The Politics of Empire
i
In approaching Antony and Cleopatra many critics assume the play deals with the opposition of public and private life, that it involves a straightforward confrontation between politics in the abstract and love in the abstract. For this view to be valid as it is commonly formulated, Octavius would have to stand for all politicians, and Antony and Cleopatra for all lovers. But this quasi-allegorization of the story, while perhaps appropriate to a version like Dryden’s All For Love, is not ture to the complexity of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. Octavius cannot represent politics in general, for he is at most a prototype of the Roman Emperors, and several characters within the play (including Antony) compare him unfavorably with the rulers the Republic produced. A judgment passed on him is by no means a judgment on politics as such, but at most one on Roman Imperial politics. By the same token, Antony and Cleopatra are not typical of lovers in general but claim a special status for their passion. In fact their insistence that they “stand up peerless” (I.i.40) in the eyes of the whole world suggests they have found an imperial form of love to correspond to the imperial form of politics that prevails in their era.
Rather than studying the simple opposition of politics and love in Antony and Cleopatra, one might more profitably investigate the interconnection of the two themes, the way in which the political story and the love story are integral to one another. A comparison of Antony and Cleopatra with other plays on the subject, such as Dryden’s, would show that Shakespeare has taken pains to ground his love story in a very specific political and historical setting, a setting which gives the love its particular character and significance.1 As Derek Traversi writes, “The passion of Antony and Cleopatra, whatever may be said further of it, shares the weakness, the corruption of the world in which it grows to expression.”2 To give a somewhat more poetic and less moralistic formulation, the early Roman Empire supplies the hothouse conditions necessary for such exotic flowers as the imperial love of Antony and Cleopatra to flourish. Antony, in evaluating the relative merits of politics and love, is confronted with a particular form of politics that encourages a very special brand of love. Clearly the terms of his choice would have been quite different had he lived in the Rome of Coriolanus. To dismiss such speculation on the grounds that under such circumstances Antony would never have had the opportunity to meet a Cleopatra is already to draw a distinction between the narrow horizons of the early Roman Republic and the “infinite variety” offered by the cosmopolitan world of the Empire.
To understand why Antony apparently prefers a life of love rather than politics, one must consider how the terms of his choice have changed since the time of the Republic. In the Empire, the rewards of public life begin to look hollow, whereas private life seems to offer new sources of satisfaction. The change from the era of the Republic might be conveniently summed up in the formula: the Imperial regime works to discourage spiritedness and encourage eros, or, more accurately expressed, by removing the premium the Republic places on spiritedness, the Empire sets eros free with a new power. As we have already seen, the rigidity of the Imperial hierarchy limits the access of ambitious men to political life. But though chances for success in Imperial politics might be fewer, if the rewards for success were correspondingly greater, spirited men might still experience the lure of public life with equal force. In terms of range of dominion, length of tenure, perquisites of office, and degree of authority, the Imperial throne does at first seem a far greater goal for an ambitious man’s efforts than any political position the Republic has to offer. Yet, though Cleopatra is finally led to proclaim: “’Tis paltry to be Caesar” (V.ii.2), no one in Coriolanus ever asserts “’Tis paltry to be consul,” not even Coriolanus, who surely has grounds for making such a claim but confines himself to questioning his own qualifications for the highest Republican office (II.i.203–4), not its intrinsic value. Since concern for honor is uppermost in the minds of spirited men, the worth of a given political office may be more a function of the quality than the quantity of those ruled. How attractive public life will appear to a man will obviously depend on how he evaluates his public, and in the Empire portrayed in Antony and Cleopatra political honors have come to seem empty precisely because of the nature of those who do the honoring. Apparently everyone of importance now shares Coriolanus’ contempt for the common people of Rome.3 Cleopatra, for example, describes them in just the terms Coriolanus likes to use:
Mechanic slaves
With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers shall
Uplift us to the view. In their thick breaths,
Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded,
And forc’d to drink their vapor.
[V.ii.209–13]
Both Antony and Octavius are convinced of the fickleness of the Romans’ opinions (I.ii.185–89, I.iv.44–47), and they must wonder what kind of foundation the “slippery people” can provide for a man’s honor.
Above all what the Republic offers and the Empire denies is a sense of being honored by one’s equals. The Emperor has no equals and, instead of accepting recognition of his worth freely given by fellow citizens, he can only experience what amounts to the submission of slaves to his will. Coriolanus requires worthy opponents to make his life seem worthwhile (I.i.228–32), and Shakespeare makes a point of depicting the spirit of friendly and generous rivalry that prevails among the patricians under the Republic (I.iv.1–7, I.vi.55–66). Imperial politics, by contrast, requires the elimination of one’s rivals, as Octavius well understands in his lament over Antony’s death:
I must perforce
Have shown to thee such a declining day,
Or look on thine; we could not stall together
In the whole world.
[V.i.37–40]
Republican Romans compete with each other against the enemies of the city, and are rewarded with offices in return for foreign conquests. The civil wars thus mark the turning point for Roman politics, as Romans begin contending against each other for dominion of the city itself. The source of Marullus’ indignation in Julius Caesar is that Caesar was the first to celebrate a triumph for the defeat of fellow Roman citizens:
Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome,
To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
. . . . .
And do you now strew flowers in his way,
That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood?
