[Footnote 615: I do not know who this Caius Octavius is. There is
probably some mistake in the name. Lentulus was the son of P.
Cornelius Lentulus Spinther, consul B.C. 57. He had, like many others,
experienced Cæsar's clemency. Plutarch is mistaken in saying that this
Spinther was put to death, though he was probably included in the
proscription. (See Drumann, _Geschichte Roms_, Lentuli, p. 545.) The
Lentulus who is mentioned as having been put to death in Egypt (Life
of Pompeius, c. 80) was L. Cornelius Lentulus Crus, consul B.C. 49.
The disturbances which followed Cæsar's death are more particularly
described in the Lives of Brutus and Antonius.]
[Footnote 616: Cæsar made Caius Octavius, his sister's grandson, his
first heres. He left a legacy to every Roman citizen, the amount of
which is variously stated. He also left to the public his gardens on
the Tiber. (Suetonius, _Cæsar_, c. 83); Dion Cassius (44. c. 35).
Shakspere has made a noble scene of the speech of Antonius over
Cæsar's body on the opening of the will:
_Ant_. Here is the will, and under Cæsar's seal;
To every Roman citizen he gives,
To every several man, seventy-five drachmas:
Moreover he hath left you all his walks,
His private arbours and new planted orchards,
On this side Tiber; he hath left them you
And to your heirs for ever; common pleasures,
To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves.
Here was a Cæsar. When comes such another?
_Julius Cæsar_, Act iii. Sc. 2.
Antonius, according to Roman fashion, made a funeral speech over the
body of Cæsar (Life of Antonius, c. 14; of Brutus, c. 20). Dion
Cassius (44. c. 36-49) has put a long speech in the mouth of Antonius,
mere empty declamation. Appianus (_Civil Wars_, ii. 144-6) gives one
which is well enough suited to the character of Antonius. (_Oratorum
Romanorum Fragmenta_, ed. Mayer, p. 455.) It is probable that the
speech of Antonius was preserved, and was used as materials by the
historians.]
[Footnote 617: This man, who unluckily bore the name of Cinna, was C.
Helvius Cinna, a tribune of the plebs, a poet, and a friend of Cæsar.
(Dion Cassius, 44. c. 50, and the notes of Reimarus.) The conspirator
Cinna was the son of L. Cornelius Cinna, who was a partisan of Marius,
and was murdered in his fourth consulship (Life of Pompeius, c. 5).
Cæsar's wife Cornelia, the mother of his only child Julia, was the
sister of the conspirator Cinna, as Plutarch names him. But probably
he was not one of the conspirators, though he approved of the deed
after it was done. (Drumann, _Geschichte Roms_, Cinnæ, p. 591, notes,
and also as to Helvius Cinna.)]
[Footnote 618: And also in the Life of Antonius.]
[Footnote 619: Suetonius (_Cæsar_, c. 89) observes that scarce any of
his assasins survived him three years; and they all came to a violent
end.]
[Footnote 620: This town was on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont.
Compare the Life of Brutus, c. 36. 48, and Appianus (_Civil Wars_, iv.
134). Dion Cassius does not mention the ghost story.]
[Footnote 621: It has been already remarked that Niebuhr is of opinion
that the introduction to the Life of Cæsar is lost. This opinion will
not appear well founded to those who have got a right conception of
the dramatic form in which Plutarch has cast most of his Lives, and
more particularly this of Cæsar. He begins by representing him as
resisting the tyrant Sulla when others yielded, and then making his
way through a long series of events to the supreme power, which he had
no sooner attained than he lost it. But his fortune survived him, and
the faithless men, his murderers, most of whom owed to him their lives
or their fortunes, were pursued by the avenging dæmon till they were
all hunted down.
A just estimate of the first of all the Romans is not a difficult
task. We know him from the evidence of his contemporaries, both
friends and enemies. The devoted attachment of his true friends is
beyond doubt; and his enemies could not deny his exalted talents.
Cicero, who has in various places heaped on him every term of abuse
that his copious storehouse contained, does not refuse his testimony
to the great abilities and generous character of Cæsar. Drumann
(_Geschichte Roms_, Julii) has given an elaborate examination of
Cæsar's character. His faults and his vices belonged to his age, and
he had them in common with nearly all his contemporaries. His most
striking virtues, his magnanimity, his generosity, his mercy to the
vanquished, distinguished him among all the Romans of his period.
Cæsar was a combination of bodily activity, intellectual power, of
literary acquirements, and administrative talent that has seldom
appeared. As a soldier he was not inferior in courage and endurance to
the hardiest veteran of his legions; and his military ability places
him in the first rank of commanders who have contended with and
overcome almost insurmountable obstacles. Cicero ranks him in the
first class of orators; and his own immortal work, his History of the
Gallic Campaign and the Civil War, is a literary monument which
distinguishes him among all other commanders. As a speaker and a
writer he had no superior among his contemporaries. His varied talents
are further shown by his numerous literary labours, of which some
small notices remain. His views were large and enlightened, his
schemes were vast and boundless. His genius deserved a better sphere
than the degenerate republic in which he lived. But the power which he
acquired did not die with him. A youth of tender age succeeded to the
name and the inheritance of Cæsar, and by his great talents and a long
career of wonderful success consolidated that Monarchy which we call
the Roman Empire.
Shakspere has founded his play of Julius Cæsar on Plutarch's Life of
Cæsar and the Lives of Brutus and Antonius. The passages in North's
version which he has more particularly turned to his purpose are
collected in Mr. Knight's edition of Shakspere (8vo. edition).
Shakspere has three Roman plays, Coriolanus, Julius Cæsar, and Antony
and Cleopatra. As a drama the first is the best. The play of Julius
Cæsar has been estimated very differently by different critics. Mr.
Knight has many valuable remarks on these Roman plays (vol. xi.), and
he has shown the way, as he conceives, in which they should be viewed.
The Julius Cæsar is so constructed as to show the usurpation and death
of Cæsar, and the fall of Brutus, the chief of the assassins, at the
battle of Philippi. With Brutus the hopes of his party fell. The play
should therefore rather be entitled Marcus Brutus than Julius Cæsar;
and it is deficient in that unity without which no great dramatic
effect can be produced. The name and the fame of Cæsar,
the noblest man,
That ever lived in the tide of time,
obscure the meaner talents of Brutus; and that death which in Plutarch
forms a truly tragical catastrophe, here occurs in the middle of the
action, which would appropriately terminate with it. But we have to
follow the historical course of events; we follow Brutus to his fate
at the battle of Philippi, and witness the vengeance of which Cæsar's
ghost forewarns the false friends. Shakspere may have meant to
represent Brutus as the last of the Romans, and the Republic as dying
with him; but he also represents him as haunted by the ghost of his
murdered benefactor, and losing heart before the final contest. The
"great dæmon" of Cæsar avenged him on his enemies; and in this point
of view the play has a unity. Brutus dies like a Roman, and that
murder to which he was led by the instigation of others, only renders
the Monarchy inevitable and necessary. But if the play is faulty in
construction, as I venture to think it is, it has other merits of the
highest order, which place it in some respects among the best works of
the great master of dramatic art.]