

But in the second place, Julius Caesar, both in its chronological position and in its essential character, comes as near to the Histories as to the Tragedies; and the Histories are all named after the sovereign in whose reign most of the events occurred. He may not have the chief role, which, for example, belongs in King John to the Bastard, and in Henry IV. to Prince Hal. He may even drop out in the course of the story, which, for example, in the latter play is continued for an entire act after the King’s death: but he serves, as it were, for a landmark, to date and localise the action. It is not improbable that this was the light in which Shakespeare regarded Caesar. In those days people did not make fine distinctions. He was generally viewed as first in the regular succession of Emperors, and in so far could be considered to have held the same sort of position in Rome, as any of those who had sat on the throne of England.

But this is not all. Though it is manifest that Brutus is the principal character, the protagonist, the chief representative of the action, the central figure among the living agents, the interest of his career lies in its mistaken and futile opposition to Julius, to the idea of Caesarism, to what again and again, in the course of the play, is called “the spirit of Caesar.” The expression is often repeated. Brutus declares the purpose of the conspirators:

Antony, above the corpse, sees in prophetic anticipation,

The ghost of Caesar proclaims what he is,

And at the close Brutus apostrophises his dead victim:

It is really Caesar’s presence, his genius, his conception that dominates the story. Brutus is first among the struggling mortals who obey even while resisting their fate, but the fate itself is the imperialist inspiration which makes up the significance of Caesar, and the play therefore is fitly named after him.[162]

This is brought home to us in a variety of ways.

In the first place, Shakespeare makes it abundantly clear that the rule of the single master-mind is the only admissible solution for the problem of the time.

Caesar, with his transcendent gifts, was chosen by Providence to preserve the Roman State from shipwreck, and steer it on its triumphant course; and even if the helmsman perished, the course was set. Shakespeare was guided to this view by Plutarch. The celebrant of the life of ancient Greece was indeed very far from idealising the man who consolidated the supremacy of Rome. He records impartially and with appreciation, some of his noble traits, and without extenuation many that were not admirable. But he “honours his memory” very much “on this side idolatry,” reserves his chief enthusiasm for Brutus, and never seems to take a full view of Caesar’s unique greatness in the mass. None the less, he is now and again forced to admit that he was the man, and his were the methods that the emergency required. Thus talking of the bribery and violence that then prevailed in Rome he remarks:

Men of deepe judgement and discression seeing such furie and madnes of the people, thought them selves happy if the common wealth were no worse troubled, then with the absolut state of a Monarchy and soveraine Lord to governe them. Furthermore, there were many that were not affraid to speake it openly, that there was no other help to remedy the troubles of the common wealth, but by the authority of one man only that should commaund them all.[163]

Again, commenting on the accident by which Brutus did not learn of the victory that might have averted his final defeat, he has the weighty reflection;

Howbeit the state of Rome (in my opinion) being now brought to that passe, that it could no more abide to be governed by many Lordes, but required one only absolute Governor: God, to prevent Brutus that it shoulde not come to his government, kept this victorie from his knowledge.[164]

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:

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,

A pretty saying to chronicle. He says superbly to Mark Antony, “Always I am Caesar”; and in the very next line follows the anticlimax:

But if his physical defects, which after all have little to do with the real greatness of the man save in the eyes of spiteful detractors, are thus brought into satirical relief, much more is this the case with his mental and moral failings, which of course concern the heart of his character.

Already on his first appearance, we see this lord of the world the credulous believer in magic rites. At the Lupercal he enjoins Calpurnia to “stand directly in Antonius’ way” and Antony to touch her in his “holy chase” (i. ii. 3 and 8), and he impresses on Antony the observance of all the ritual: “Leave no ceremony out” (i. ii. 11). It was not ever thus. The time has been when he held these things at their true value, and it is only recently, as watchful eyes take note, that his attitude has changed.

And this is no mere invention of the enemy. He does have recourse to sacrifice, he does inquire of the priests “their opinions of success” (ii. ii. 5); though afterwards, on the news of the portent, he tries to put his own interpretation on it:

He is really impressed by his wife’s cries in her sleep, as appears from his words to himself, when he has not to keep up appearances before others, but enters, perturbed, in his nightgown, and seems urged by his anxiety to consult the oracles. He affects to dismiss the signs and omens:

But it is clear that he attaches importance to them, for, when Decius gives Calpurnia’s dream an auspicious interpretation, he accepts it, and once again changing his mind, presently resolves to set out:

Thus we see a touch of self-deception as well as of superstition in Caesar, and this self-deception reappears in other more important matters. He affects an absolute fearlessness:

His courage, of course, is beyond question; but is there not a hint of the theatrical in this overstrained amazement, in this statement that fear is the most unaccountable thing in all his experience? One recalls the story of the young soldier who said that he knew not what it was to be afraid, and received his commander’s answer: “Then you have never snuffed a candle with your fingers.” That was the reproof of bravado by bravery in the mouth of a man so fearless that he could afford to acknowledge his acquaintance with fear. And surely Caesar could have afforded to do so too. We see and know that he is the bravest of the brave, but if anything could make us suspicious, it would be his constant harping on his flawless valour. So, too, he says of Cassius:

Why should he labour the point? If he has not fears, he has at least misgivings in regard to Cassius, that come very much to the same thing. His anxiety is obvious, as he calls Antony to his side to catechise him on his opinions of the danger.