[I.i.32–35, 50–51]
From the time of Julius Caesar, Roman history becomes the record of the struggle of Roman against Roman, first Brutus and Cassius against the Second Triumvirate, then the members of the Triumvirate against each other. During this internal strife, the possibilities of pursuing a political career with honor rapidly diminish, and the ranks of “honorable men” in Rome are depleted with astonishing speed (Julius Caesar, IV.iii.173–80). The lack of true Romans to compete with in the Empire is the wake of Julius Caesar’s achievement in surpassing and overcoming all his rivals,4 an outcome Cassius indignantly foresaw (I.ii.151–57). The feeling pervading the last act of Julius Caesar that the race of true Romans is dying out (V.iii.60–64, 98–101, V.v.68) sets an ominous keynote for Antony and Cleopatra. It prefigures the loss of the ennobling spirit of contest from Imperial politics, a fact underscored by Antony’s vain challenge of Octavius to single combat. The Emperor cannot earn his honors anymore because others do his fighting for him, as Antony points out in Octavius’ case:
He alone
Dealt on lieutenantry, and no practice had
In the brave squares of war.
[III.xi.38–40]
His coins, ships, legions,
May be a coward’s, whose ministers would prevail
Under the service of a child as soon
As i’ th’ command of Caesar.
[III.xiii.22–25]
In short, if being honored means feeling respected by men one respects in turn, the office of the consul in the Republic is a greater honor than the throne in the Empire.
Public service is not only less attractive or satisfying as a career in the Empire, it is also less necessary. The Imperial Romans are freer to give way to their private interests or appetites than the Republican Romans. In thinking over the various means by which the Republic tries to suppress the force of eros, one cannot help being struck by its dependence on being constantly at war: the Republic’s austerity is ultimately that of an armed camp. Welcoming the prospect of a new campaign against Rome, Aufidius’ servants reveal that war brings out the spiritedness in men, peace the eros:
2. Serv. Why then we shall have a stirring world again. This peace is nothing but to rust iron, increase tailors, and breed ballad-makers.
1. Serv. Let me have war, say I, it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it’s sprightly walking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy, mull’d, deaf, [sleepy], insensible, a getter of more bastard children than war’s a destroyer of men.
[IV.v.218–26]
Peace allows men the luxury of indulging their appetites, notably their sexual desires, but under the pressure of war, they have to suppress their private interests and devote themselves to the public good. Peace, ordinarily associated with love, becomes paradoxically a cause for men to hate each other:
2. Serv. As wars, in some sort, may be said to be a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but peace is a great maker of cuckolds.
1. Serv. Ay, and it makes men hate one another.
2. Serv. Reason: because they then less need one another.
[IV.v.225–32]
These lines suggest what happens to the Rome of Antony and Cleopatra. As long as the city lives under the constant threat of war, the common good is evident, at least in its most rudimentary form: the Romans realize they need each other if only to protect themselves. But once the threat of war is removed, private interests and appetites have the chance to assert themselves, unhindered by the need to unite the community against common enemies. One might in fact trace the absence of any references to the common good of Rome in Antony and Cleopatra to the absence of any common enemies for Romans.5
The only statement in all of Antony and Cleopatra that even alludes to a common good links it to the notion of political necessity and the prospect of war. Lepidus suggests that Antony and Octavius must suppress their differences in the face of Pompey’s threat:
Lepidus. ’Tis not a time
For private stomaching.
Enobarbus. Every time
Serves for the matter that is then born in’t.
Lepidus. But small matters to greater matters must give way.
[II.ii.8–11]
But Lepidus’ statements imply that once the pressure of the immediate crisis is removed, Antony and Octavius can return to their private grievances, or as Enobarbus cynically puts it:
If you borrow one another’s love for the instant, you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again. You shall have time to wrangle in when you have nothing else to do.
[II.ii.103–6]
This comment evokes a stern rebuke from Antony, perhaps because it raises an unpleasant truth about the situation of Rome, a truth even the younger Pompey understands (II.i.42–49). Once they defeat all their enemies, the Romans will have “nothing else to do” except indulge their private appetites and grievances. This line of thought adds new meaning to Act III, scene i, where Ventidius is shown defeating the last of Rome’s important enemies, the Parthians, and thereby eliminating the last serious external threat that could force the Romans to unite for the common good. In short, for a country whose way of life had been closely bound up with the enterprise of war, Octavius’ apparently hopeful remark: “The time of universal peace is near” (IV.vi.4) has an ominous ring. Rome itself is fast approaching the situation of its Emperor, with no equals to fight anymore, no more Volsces or Parthians to test and prove its virtue. Perhaps the career of Rome is prefigured in Valeria’s sketch of Coriolanus’ son:
A’ my troth, I look’d upon him a’ We’n’sday half an hour together; h’as such a confirm’d countenance. I saw him run after a gilded butterfly, and when he caught it, he let it go again, and after it again, and over and over he comes, and up again; catch’d it again; or whether his fall enrag’d him, or how ’twas, he did so set his teeth and tear it! O, I warrant, how he mammock’d it!
[I.iii.58–65]
As little Martius learns, the game is over once one destroys one’s prey. Rome at first no sooner catches its prey than it lets it go again, as is evident from the treatment of the Volsces in Coriolanus,6 but eventually Rome like little Martius conquers its “playthings” once and for all, leaving itself alone and with out purpose in the world.7 By eliminating all its rivals, Rome creates a situation in which it can no longer maintain its martial discipline. In particular, the conquest of the world relieves the Romans of the most elementary, and hence most pressing, of necessities, hunger. In marked contrast to the Rome of Coriolanus, the Rome of Antony and Cleopatra is never threatened by famine. With conquered territories like Egypt to boast of, Rome seems assured of “foison” rather than “dearth” (II.vii.17–23), and feasts have become the order of the day, of course in Antony’s army, but at times in Octavius’ as well (IV.i.15–16). The very success of Rome in conquering the world undermines the traditional martial virtues that made that conquest possible. The citizens of an unchallenged empire are freer to indulge themselves in luxuries than are those of a small city struggling for its existence.
