Posts Tagged ‘Julius Caesar’
“I am not Cinna the conspirator”*…
As Philip Goldfarb Styrt explains, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar offers a telling parable about the administration of justice—and rife mishandling thereof—in our day…
American politics has a long history of referencing William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, from Abigail Adams, who identified with Portia, the wife of Brutus, as Betsy Erkkila has noted, to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, which “both was and was not reenacting” the play, in Cary M. Mazer’s words. These references are likely due to the intersection of American identification with Roman republicanism, which the play dramatizes, and the long history of American interest in Shakespeare specifically. More recently, a great deal of ink was spilled during Donald Trump’s first term comparing the president to Caesar. But while an excellent hook for contemporary stagings of the play, this kind of parallel has limitations. King George III and Abraham Lincoln weren’t Caesar, and neither is Donald Trump, even if a lead actor sports a distinctive red tie. This history does, however, raise the question of what Shakespeare’s play might have to tell us about our current historical moment.
One overlooked area of governance that has become increasingly important in the early days of the current administration is due process: what procedures does the government have to go through and what kinds of hearings must be held, particularly in immigration cases, in order to arrest someone? To remove or deport someone from the country? From the Mahmoud Khalil case at Columbia University to the Rümeysa Öztürk case at Tufts, the Secretary of State has been personally marking individual visas and green cards for revocation; in addition, in cases like the one that centers on the removal of alleged gang members to El Salvador, whole categories of people are being removed without a hearing or a trial and with at least some allegations that the individuals removed aren’t even part of the targeted class.
Julius Caesar treats these issues directly. The play focuses on the assassination of the title character by a conspiracy headed by Brutus and Cassius and the defeat of the conspirators in battle by Caesar’s successors, the triumvirate of Marc Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus. Along the way, the play presents punishment as a major theme: First, the punishment of Caesar for the perceived sin of royal ambition, and second, the punishment of the conspirators for his murder. Because of this, a close look at the play and the scholarship surrounding it can help make clear the stakes of due process. While the term itself wouldn’t have been used in Shakespeare’s time, his era was one in which the procedures of law we now call due process were being formalized, and his plays show a consistent interest in whether that proper procedure is being followed.
A pair of crucial scenes related to this issue immediately follow the play’s most famous parts (Caesar’s assassination and the speeches delivered by Brutus and Antony over his body, in Act 3, Scenes 1 and 2, respectively) and may be sometimes overlooked. But when considered together, they give insight into why arbitrary executive action without due process is dangerous, whether it technically operates within the law or not.
The first of these two scenes—in Act 3, scene 3—features mob violence. Incited by Marc Antony to seek revenge, the citizens seek out conspirators to murder, and they mistake the poet Cinna for a conspirator of the same name. They tear him to pieces. Though this act is hardly the same as an official arrest, which might seem to distance it from discussions of due process, this moment isn’t just about the mob, as Martin Mueller points out; it’s about how power acts, whether through masses or through government. It’s a case of enacting punishment in a case of mistaken identity, particularly one where despite that mistake having been corrected in real time, the damage is done. “I am not Cinna the conspirator,” are the victim’s last words, but the play gives neither time nor opportunity for his insistence to convince anyone to keep him alive. Due process would allow for potential Cinnas to demonstrate innocence and remove themselves from the unwarranted threat; without it, everyone is imperiled.
There’s another element of the current concern regarding due process that relates to the fate of poor Cinna. His death isn’t merely the result of mistaken identity; as Jeffrey J. Yu writes, after he tries to identify himself the mob changes its tune, declaring that they’ll kill him for being a bad poet instead. Absent due process, there’s no pause to decide whether this person should be condemned or if the reason given for condemnation is legitimate. This episode serves as a reminder that due process doesn’t merely protect people from mistaken identification; it also requires those who would mete out punishment to specify, up front, the reason for it.
The Trump administration’s refusal to give key information to multiple judges in the removal cases recalls this danger. By refusing to specify details of the case, the government keeps the possibility alive of changing their reasoning or their claims to have the same effect for different reasons—just as the mob changes its reasoning for killing Cinna. This belies the question of whether those who are looking to deliver punishment are acting in good faith, a concern that became part of the appeals court decision in the El Salvador case and has subsequently been raised in other courtrooms as well. Just as Shakespeare’s mob finds new justifications for why Cinna the Poet should die, the government keeps open the possibility of producing a different reason for removing the people it currently claims are alien enemies—a process they have already begun with individual visa revocations. Due process requires a commitment to the reasons punishment is sought and thus allows those reasons to be addressed and countered.