In the same way he prides himself on his inaccessibility to adulation and blandishments.

We may believe that he does indeed stand secure against the grosser kinds of parasites and their more obvious devices; but that does not mean that he cannot be hood-winked by meaner men who know how to play on his self-love. Decius says:

And Decius makes his words good.

In like manner he fancies that he possesses an insight that reads men’s souls at a glance. When he hears the cry: “Beware the Ides of March,” he gives the command, “Set him before me; let me see his face.” A moment’s inspection is enough: “He is a dreamer: let us leave him: pass” (i. ii. 24). Yet he fails to read the treachery of the conspirators, though they are daily about him, consults with Decius whom he “loves,” and bids Trebonius be near him.

And then he elects to pose as no less immovable in resolution than infallible in judgment. When we have been witnesses of all his vacillation and shilly-shally about attending the senate meeting—now he would, now he would not, and again he would—it is hard to suppress the jeer at the high-sounding words:

Now, all these things are wholly or mainly the fabrications of Shakespeare. In Plutarch Caesar does not direct Calpurnia to put herself in Antony’s way, nor is there any indication that he attached importance to the rite. It is in the wife and not in the husband that Plutarch notes an unexpected strain of credulity, remarking with reference to her dream: “Capurnia untill that time was never geven to any feare or supersticion.”[168] Plutarch cites noble sayings of Caesar’s in regard to fear, for instance that “it was better to dye once, than alwayes to be affrayed of death:”[169] but he never attributes to him any pretence of immunity from human frailty, and makes him explicitly avow the feeling in the very passage where in Shakespeare he disclaims it. “‘As for those fatte men, with smooth comed heades,’ quoth he, ‘I never reckon of them: but these pale visaged and carian leane people, I feare them most.’” The dismissal of the soothsayer after a contemptuous glance is unwarranted by Plutarch. There is no authority for his defencelessness among flatterers, or for his illusion that he is superior to their arts. Yielding in quite a natural way and without any hesitation to the solicitations of Calpurnia and the reports of the bad omens, Caesar in Plutarch resolves to stay at home, but afterwards is induced to change his mind by Decius’ very plausible arguments. There is no hint of unsteadiness in his conduct, as there described; nor in the final scene is there any of the ostentation but only the reality of firmness in his rejection of Metellus Cimber’s petition.

Considering all this it is not difficult to understand the indignation of the critics who complain that Shakespeare has here given a libel rather than a portrait of Caesar, and has substituted impertinent cavil for sympathetic interpretation. And some of Shakespeare’s apologists have accepted this statement of the case, but have sought to defend the supposed travesty on the ground that it is prescribed by the subject and the treatment. Thus Dr. Hudson suggests[170] that “the policy of the drama may have been to represent Caesar, not as he was indeed, but as he must have appeared to the conspirators; to make us see him as they saw him; in order that they might have fair and equal justice at our hands.” With a slight variation this is also the opinion of Gervinus:[171] “The poet, if he intended to make the attempt of the conspirators his main theme, could not have ventured to create too great an interest in Caesar: it was necessary to keep him in the background, and to present that view of him which gave reason for the conspiracy.” And alleging, what would be hard to prove, that in Plutarch, Caesar’s character “altered much for the worse, shortly before his death,” he continues, in reference to his arrogance: “It is intended with few words to show him at that point when his behaviour would excite those free spirits against him.” But this explanation will hardly bear scrutiny. In the first place: if Shakespeare’s object had been to provide a relative justification for the assassins, he could have done so much more naturally and effectively by adhering to the data of the Life. Among them he could have found graver causes of resentment against Caesar than any of those he invents, which at the worst are peccadillos and affectations rather than real delinquencies. And Plutarch does not slur them over: on the contrary the shadows in his picture are strongly marked, and he lays a long list of offences to Caesar’s score; culminating in what he calls the “shamefullest part” that he played, to wit, his support of Clodius. Here was matter enough for the dramatic Advocatus Diaboli. It would have been as easy to weave some of these damaging stories into the reminiscences of Cassius, as to concoct harmless fictions about Caesar’s having a temperature and being thirsty, or his failing to swim a river in flood. All these bygone scandals, whether domestic or political, would have immensely strengthened the conspirators’ case, especially with a precisian like Brutus. But Shakespeare is silent concerning them, and Brutus, as we have seen, gives Caesar in regard to his antecedents a clean bill of health. Of course almost all Caesar’s previous history is taken for granted and left to the imagination, but the dubious passages are far more persistently kept out of sight than such as tend to his glory. And that is the bewildering thing, if Shakespeare’s delineation was meant to explain the attitude of the faction. It is surely an odd way of winning our good will for a man’s murderers to keep back notorious charges against him of cruelty, treason and unscrupulousness, to certify that he has never abused his powers or let his passion overmaster his reason, and then to trump up stories that he gives himself airs and is deaf in one ear. It reminds one of Swift’s description of Arbuthnot: “Our doctor has every quality and virtue that can make a man amiable or useful; but, alas, he hath a sort of slouch in his walk.” Swift, however, was not explaining how people might come to think that Dr. Arbuthnot should be got rid of.