For all these reasons, the world of Antony and Cleopatra is one in which all kinds of new longings are likely to arise among the Romans, but whether that world can satisfy the desires it awakens remains in doubt. A feeling of dissatisfaction and frustration permeates Antony and Cleopatra, to the point where one might choose as a motto for the play Lady Macbeth’s bitter lines:
Nought’s had, all’s spent,
Where our desire is got without content.
[III.ii.4–5]
The pattern of a man achieving a long sought-for goal, only to decide it was not worth the effort or to have his accomplishment turn sour in the accomplishing, is repeated again and again in Antony and Cleopatra.8 In speaking of Antony’s final achievement of revenge on Brutus, Enobarbus points out “what willingly he did confound he wail’d” (III.ii.58), and Octavius’ reaction to the death of Antony leads Agrippa to comment:
And strange it is
That nature must compel us to lament
Our most persisted deeds.
[V.i.28–30]
Antony sums up the perplexing mutability of values in his world when he hears of his wife Fulvia’s death:
There’s a great spirit gone! Thus I did desire it.
What our contempts doth often hurl from us,
We wish it ours again. The present pleasure,
By revolution low’ring, does become
The opposite of itself. She’s good, being gone;
The hand could pluck her back that shov’d her on.
[I.ii.122–26]
Obviously it is difficult to hold to any course of action in a world where men are uncertain of their values because goods have a habit of changing into evils, and evils into goods. In this atmosphere, a spiritual malaise infects the characters in Antony and Cleopatra, while the strong sense of Roman purpose and indomitable will, so evident in the characters in Coriolanus, is disappearing from the scene. Rome as a whole has nothing to do and would welcome anything as a diversion:
And quietness, grown sick of rest, would purge
By any desperate change.
[I.iii.53–54]
As Octavius points out, the Roman populace has reached the point of utter stagnation:
This common body,
Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,
Goes to and back, lacking the varying tide,
To rot itself with motion.
[I.iv.44–47]
Perhaps this image of rotting best captures the stage Rome has reached by the time of Antony and Cleopatra.
The danger of spiritual emptiness—“to be call’d into a huge sphere, and not to be seen to move in’t” (II.vii.14–15)—has become widespread in the world of the play, but is acute in Antony’s special case. Antony himself realizes that his personal danger is “idleness” (I.ii.129), for as he observes:
we bring forth weeds
When our quick winds lie still.
[I.ii.109–10]
Antony’s idleness as a soldier could be as much the cause as the effect of his constant search for new pleasures to relieve the potential tedium of his life (I.i.46–47). Having missed his chance to be executed with his master in Julius Caesar, a privilege he requested (III.i.151–63), Antony must search for another moment when he will be “apt to die,” which requires his finding another cause worth dying for. But Antony’s tragedy is that he is surrounded by a spiritual vacuum just when he most needs something to fill the void in his own soul. To understand more fully why he has trouble finding an adequate object for his allegiance, one must explore further what has happened to the ancient city in the world of Antony and Cleopatra.
ii
Merely locating the city of Rome in Antony and Cleopatra has become difficult, for it seems to have been swallowed up in the vast territory it conquered. Having reached out in its passion for empire to embrace the entire world, the city, which in Coriolanus “yet distinctly ranges,” becomes “as indistinct as water is in water,” or as Rome is in Rome, for by the time of Antony, the name can refer to either the particular city or the much vaguer notion of the Empire as a whole. In Coriolanus one can easily distinguish a separate Rome, a separate Corioli, and a separate Antium because the cities in its world have walls around them. But there are no sharp boundaries in the fluid world of Antony and Cleopatra, and Rome is not presented as a simple and distinct geographic point. In Coriolanus and Julius Caesar, Shakespeare creates specific urban environments, making us aware of individual buildings and monuments, and even of the physical dimensions of the city. As G. Wilson Knight points out, in the context of Coriolanus, the phrase: “’Tis south the city mills” (I.x.31) sounds perfectly natural.9 In Antony and Cleopatra, on the other hand, we do not get a sense of the physical presence of Rome as a discrete city. Some of the “Roman” scenes undoubtedly occur within the old boundaries of the city, but no reference is made to traditional Roman landmarks like the Forum or the Tarpeian Rock, and other scenes appear to be scattered throughout Italy, for example, at the port city of Mesena or Misenum (II.ii.160, II.iv.5–7). Clearly Rome means something less definite and more abstract in Antony and Cleopatra than it does in Coriolanus and Julius Caesar.