As Nicholas Royle argues, the scene of Cinna’s death can easily be treated as a version of Julius Caesar in miniature. The play as a whole is about categorical error: killing someone because you think they are one thing only to find out you were wrong. This, in turn, centers the idea of due process, because only through it can deliberative decisions about identity, guilt, and punishment be properly engaged. The lynching of (the wrong) Cinna is the madness of a mob; the murder of (the right) Caesar is a conspiracy of nobles; the removal of hundreds of (alleged) Venezuelan gang members is the action of ICE. Each is a distinct entity, but they hold in common a lack of judicial process to determine what is to be done and to whom.
If the death of Cinna is a microcosm of the play, the other moment that reinforces the importance of due process in Julius Caesar is even more compressed, lasting a mere eight lines at the start of the fourth act. That’s all the time it takes for Marc Antony, Octavius (the future Augustus Caesar), and Lepidus to choose the Romans who will die by proscription in order to keep their triumvirate in power while they war against Caesar’s assassins. This is an arbitrary and impersonal form of execution: the triumvirs check off the names of those they want dead: “these many, then, shall die; their names are pricked.” As Robert Kalmey observes, this moment encapsulates what Roman historians thought of as the worst of all of Octavius’s crimes against the state before becoming emperor. This “tyrannical ruthlessness and cruelty,” in Robert Miola’s words, reveals that the triumvirate will be no better than Caesar’s assassins or the mob; they too will kill at whim to stay in power.
There’s something disturbing about these proscriptions, which is why both Kalmey and Miola identify them as critical. The triumvirate make a cold-blooded choice to kill many Romans; it has neither targeted motivation, as did the assassination of Caesar, nor does it possess the emotional if not legal justification embraced by the inflamed mob in its misdeeds. This isn’t to justify those prior murders. Rather, it’s to point out that the proscriptions somehow exceed even them in horror because of how they’re administered. There’s no due process here, either; the three triumvirs don’t get their hands dirty, their decisions can’t be appealed, and there’s no public process by which those to be killed will be identified before the decision is final.
In this there’s a distinct echo of the process currently in use for determining which visas (permanent or temporary) will be revoked under the current administration. The decision lies solely with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has the power to determine if a particular immigrant poses a threat to national security; if he makes that determination, then the immigrant in question can be picked up off the street without hearing or appeal. Thus far, there’s no venue for disputing such a determination nor is there a published list of those whose visas have been revoked, even though Rubio claims to have revoked as many as 300 (coincidentally, as Kalmey details, the number of senators proscribed by the triumvirate).
Of course, deportation or removal from the United States isn’t the same as death; Rubio’s unilateral visa revocation isn’t the same as the proscription. But the lack of transparency and due process are similar, and there are few to no guarantees of the safety of people whom ICE agents remove, often without identifying themselves, and move around without notifying the family or lawyers of the detained. In fact, the government has argued in court that it has no responsibility to return those who might be removed incorrectly or by accident.
In Julius Caesar Shakespeare demonstrates the extreme consequences of a lack of due process. Not every such deprivation becomes a literal matter of life and death as in the play, but making use of such scenarios enables Shakespeare to highlight more effectively the danger of arbitrary action. Whether we imagine ourselves, like Cinna the Poet, hunted for a crime of which we are innocent or, like the Roman dignitaries proscribed by the triumvirs, marked out for condemnation, the drama asserts that some kind of due process is a necessity for a free state. If, as Lloyd Matthews has argued, America’s founding ideals of liberty are intimately linked to Julius Caesar, that connection should remind us that such liberty requires due process to function properly…
“The Lessons of Due Process in Julius Caesar,” from @jstordaily.bsky.social.
Pair with: “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” (“A Harvard Law class uses the Bard’s plays to explore legal themes and concepts past and present”)
* Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 3
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As we recognize rights, we might recall that it was on this date in 1938 that the Mercury Theater broadcast the Halloween episode of their weekly series on the WABC Radio Network, Orson Welles’ adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. The first two-thirds of the show (which was uninterrupted by ads) was composed of simulated news bulletins… which suggested to many listeners (a huge number of whom joined in progress, after tuning over from the Edgar Bergen show on NBC) that a real Martian invasion was underway.
While headlines like the one below suggest that there was widespread panic, research reveals that the fright was more subdued. Still there was an out-cry against the “phony-news” format… and Welles was launched into the notoriety that would characterize his career ever after.
“I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.”*…
The United States and Britain had a treaty under which they agreed not to tax each other’s companies’ profits. Such double-taxation treaties are foundational to the globalised economy because they ensure that a company that operates in more than one country isn’t taxed twice on the same money… this treaty extended to Britain’s overseas colonies, which exposed a flaw at the heart of this system: if one country undercuts the other on tax rates, companies that base themselves there can dramatically reduce the amount of tax they pay in the other.
