On the very edge of death, bleeding from the daggers of the faction, he advances upon the agonized Brutus like the incarnation of doom itself, and at “Et tu, Brute?—Then fall, Caesar” [3.1.84], himself guides home the blade.

From that moment Brutus is lost. From that minute the leaders of the conspiracy are haunted men. Caesar is in his coffin, but the mantle he first wore on a summer’s evening in his tent, “That day he overcame the Nervii” [3.2.177], is used, tattered now and bloodstained, as the symbol of his avengers. During the parley upon the plains of Philippi the rebels see the sign before them. At the last, battle done, Mark Antony, even in his salute to the “noblest Roman of them all” covers Brutus’s body with the mantle in which … Caesar had fallen at the base of Pompey’s statue. Moreover, Mr Barton lets the ghost of Caesar walk abroad. He appears not only at Sardis, but he comes also, a figure barely seen in the gloom, after the parting of Brutus and Cassius before battle. Later, in his moment of suicide, Brutus falls dead while the silent apparition towers above him.82

In 1972, Mark Dignam played Caesar as a genuinely dangerous figure. The set and costuming heavily featured fascist symbolism, with red, white, and black the predominant colors:

It is full of banners, insignia of Caesar and arrogant legionaries within whose hearing it’s safer to keep silence, and almost literally bestridden by a colossus. Mark Dignam is a formidable Caesar, bland, brazen and imperious as he strides downstage on his red carpet to outstare gods and Gods alike, a half-smile, half-scowl on a face alarmingly like that of a 60 year old Mussolini. Indeed, both he and Rome itself might have been lifted from one of the Duce’s more vain-glorious fantasies, down to the scampering retinue of sycophantic senators who chorus “hail Caesar” whenever his voice hits that public, finite note which they know to be their cue … 83

Trevor Nunn had an immense statue of this “colossus of Rome” permanently on stage to symbolize Caesar’s dominating spirit:

Critics admired Dignam’s performance and praised the production’s overall emphasis on Caesar. The nearly continuous presence on stage of a huge statue of Caesar underscored the character’s dominance as a public figure and, after his death, his undiminished influence on events.84

The statue was also a potent reminder of how Caesar’s own persona had been enveloped by a public myth:

There you have the man whose public image has so engulfed the private person that personal relationships are no longer comfortable. The same dichotomy was in this production well conveyed by the introduction of Caesar’s colossal statue into the one scene of his domestic life. Standing uneasily in the shadow of his public image Caesar cannot act naturally to his friends or even to his wife … The most significant irony of the play is that Brutus, regretting that in order to destroy the public Caesar he must kill the private one, ends by recognising that although the private friend has been duly killed, the public Caesar persists indestructibly. This is the lesson repeatedly voiced by the characters and embodied in the visitation of Caesar’s spirit to Brutus’s tent on the night before the conspirators are finally liquidated at Philippi. For this visitation the statue, terrifyingly heralded by the nightmare cries of the sleepers, served well … 85

5. Trevor Nunn’s 1972 RSC production was “full of banners, insignia of Caesar”; “Mark Dignam is a formidable Caesar, bland, brazen and imperious as he strides downstage on his red carpet to outstare gods and Gods alike, a half-smile, half-scowl on a face alarmingly like that of a 60 year old Mussolini.”

In the working out of Caesar’s revenge, supernatural as well as symbolic inferences were also placed on the statue: “Even after his death his gargantuan statue looms above the action, the features lit by a symbolic red spot as one by one his enemies perish.”86

Many productions have been more visceral in their depiction of Caesar’s influence after death. In 1987 his reanimated corpse was seen on the battlefield:

The ghost of Caesar, as promised in the tent scene, reappears at Philippi walking slowly among Brutus’s forces and forcing him to back stage left in horror. When Brutus finally runs onto the sword held by Strato kneeling on the edge of the stage with his back to the audience, the triumphant ghost begins to march down centre stage slowly.87

More chillingly, in David Thacker’s 1993 production one of the soldiers killing prisoners after the battle removes his balaclava and reveals himself to Brutus as the Ghost of Caesar.88

“The Work We Have in Hand, Most Bloody, Fiery, and Most Terrible”

Every decade has its despots and you always wonder how did society fall for these people and obey them. But Julius Caesar is about more than that. It is a play about power and what happens if that power is toppled. It looks at what happens if you kill a leader. It is very easy to say we should assassinate Hitler or Saddam Hussein but what does that unleash?89

As we know, regime change can unleash violence, hatred, and extremism. If, as Brutus says, “There is a tide in the affairs of men,” one must question if he has chosen his time wisely. Regardless of his underestimation of Antony, behind the conspiracy and plot, which is executed in the rational world, there lies a supernatural inevitability in the working out of fate. Even Cassius toward the end of the play questions his edict that it is “not in our stars, but in ourselves” that we are thus. Tragically, Brutus’ vision of the purification of Rome by ritual bloodletting, a role enacted by his ancestors, has the adverse effect—a “vile contagion” follows which will destroy Rome and all that he lives for:

By the end of the play, Brutus has killed all those he loves. He kills Caesar and he kills his wife and Cassius, by his behaviour on the battlefield which brings about the defeat of the army. It is a very much more mysterious play than is often assumed. What about the soothsayer, whom Caesar hears above the hubbub and din of the crowd, the question of the barrenness of Caesar’s wife, her dreams of Caesar’s statue spouting blood, the ghosts, the suicides, the portents, the mob which tears to pieces a man who coincidentally bears a conspirator’s name? Is this about anything as banal as politics? We are talking about a lurid and very romantic study of the effects of passion in a male-dominated world.

Then again, the ghost of Caesar describes himself as Brutus’s ‘evil spirit.’ Why does he not say that he is the ghost of Caesar? We can speculate as to what he means by Brutus’s evil spirit. Is it Brutus’s ability to kill the things he loves?90

Is Brutus’ act like Macbeth’s? Was Caesar destined to be king and has Brutus usurped divine right and committed a sacrilegious act by his murder? There are similarities but, unlike Macbeth, we cannot call Brutus a villain as his intents are for Rome and the ideals it signifies.