Certainly the city is not a character in Antony and Cleopatra in the way it is in the Republican Roman plays. There are no crowd scenes to show the Roman populace playing a role in their own destiny.10 We do hear some talk of the effect the people might yet have on Imperial politics (I.ii.185–92, II.i.8–10), but no one bothers to appeal to them directly and their support for Pompey ultimately does not count for much. Significantly, the patrician and plebeian parties have no role in the action of Antony and Cleopatra. In fact, the word patrician does not even occur in the play; the word plebeian only once (IV.xii.34), and then in a context that suggests the Roman people have become spectators rather than actors. All one can speak of in Imperial Rome are private factions developing around the various contestants for the throne (I.iii.46–47). The absence of the Roman parties, and accompanying offices like the tribunate, means a general lowering of the Romans’ participation in politics. One hears nothing of traditional Roman political institutions in the play, even though historically many of them did survive into the era of the Empire. From reading Shakespeare’s play, one would never know, for example, that the Senate still existed in Imperial Rome, since Shakespeare omits all of Plutarch’s references to it.11 One can virtually observe the playwright in the act of deleting the Senate from Imperial Rome; at one point where North’s Plutarch has “Octavius Caesar reporting all these things unto the Senate and oftentimes accusing [Antony] to the whole people and assembly in Rome,”12 Shakespeare restricts the action to the much vaguer command: “Let Rome be thus / Inform’d” (III.vi.19–20). As Shakespeare recasts the situation, all that remains is the Emperor on one side and the whole of Rome on the other. All the intermediary bodies such as the Senate and the people’s assembly, which might have bridged the gap between ruler and ruled, have dropped out of sight.
One of the chief characteristics of Imperial politics in Antony and Cleopatra is thus the remoteness of the ruler from the ruled. If only because of the geographic extent of the Empire, men have difficulty obtaining clear guidance from the authorities who govern them. On a distant frontier of the Empire, Ventidius must try to figure out what his general really wants him to do, illustrating the problem of obedience “when him we serve’s away” (III.i. 15). He apparently was not given a clear set of instructions, and cannot follow any simple objective standards, since he “could do more to do Antonius good, / But ’twoud offend him” (III.i.25–26). Usually a subordinate is given explicit guidance, such as Octavius’ command to Taurus: “Do not exceed / The prescript of this scroll” (III.viii.4–5), but Ventidius is in the strange situation of having to guess at his commander’s intentions. Menas has a similar dilemma when he offers to give his commander Pompey the whole world by murdering the Triumvirs for him, and receives this most peculiar reply:
Ah, this thou shouldst have done,
And not have spoke on’t! In me ’tis villainy,
In thee’t had been good service. Thou must know,
’Tis not my profit that does lead mine honor;
Mine honor, it. Repent that e’er thy tongue
Hath so betray’d thine act. Being done unknown,
I should have found it afterwards well done,
But must condemn it now.
[II.vii.73–80]
Menas is trying to do the right thing as a subordinate—to get direct orders from his commander—but he is told that no such clear-cut advice is forthcoming for him. He must quite literally be able to read Pompey’s mind, and only after the fact will he know if he has done so correctly or not. This is tantamount to having no guidance at all, especially since Pompey strongly implies that Menas will have to act directly contrary to his commander’s professed standards (ll.74–75). To have to obey a master’s unexpressed commands would be to have a remote commander indeed, even if he were standing right at one’s side.
But the most remote commanders in the world of Antony and Cleopatra are the gods themselves. Most critics assume the references to the gods in the Roman plays are intended merely to give a certain pagan flavor to the dialogue,13 but careful analysis will uncover a significant contrast between the religious beliefs of the Republican Romans in Coriolanus and those of the Imperial Romans in Antony and Cleopatra. This contrast is most clearly revealed in a dialogue between Pompey and the pirate Menecrates:
Pompey. If the great gods be just, they shall assist
The deeds of justest men.
Menecrates. Know, worthy Pompey,
That what they do delay, they not deny.
Pompey. Whiles we are suitors to their throne, decays The thing we sue for.
Menecrates. We, ignorant of ourselves,
Beg often our own harms, which the wise pow’rs
Deny us for our good; so find we profit
By losing of our prayers.
[II.i.1–8]
In considering whether any divine support for human justice exists, Pompey places himself in the same position with respect to the gods that he later places Menas in with respect to himself. That is, Pompey does not speak of obeying the gods’ expressed commands concerning justice; rather, he talks as if a man should go ahead and do what he thinks is just and then see if the gods support him, a course he doubtless has in mind in challenging the Triumvirs to open war. In other words, an appeal to the gods is an appeal to arms, an approach still in harmony with Republican beliefs:
Cominius. The Roman gods,
Lead their successes as we wish our own,
That both our powers, with smiling fronts encount’ring,
May give you thankful sacrifice.
[Coriolanus, I.vi.6–9]
The Republican consul Cominius, however, expects a straightforward answer from the gods, and expects it almost immediately, for the outcome of the battle will show which side has divine support. But Menecrates makes divine guidance less readily accessible, claiming that the gods may “delay” their judgment and that Pompey cannot tell from their immediate failure to support his cause that they do not really favor him in the long run. Pompey understandably objects that, while he is waiting around for word from heaven, he may lose what he was striving for in the first place.
At this point, Menecrates makes divine guidance even more remote from men, so remote that one has to question whether the gods in his view provide any effective support for human justice at all. He tells Pompey that he cannot go by his own standards of what is good and bad, because divine values may not correspond to human, and, although he may think the gods have injured him and shown their disapproval, they may actually have benefitted him and shown their favor. The Republican attitude toward the gods is simple, if somewhat crude: you go to battle, and if you win, the gods support you; if you lose, they do not. Pompey is at first presented with a slightly more complicated situation: even if you lose a battle, the gods may still show their support at a later date. But as Menecrates finally draws the picture, the lines of divine guidance have been blurred virtually beyond recognition: you go to battle, and if you win, the gods may have prepared a hidden calamity for you (victory itself may be the disaster), and if you lose, the gods may have some secret consolation ready (loss itself may be in some sense to your advantage). For the Republican Romans, the gods in effect confirm human judgments of what is good and bad. In the Empire, as Menecrates portrays the situation, the gods throw these judgments into confusion, as a result of the claim that they know better than men themselves what is in the interest of mankind.