Most big countries won’t play this game, because it would destroy their tax bases. The BVI, being small and having a weak economy, had no such considerations because it didn’t have much tax revenue to lose: the new business the islands attracted from relocating companies gained them more in fees than they lost in taxes. Such countries are now understood and referred to as tax havens, but back in the 1970s they were a new phenomenon and businesses were exploring them with relish.
In the 1970s, corporations in the BVI paid 15 per cent tax on their profits, while in the United States they paid 50 per cent. If an American incorporated her business in the Caribbean she could export her dividends and cut her effective tax rate by more than half. All she needed was a local lawyer. And, dating from 1976, when US clients first found him, that lawyer was Michael Riegels…
The extraordinary story of the British ex-pat in the British Virgin Islands who founded the now-global off-shore tax haven “industry,” currently estimated to hold $7-10 trillion in assets (up to 10% of global assets) anonymously and outside the reach of home country authorities: “The Second Career of Michael Riegels.”
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As we salt it away, we might recall that it was on this date, the Ides of March, in 44 BCE that Julius Caesar, who was reputedly “born of the knife” (via cesarean section), died by the knife– stabbed to death by Brutus, Casca, and 58 others in the Roman Senate.
In fact, the early history of cesarean section remains shrouded in myth and is of dubious accuracy. Even the origin of “cesarean” has apparently been distorted over time. It is commonly believed to be derived from the surgical birth of Julius Caesar, however this seems unlikely since his mother Aurelia is reputed to have lived to hear of her son’s invasion of Britain. At that time the procedure was performed only when the mother was dead or dying, as an attempt to save the child for a state wishing to increase its population. Roman law under Caesar decreed that all women who were so fated by childbirth must be cut open; hence, cesarean. Other possible Latin origins include the verb “caedare,” meaning to cut, and the term “caesones” that was applied to infants born by postmortem operations. [source]
The Death of Caesar, Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1867
“A great library contains the diary of the human race”*…
In 48 BCE, embroiled in a campaign against his rival Pompey, Julius Caesar laid siege to the Egyptian city of Alexandria…
The Roman ruler laid siege to the city and decided there was only one way to break the stalemate and maintain military control of the harbor — he lit his docked fleet on fire.
The ensuing blaze quickly spread through the city as fires were wont to do in the days of wooden ships and nonexistent fire departments. The flames soon reached the beloved Library of Alexandria. It is believed that nearly 10 percent of the building went up in flames that day, although the specifics of what was burned and the extent of the damage are unknown.
It was the first time the library — a grand church of universal knowledge and scholarship the likes of which the world had never seen — was attacked. It wouldn’t be the last… [source]
But what if things had unfolded differently?
Julius Caesar’s Egyptian excursion almost ended in catastrophe. Battles broke out in Alexandria, and from the burning ships, the flames moved to the structure of the great, famous library. Already a good 200 years old, it contained the entirety of ancient knowledge and culture. It’s frightening just to think what dark ages would have fallen on the Earth if we had lost this invaluable collection of books.
We owe the rescue of this treasure to Julius Caesar himself. It was he, seeing that the building with tens of thousands of books was threatened, who ordered the Roman soldiers to halt their attack, and threw himself into the battle against the flames. While putting out the fire he was severely burned, losing his left thumb. It was then that he said the famous words: “When books are burning, it’s time to lay down the sword.” Ever since that moment, the divine Julius has been sculpted and painted without his left thumb. And the Roman salute – the left hand raised, with the thumb hidden – gained popularity as a sign of people who are educated and hungry for wisdom….
In this engaging alternative history, the literature preserved in the library, notably Greek writings about steam power, are enough to kick-start an industrial revolution in ancient Rome. Roman steamships cross the Atlantic and discover America. The great historic event of 1492 was the first Moon landing. Contemplate it in its entirety: “Empire of the Alexandrinas: An alternative literary history.” [Via The Browser]
For more on the actual history of Alexandria’s amazing library, see “The Library of Alexandria Is Long-Gone – And All Around Us.”
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As we explore the road not taken, we might recall that it was on this date in 1520 that Martin Luther burned his copy of the papal bull Exsurge Domine outside Wittenberg’s Elster Gate. The Bull had been published the prior June, in response to Luther’s teachings (which, of course, opposed the views of the Church). It censured forty one propositions extracted from Luther’s Ninety-five Theses and subsequent writings, and threatened him with excommunication unless he recanted. Luther refused and responded instead by composing polemical tracts lashing out at the papacy– and by publicly torching a copy of the bull. As a result, Luther was indeed excommunicated in 1521.