Again his tendency to parade by no means alters the fact, that he does possess in an extraordinary degree the intellectual and moral virtues that he would exaggerate in his own eyes and the eyes of others. Independence, resolution, courage, insight must have been his in amplest store or he would never have been able to

and there is evidence of them in the play. He is not moved by the deferential prayers of the senators: he does persist in the banishment of Publius Cimber; he has in very truth read the heart and taken the measure of Cassius:

he neither shrinks nor complains when the fatal moment comes. The impression he makes on the unsophisticated mind, on average audiences and the elder school of critics, is undoubtedly an heroic one. It is only minute analysis that discovers his defects, and though the defects are certainly present and should be noted, they are far from sufficing to make the general effect absurd or contemptible. If they do so, we give them undue importance. It was not so that Shakespeare meant them to be taken. For he has invented for his Caesar not only these trivial blemishes, but several conspicuous exhibitions of nobility, which Plutarch nowhere suggests; and this should give pause to such as find in Shakespeare’s portrait merely a wilful or wanton caricature. Thus in regard to the interposition of Artemidorus, Shakespeare read in North:

He marking howe Caesar received all the supplications that were offered him, and that he gave them straight to his men that were about him, pressed neerer to him and sayed: “Caesar, reade this memoriall to your selfe, and that quickely, for they be matters of great waight and touch you neerely.” Caesar tooke it of him, but coulde never reade it, though he many times attempted it, for the multitude of people that did salute him: but holding it still in his hande, keeping it to him selfe, went on withall into the Senate house.[172]

Compare this with the scene in the play:

Can one say that Shakespeare has defrauded Caesar of his magnanimity?

Or again observe, in the imaginary conclusion to the unrecorded remonstrances of Calpurnia, how loftily he refuses to avail himself of the little white untruths that after all pass current as quite excusable in society. They are beneath his dignity. He turns to Decius:

But this last instance is not merely an example of Shakespeare’s homage to Caesar’s grandeur and his eagerness to enhance it with accessories of his own contrivance. It gives us a clue to the secret of his additions both favourable and the reverse, and points the way to his conception of the man. For observe that this refusal of Caesar’s to make use of a falsehood is an afterthought. A minute before he has, also in words that Shakespeare puts in his mouth, fully consented to the proposal that he should feign illness. He pacifies Calpurnia:

This compliance he makes to his wife, but in presence of Decius Brutus he recovers himself and adopts the stricter standard. What does this imply? Does it not mean that in a certain sense he is playing a part and aping the Immortal to be seen of men?

Let us consider the situation. Caesar, a man with the human frailties, mental and physical, which are incident to men, is nevertheless endowed by the Higher Powers with genius that has raised him far above his fellows. By his genius he has conceived and grasped and done much to realise the sublime idea of the Roman Empire. By his genius he has raised himself to the headship of that great Empire which his own thought was creating. Private ambitions may have urged and doubtful shifts may have helped his career. He himself feels that within his drapery of grand exploits there is something that will not bear scrutiny; and hence his mistrust of Cassius:

But these things are behind him and a luminous veil is drawn over them, beyond which we discern him only as “the foremost man of all this world,” “the noblest man that ever lived in the tide of times,” devoted to the cause of Rome, fighting and conquering for her; filling her public treasuries, her general coffers, with gold; sympathising with her poor to whom it will be found only after his death that he has left his wealth. The only hints of unrighteous dealing on his part are given in Artemidorus’ statement to himself: “Thou hast wronged Caius Ligarius,” and in Brutus’ statement about him that he was slain “but for supporting robbers.” But it is never suggested that he himself was guilty of robbery: and the wrong to Ligarius, who was accused “for taking parte with Pompey,” and “thanked not Caesar so muche for his discharge, as he was offended with him for that he was brought in daunger by his tyrannicall power,”[173] hardly deserves the name, at least in the common acceptation. Besides Shakespeare has a large tolerance for the practical statesman when dowered with patriotism, insight, and resolution; and will not lightly condemn him because he must use sorry tools, and takes some soil from the world, and is not unmoved by personal interests. Provided that his more selfish aims coincide with the good of the whole, and that he has veracity of intellect to understand, with steadiness of will to satisfy the needs of the time, Shakespeare will vindicate for him his share of prosperity, honour, and desert. And this seems to be, in glorified version, his view of Caesar. The only serious charge he brings against him in the play, the only charge to which he recurs elsewhere, is that he was ambitious. But ambition is not wholly of sin, and brings forth good as well as evil fruit. Indeed when a man’s desire for the first place merges in the desire for the fullest opportunity, and that again in the desire for the task he feels he can do best, it is distinguishable from a virtue, if at all, only by the demand that he shall be the agent. So is it, to compare celebrities of local and of universal history, with the ambitious strain in the character of Henry IV.; it is not incompatible with sterling worth that commands solid success; it spurs him to worthy deeds that redeem the offences it exacts; and these offences themselves in some sort “tend the profit of the state.” No doubt with both men their ambition brings its own Nemesis, the ceaseless care of the one, the premature death of the other. But that need not prevent recognition of their high qualities, or their just claims, or their providential mandate. Such men are ministers of the Divine Purposes, as Plutarch said in regard to Caesar; and in setting forth the essential meaning of his career, Shakespeare can scorn the base degrees by which he did ascend. Partly his less creditable doings were necessary if he was to mount at all; partly they may have seemed venial to the subject of the Tudor monarchy; at worst, when compared with the splendour of his achievement, they were spots in the sun. In any case they were not worth consideration. With them Shakespeare is not concerned, but with the plenary inspiration of Caesar’s life, the inspiration that made him an instrument of Heaven and that was to bring peace and order to the world. So he passes over the years of effort and preparation, showing their glories but slightly and their trespasses not at all. He confines himself to the time when the summit is reached and the dream is fulfilled. Then to his mind begins the tragedy and the transfiguration.

He represents Caesar, like every truly great man, as carried away by his own conception and made a slave to it. What a thing was this idea of Empire, this “spirit of Caesar,” of which he as one of earth’s mortal millions was but the vehicle and the organ! He himself as a human person cannot withhold homage from himself as the incarnate Imperium. Observe how he speaks of himself habitually in the third person. Not “I do this,” but “Caesar does this,” “Caesar does that,” alike when talking to the soothsayer, to his wife and to the senate.[174] It is almost as though he anticipated its later use as a common noun equivalent to Emperor: for in all these passages he describes, as it were, what the Emperor’s action and attitude should be. And that is the secret of the strange impression that he makes. It is a case, an exaggerated case, of noblesse oblige. The Caesar, the first of those Caesars who were to receive their apotheosis and be hailed as Divi Augusti, must in literal truth answer Hobbes’ description of the State, and be a mortal god. He must be fearless, omniscient, infallible, without changeableness or shadow of turning: does he not represent the empire? He has to live up to an impossible standard, and so he must affect to be what he is not. He is the martyr of the idea that has made his fortune. He must not listen to his instincts or his misgivings; there is no room in the Caesar for timidity or mistake or fickleness. But, alas! he is only a man, and as a man he constantly gives the lie to the majesty which the spirit of Caesar enjoins. We feel all the more strongly, since we are forced to the comparison, the contrast between the shortcomings of the individual and the splendour of the ideal role he undertakes. And not only that. In this assumption of the Divine, involving as it does a touch of unreality and falsehood, he has lost his old surety of vision and efficiency in act. He tries to rise above himself, and pays the penalty by falling below himself, and rushing on the ruin which a little vulgar shrewdness would have avoided. But his mistake is due to his very greatness, and his greatness encompasses him to the last, when with no futile and undignified struggle, he wraps his face in his mantle and accepts the end. Antony does not exaggerate when he says:

for it was the Empire that fell. But to rise again! For the idea of Caesarism, rid of the defects and limitations of its originator, becomes only the more invincible, and the spirit of Caesar begins its free untrammelled course.

The greatness of his genius cannot be fully realised unless the story is carried on to the final triumph at Philippi, instead of breaking off immediately after his bodily death. It is in part Shakespeare’s perception of this and not merely his general superiority of power, that makes his Caesar so much more impressive than the Caesar of contemporary dramatists that seem to keep closer to their theme.

Not only then is Julius Caesar the right name for the play, in so far as his imperialist idea dominates the whole, but a very subtle interpretation of his character is given when, as this implies, he is viewed as the exponent of Imperialism. None the less Brutus is the leading personage, if we grant precedence in accordance with the interest aroused.