Menecrates is not alone in his way of thinking, for Enobarbus tells Antony that he must give the gods a “thankful sacrifice” for taking away his wife (I.ii.161), and Cleopatra implies that a man must be wary when the gods seem to be favoring him, since they may well turn on him:
I hear him mock
The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men
To excuse their after wrath.
[V.ii.285–87]
Having to wonder what divine actions signify is bad enough, but Antony, in the most disturbing view of the gods in the play, claims they make it impossible for a man to judge their intents:
But when we in our viciousness grow hard
(O misery on’t!) the wise gods seel our eyes,
In our own filth drop our clear judgments, make us
Adore our errors, laugh at ’s while we strut
To our confusion.
[III.xiii.111–15]
Obviously someone with this view of the gods will have trouble keeping faith in any course of action he chooses for himself. Unlike the gods of Coriolanus, who support the Romans’ sense of purpose, the gods of Antony and Cleopatra undermine it. But perhaps this understanding of things confuses cause and effect. The Republican confidence in the Roman gods expresses the city’s faith in itself, epitomized in Menenius’ conviction that Rome’s acts are “enroll’d / In Jove’s own book” (III.i.290–91). By the same token, the Romans in Antony and Cleopatra have lost their confidence that they know the will of the gods because they have lost confidence in themselves.
One can study the weakening of the Roman civic religion by tracing the gradual intrusion of the supernatural into Shakespeare’s Rome. Critics have seldom made much of the absence of the supernatural from Coriolanus,14 perhaps because they see no reason for Shakespeare to have included supernatural elements. And yet Plutarch’s Life of Coriolanus contains several supernatural incidents which, on the face of it, seem as worthy of inclusion in a play as are the instances of the supernatural in Julius Caesar or Antony and Cleopatra. The first battle Coriolanus fights in is marked by a mysterious appearance of Castor and Pollux, but Shakespeare’s Cominius makes no mention of this in his otherwise detailed account of the event (II.ii.87–98). After Coriolanus’ banishment, “certain sights and wonders in the air” appear in Rome, in Plutarch’s account, and a man named Titus Latinus receives instructions from Jupiter to the Senate. Above all, the idea to have Volumnia and Virgilia go to entreat Coriolanus comes to Valeria as an “inspiration” from “some god above.”15 Finally, when the ladies return to Rome, a statue in a temple speaks to them, an incident which prompts Plutarch into a long discussion of the status of supernatural utterances. Since all these instances of the supernatural have analogues in other Shakespearean plays, it seems likely that Shakespeare deliberately excluded the supernatural from Coriolanus, probably in an effort to maintain the consistency of his image of Republican Rome. The city would no longer appear self-contained and self-sufficient if in times of crisis it were forced to rely on divine revelations other than official civic religious functions like the auspices. The various supernatural incidents in Plutarch suggest that private individuals have personal access to divine authority, without the mediation of the city, but, as we have seen, Shakespeare presents the gods under the firm political control of the patricians in Coriolanus, as part of the city’s attempt to form the comprehensive horizons of its citizens. The city must be closed off from supernatural revelation to keep the roof of Rome intact.
But in Julius Caesar the roof of Rome begins to crack. To be sure, the play still offers several masterly examples of the old Roman manipulation of religion for political ends.16 Caesar is able to interpret the news from the augurers to suit his own purposes, turning an obvious ill omen into a confirmation of his will to go to the Senate (II.ii.37–48). The prize for hermeneutic dexterity must, however, go to Decius Brutus, who takes Calphurnia’s horrible dream of Caesar’s statue spouting blood and calmly expounds its hidden meaning, showing it to be “a vision fair and fortunate” (II.ii.76–91). But terrifying visions (I.iii.3–32, II.ii.14–26) are pressing in upon the Rome of Julius Caesar with such force that even the most rational Romans are losing their hold on their religious beliefs. Cassius detects a weakening in Caesar’s resolution:
But it is doubtful yet
Whether Caesar will come forth to-day or no;
For he is superstitious grown of late,
Quite from the main opinion he held once
Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies.
It may be these apparent prodigies,
The unaccustom’d terror of this night,
And the persuasion of his augurers
May hold him from the Capitol to-day.
[II.i.193–201]
Though, with the help of Decius Brutus, Caesar does decide to go to the Senate, the way he wavers in his decision suggests that with the change in his religious beliefs he is no longer as sure of himself as he once was. The most striking transformation occurs in Cassius:
You know that I held Epicurus strong,
And his opinion; now I change my mind,
And partly credit things that do presage.
Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign
Two mightly eagles fell, and there they perched,
Gorging and feeding from our soldiers’ hands,
Who to Philippi here consorted us.
This morning are they fled away and gone,
And in their stead do ravens, crows, and kites
Fly o’er our heads and downward look on us
As we were sickly prey. Their shadows seem
A canopy most fatal, under which
Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost.
[V.i.76–88]
This theoretical change on Cassius’ part soon has important practical consequences, since his fatalistic conviction that his luck has turned, together with his superstitious belief that his birthday should be his death-day (V.iii.23–25), leads him to give up the fight prematurely and kill himself. When even the skeptical Cassius becomes subject to mystical promptings, the supernatural has clearly gained a foothold in the hitherto this-worldly city of Rome.