Title page of the first printed edition of Exsurge Domine
“Veni, vidi, vici”*…
A young (and unshaven) Julius Caesar
In chapter 2 of his Life of Julius Caesar, the Greek historian Plutarch of Chaeronea (46-c.120) describes what happened when Caesar encountered the Cilician pirates, who infested the Aegean Sea, in 75 BCE. To that point, the Cilician’s had regularly offered the Roman senators slaves, which the nobles needed for their plantations in Italy– and which the Senate accepted as tribute, refraining from sending the Roman navy against the pirates.
The translation below was made by Robin Seager.
First, when the pirates demanded a ransom of twenty talents, Caesar burst out laughing. They did not know, he said, who it was that they had captured, and he volunteered to pay fifty. Then, when he had sent his followers to the various cities in order to raise the money and was left with one friend and two servants among these Cilicians, about the most bloodthirsty people in the world, he treated them so highhandedly that, whenever he wanted to sleep, he would send to them and tell them to stop talking.
For thirty-eight days, with the greatest unconcern, he joined in all their games and exercises, just as if he was their leader instead of their prisoner. He also wrote poems and speeches which he read aloud to them, and if they failed to admire his work, he would call them to their faces illiterate savages, and would often laughingly threaten to have them all hanged. They were much taken with this and attributed his freedom of speech to a kind of simplicity in his character or boyish playfulness.
However, the ransom arrived from Miletus and, as soon as he had paid it and been set free, he immediately manned some ships and set sail from the harbor of Miletus against the pirates. He found them still there, lying at anchor off the island, and he captured nearly all of them. He took their property as spoils of war and put the men themselves into the prison at Pergamon. He then went in person to [Marcus] Junius, the governor of Asia, thinking it proper that he, as praetor in charge of the province, should see to the punishment of the prisoners. Junius, however, cast longing eyes at the money, which came to a considerable sum, and kept saying that he needed time to look into the case.
Caesar paid no further attention to him. He went to Pergamon, took the pirates out of prison and crucified the lot of them, just as he had often told them he would do when he was on the island and they imagined that he was joking.
* (“I came, I saw, I conquered”) Julius Caesar, in a letter to the Roman Senate, 46 BCE (after his short war against Pharnaces II of Pontus)
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As we exclaim “Great Caesar’s Ghost!”, we might recall that it was in this date in 1914 that Franz Ferdinand, 51 year old heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was assassinated in Sarajevo, then the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovnia, where he was visiting to inspect the Empire’s troops. A member of the Black Hand nationalist group, Gavrilo Princip, shot and killed both the Crown Prince and his wife as they were being driven through the city. The assassination– triggering, as it did, competing accusations and the “calling” of interlocking alliances– ignited World War I, which broke out one month later.
Franz Ferdinand
The rich really *are* different…
On the heels of a study revealing that 59% of the tuna sold in the U.S. isn’t (tuna), more toxic news…
In a finding that surprised even the researchers conducting the study, it turns out that both rich and poor Americans are walking toxic waste dumps for chemicals like mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium and bisphenol A, which could be a cause of infertility. And while a buildup of environmental toxins in the body afflicts rich and poor alike, the type of toxin varies by wealth…
While America’s poor are “rich” in toxins that come from plastics and cigarettes,
… People who can afford sushi and other sources of aquatic lean protein appear to be paying the price with a buildup of heavy metals in their bodies, found Jessica Tyrrell and colleagues from the University of Exeter. Using data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, Tyrrell et al. found that compared to poorer people, the rich had higher levels of mercury, arsenic, caesium and thallium, all of which tend to accumulate in fish and shellfish.
The rich also had higher levels of benzophenone-3, aka oxybenzone, the active ingredient in most sunscreens, which is under investigation by the EU and, argue some experts, may actually encourage skin cancer.
Read the whole story in Quartz…
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As we “just say no” to nigiri, we might send dissolute birthday greetings to the poster boy for excess, Caligula; he was born on this date in 12 CE. The third Roman Emperor (from from 37 to 41 CE), Caligula (“Little Boots”) is generally agreed to have been a temperate ruler through the first six months of his reign. His excesses after that– cruelty, extravagance, sexual perversity– are “known” to us via sources increasingly called into question.
Still, historians agree that Caligula did work hard to increase the unconstrained personal power of the emperor at the expense of the countervailing Principate; and he oversaw the construction of notoriously luxurious dwellings for himself.In 41 CE, members of the Roman Senate and of Caligula’s household attempted a coup to restore the Republic. They enlisted the Praetorian Guard, who killed Caligula– the first Roman Emperor to be assassinated (Julius Caesar was assassinated, but was Dictator, not Emperor). In the event, the Praetorians thwarted the Republican dream by appointing (and supporting) Caligula’s uncle Claudius the next Emperor.
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