If nothing else, the shadowy presence of the soothsayer in Julius Caesar suggests that a new dimension has entered Roman life, beyond the ordinary political control of the city. By the time of Antony and Cleopatra, soothsayers seem to have become common household items, and their claim to be able to interpret “nature’s infinite book of secrecy” (I.ii.10) on their own gives them a new authority over men. Unlike Julius Caesar, Antony allows himself to be warned away from Rome by a soothsayer who plays upon his superstitious regard for his luck (II.iii). No longer is the city the intermediary between a man and his gods, as in Coriolanus. In Antony and Cleopatra the importance of the city gods seems greatly reduced, as the characters turn to new sources of divine authority. For the only time in the Roman plays, personal deities are mentioned, as the soothsayer tells Antony he must be guided by his own “daemon” or daimonion (II.iii.20–31). And in a crisis, the Roman Scarus feels he can no longer call upon a single god of the city, but must appeal to “gods and goddesses, / All the whole synod of them!” (III.x.4–5). Perhaps one universal deity is needed to correspond to the universal Emperor in the world of Antony and Cleopatra. Cleopatra’s dream of Antony can be interpreted as an attempt to create the myth of such a universal god:
His face was as the heav’ns, and therein stuck
A sun and moon, which kept their course, and lighted
The little o’ th’ earth.
His legs bestrid the ocean, his rear’d arm
Crested the world.
[V.ii.79–83]
In Cleopatra’s eyes, Antony in scope and stature is above not just the city gods but the cosmic gods as well. But if Dolabella is any example, the Romans are not yet ready to believe in such a god (V.ii.94). The most striking supernatural incident in Antony and Cleopatra is not the entrance but the exit of a god, suggesting that, whatever will replace it, the traditional Roman religion is coming to its end. The eery scene when “the god Hercules, whom Antony lov’d, / Now leaves him” (IV.iii.16–17) seems to have more than personal significance, faintly suggesting as it does the motif of the flight of the pagan gods, familiar to us from Milton’s “Nativity Hymn.” In another scene with symbolic resonance, Shakespeare shows the world of classical antiquity drunk and reeling, invoking in song the god of an Eastern mystery religion (II.vii.113–18).17 Perhaps Shakespeare realized that when Rome turned to foreign gods like Bacchus, it was a sign of the city’s decline, and the beginning of a process that eventually dissolved the ancient world.18
iii
In a world in which they have lost their old political bearings, the Romans of Antony and Cleopatra are figuratively at sea, a metaphor developed by the emphasis in the play on battles at sea as opposed to on land. The most unequivocal call to patriotism is the defense of one’s own land, but in the international imperial wars of Antony and Cleopatra the soldiers are never given a real foothold. A vague expanse of sea cannot call forth the same fighting spirit in Antony’s men that a determinate patch of land could:
O noble Emperor, do not fight by sea,
Trust not to rotten planks. Do you misdoubt
This sword, and these my wounds? Let th’ Egyptians
And the Phoenicians go a-ducking; we Have
us’d to conquer standing on the earth,
And fighting foot to foot.
[III.vii.61–66]
The case of Enobarbus shows how the change in the Roman regime has left soldiers without guidance, undermined their martial virtue, and introduced a new perplexity into their relation to their superiors. Enobarbus is unquestionably a spirited man (see, for example, II.ii.4–8), but his circumstances make it difficult, if not impossible, for him to become public spirited. With his courage and sense of loyalty, he surely would have found an honored place in the armies of the Republic. In the world of Antony and Cleopatra, however, he cannot attach himself to any cause that is not essentially private in nature, and Antony cannot hold his devotion in the way the city could have. Whereas the city could put the blame for its defeats on individual generals or soldiers, Antony must take responsibility himself for the fortunes of his cause. In a way, Antony is too open to the scrutiny of his followers to maintain their unquestioning allegiance. In the battle of Actium, Enobarbus thinks his master’s actions are shameful (III.xiii.10), and becomes ashamed to follow him. After observing firsthand Antony’s attempts to cope with defeat, Enobarbus decides his master has lost his reason and concludes that serving him any longer would be irrational (III.xiii.194–200). In short, although Enobarbus is not afraid of death, he would only want to die for something he knows to be worthwhile. He is forced to wonder whether it would be wise or courageous to die for the sake of a fool or a coward, and thus his doubts concerning Antony eat away at his soldier’s resolve. Enobarbus’ self-interest gradually comes to the fore as the force he poised against it, his devotion to Antony, gradually weakens. When a soldier is considering risking his life, evidently the public good is a more effective counterweight to his own private good than the mere private good of another man can be.
Yet Enobarbus cannot live with himself after leaving his master. Antony’s cause may not have been noble enough to satisfy him, but he cannot find any new and nobler cause that would justify the inherent baseness of his act of desertion. In the Republic, a soldier can be disloyal to his commander and not regard his actions as treachery, if he believes they are in accord with his higher loyalty to Rome. That, after all, is the principle of Brutus’ self-defense: “Not that I lov’d Caesar less, but that I lov’d Rome more” (III.ii.21–22). But Enobarbus has no such higher loyalty and can only set his own self-interest against Antony’s. He sums up his dilemma in a remarkably penetrating speech:
Mine honesty and I begin to square.
The loyalty well held to fools does make
Our faith mere folly: yet he that can endure
To follow with allegiance a fall’n lord
Does conquer him that did his master conquer,
And earns a place i’ th’ story.
[III.xiii.41–46]
Enobarbus cannot accept the idea that faith in itself is a value, that one need only be loyal to someone, no matter how undeserving of loyalty he may be. Yet he is living in a world where fidelity to one’s master is fast becoming the only virtue recognized. This truth is brought home to him when he goes over to Octavius’ camp, only to find himself despised and branded forever a “master-leaver and a fugitive” (IV.vi.10–17, IV.ix.21–22). He dies because he has nothing left to live for, his last moments poisoned by the thought that Antony was more loyal to his servant than he was to his master (IV.vi.29–38, IV.ix.18–19). The whole scene of Enobarbus’ death, illuminated by the moon, the “sovereign mistress of true melancholy” (IV.ix.12), has the atmosphere of a lover dying for the sake of his beloved, even to the point of Enobarbus expiring with the name of Antony on his lips (IV.ix.23).
Enobarbus’ story reveals the hold a master is able to exert over a servant under the Imperial regime, a hold that exceeds all rational considerations. However, if servants have a deep need for masters when they have nothing else to give their allegiance to, masters also find they have a deep need for servants. Antony in particular needs a sense that others have faith in him,19 and many of his actions have the effect of inspiring and maintaining fidelity in his followers. This consideration helps explain the trait in his character that most mystifies his Roman friends, the way he actively courts disaster, or even pursues defeat. If the common good is uppermost in a soldier’s mind, victory will be his paramount goal. But if fidelity has become a man’s primary value, then situations can arise in which he might prefer defeat to victory. For a subordinate, a defeat might allay any suspicions his commander had formed about his “quick accumulation of renown” (III.i.19). Such thoughts are needed to make sense out of Ventidius’ most puzzling statement:
ambition
(The soldier’s virtue) rather makes choice of loss
Than gain which darkens him.
[III.i.22–24]
Ventidius begins by merely declining to pursue a victory further, but goes on to raise the possibility of actually seeking out defeat. Nothing could sound more un-Roman, but when speaking of Roman here, one is thinking of the Republic, wondering, for example, if Coriolanus could ever be brought to make “choice of loss” in battle. Coriolanus inspires martial spirit in his soldiers through the conviction that he is unbeatable (IV.vi.90–95, V.ii.110–11), and thus his command over men would be endangered by even one defeat or any sign of weakness on his part. In the Empire, however, Ventidius’ thoughts of defeat cease to be “un-Roman;” on the contrary, they merit praise (III.i.27–29). They are even given a religious sanction by Menecrates, who introduces the notion that loss might be gain when speaking of the gods with Pompey: “so find we profit / By losing of our prayers” (II.i.7–8).
The idea of a victory that is in some sense a defeat, and a defeat that is in some sense a victory appears already in Julius Caesar:
Brutus. I shall have glory by this losing day
More than Octavius and Mark Antony
By this vile conquest shall attain unto.
[V.v.36–38]
This idea of “vile conquest” becomes increasingly important in Antony and Cleopatra, as does the idea that one can gain more glory by losing than by winning. This development is linked to the new importance of private bonds in the Empire, for one can win a battle in a way that will make men love one less, and by the same token lose a battle in a way that will make men love one more. For example, Pompey understands that Octavius’ triumphs have lessened the personal attachment of men to his cause: “Caesar gets money where / He loses hearts” (II.i.13–14). And Octavius realizes that for some reason the “ebbed man” has an advantage when it comes to winning love from followers (I.iv.41–44). Octavius fails worst as a ruler when he tries to win heartfelt devotion from his followers, as opposed to prudential loyalty, for he consistently neglects the emotional factors involved, and, even when he takes them into account, has a hard time achieving a desired emotional effect because of his cold demeanor.20 As Pompey implies, Octavius’ very success cuts him off from the devotion of his followers. By contrast, Antony, who can give men fewer reasons for following him, is far more capable of inspiring devotion, for he can establish a warm personal bond with his followers that means more to them than “mere” victories in the conventional sense. Curiously, when Octavius is invoking Antony’s power, he thinks of one of his great defeats, not as we might expect one of his great victories: “When thou once / Was beaten from Modena” (I.iv.56–57). But perhaps Octavius knows what he is doing, for Antony’s most remarkable achievement politically is his ability to snatch victory not from but in defeat.
In one way Antony’s actions in defeat encourage disloyal thoughts toward him in Enobarbus. But in another way, Antony’s conduct succeeds in increasing his followers’ loyalty. His readiness to take the blame for his defeats upon himself disarms criticism, especially when coupled with praise of those who have remained loyal to him in adversity. The basis of Antony’s power over his followers becomes clear in the scene of his supper with them just before his last battles with Octavius:
Antony. I wish I could be made so many men,
And all of you clapp’d up together in
An Antony, that I might do you service
So good as you have done.
Omnes. The gods forbid!
Antony. Well, my good fellows, wait on me to-night.
Scant not my cups, and make as much of me
As when mine empire was your fellow too,
And suffer’d my command.
[IV.ii.16–23]
Mysteriously, Antony’s humbling of himself before his men proves to be the way to make his “dying honor” “live again” (IV.ii.6–7). Bewildered by his conduct, Cleopatra asks: “What does he mean?” but Enobarbus sees Antony’s purpose clearly: “To make his followers weep” (ll.23–24).21 What is in one way Antony’s weakness as a commander, allowing others to see his limitations as a man, is in another way his great strength, for it makes even his enemies pity him (I.iv.71, V.i.26–30, 40–48, V.ii.360–63) and creates in his followers the deepened bond that comes from their feeling he is in need of them:
Tend me to-night;
May be it is the period of your duty;
Haply you shall not see me more, or if,
A mangled shadow. Perchance to-morrow
You’ll serve another master. I look on you
As one that takes his leave. Mine honest friends,
I turn you not away, but like a master
Married to your good service, stay till death.
Tend me to-night two hours, I ask no more,
And the gods yield you for’t!
[IV.ii.24–33]
This is strange talk from a commander on the eve of a battle; it is, to say the least, defeatist in tone, and Enobarbus actually cautions Antony against unmanning his soldiers (ll.33–36). Contrary to all military considerations, Antony indulges himself in morbid thoughts. What can console him is his belief that the fidelity of his followers will survive even his defeat and death. He considers the possibility that they may betray their allegiance to him, but after a speech such as this he can be certain that they will not do so with peace of mind (as the fate of Enobarbus soon demonstrates).
By the end of Act IV, scene ii, Antony has seen to it that he cannot be judged by the standards usually applied to military commanders. His soldiers cannot blame him if he is defeated; on the contrary, they will feel guilty if they fail to stand by him in defeat. Somehow Antony has placed himself above the ordinary standards of human virtue (I.iv.10–15), so that no deed of his, no matter how base, can totally destroy the impression of nobility he has made on his followers, and the mere memory of his past greatness is enough to maintain their faith in him. His ability to endure moral censure is based in the changed ethical situation in the Empire. As the relationship of master and servant replaces the relationship of city and citizen, the Imperial regime puts a new emphasis on fidelity as a virtue, thus creating a need for new standards for judging men. With the premium now on faith, knowledge of what is in men’s hearts becomes necessary. The Republic judges a man directly by his deeds, by what he does for the city. Coriolanus, for example, is willing to stand or fall with his deeds (I.ix.15–19, II.ii.127–28), feeling it beneath him to call upon excuses or extenuating circumstances to justify himself. Antony, on the other hand, asks to be judged by his intentions, rather than his deeds, and insists that his intentions are not always evident from his deeds. This new standard, which allows Antony to preserve his honor in circumstances that would disgrace another man, can be seen at work in Act II, scene ii, where Antony quarrels with Octavius. Octavius charges Antony with failing to live up to the terms of their agreements, and cites several actions to support his accusations, such as the wars Antony’s wife and brother made against him, the disdain Antony showed for his messenger, and Antony’s refusal to supply him with “arms and aid” when he requested them (II.ii.42–44, 72–74, 88–89). Antony does not dispute Octavius’ facts—apparently he sees no need to deny any of his actions—but instead claims that Octavius has simply misinterpreted them (ll.45–56). In order to excuse himself from Octavius’ charge of violating their agreements, Antony is willing to accuse himself of various faults that one is surprised to hear a political leader freely admitting to, such as inability to control himself (ll.75–77) as well as his supporters (ll.50, 67–71), even ignorance of what his supporters were doing (l.96) and evidently of what he himself was doing (ll.89–91). The only charge Antony will not stand by and hear himself accused of is that of breaking faith:
Caesar. You have broken
The article of your oath, which you shall never
Have tongue to charge me with.
Lepidus. Soft, Caesar!
Antony. No, Lepidus; let him speak.
The honor is sacred which he talks on now,
Supposing that I lack’d it.
[II.ii.81–86]
Evidently Antony will let men think anything of him rather than allow them to suppose he has been unfaithful to his oath. His conviction of the sacredness of the honor of his oath, together with his willingness to “play the penitent” to uphold it (II.ii.92), shows how important the value of fidelity has become in the world of Antony and Cleopatra. And as long as Antony can claim his honor is separable from his deeds, he can maintain his reputation on the basis of his ability to convince men of the nobility of his thoughts alone.22
The care with which Antony and Octavius spar with each other in Act II, scene ii, the cautious way they probe for each other’s responses, each trying to catch at the intent of the other (ll.40–42), suggests the delicacy required in Imperial diplomacy. The absence of the city as a focal point for the loyalty of these two leaders has introduced a new element of uncertainty and insecurity into their political calculations. Without a common object of allegiance, they are forced to rely on their direct loyalty to each other which, as their quarrel reveals, does not have a very secure foundation. Antony tells Octavius that he cannot be known by his deeds; how then, Octavius might well ask, can his partner be sure of his loyalty? Antony’s wish to be judged by his intents rather than his deeds thus ends up as a wish to be judged merely by a different kind of deed, what we would call an act of good faith. Agrippa proposes to create a personal bond between the two leaders by having Antony marry Octavia (II.ii.124–27). This offer literally becomes a test of faith between Antony and Octavius, a kind of love test. In describing how the marriage would put an end to the doubts that infect the relationship of Antony and Octavius, Agrippa in fact talks of them as if they were insecure lovers, as if they were getting married to each other so that an “unslipping knot” would end their suspicions:
By this marriage,
All little jealousies, which now seem great,
And all great fears, which now import their dangers,
Would then be nothing. Truths would be tales,
Where now half tales be truths. Her love to both
Would each to other and all loves to both
Draw after her.
[II.ii.130–36]
At this point consideration of political problems in Antony and Cleopatra unites with consideration of problems in private life. For Agrippa’s talk of “little jealousies” and “great fears,” of “half tales” taken for “truth,” characterizes the love relationship of Antony and Cleopatra at least as well as it does the political relation of Antony and Octavius. The problem of fidelity, central in the politics of Empire, is also the central problem in the love story of Antony and Cleopatra and provides the closest point of contact between public and private life in the play. Antony and Cleopatra are as much in need of tests of each other’s faith, of love tests, as any of the figures related in political terms.23 The need for tests of love in a world in which old forms of loyalty have given way to new is the keynote of Antony and Cleopatra, sounded by Cleopatra herself in her very first line in the play: “If it be love indeed, tell me how much” (I.i.14).