When the news of Cassius' death is brought to Brutus, he comes to view the body and says:

O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet!

—Act V, scene iii, lines 94-96

His eulogy over Cassius is:

—Act V, scene iii, lines 99-101

The statement is a gross exaggeration. Except for his conduct at the Battle of Carrhae, Cassius had shown little real ability. Even in organizing the successful conspiracy that killed Caesar, his weakness in allowing the stupid Brutus to guide affairs ruined all.

Shakespeare has the battle continuing as though it were all one piece. That is not so in actual history.

After the drawn battle in which Cassius killed himself unnecessarily and Brutus was victorious on his wing, the two armies withdrew to lick their wounds.

Brutus' army still held the stronger position and, what's more, Brutus controlled the sea approaches so that supplies were denied Antony and Octavius. He had but to stay where he was and he would still win.

But he could not. The habit of wrong judgments could not be broken and this time there wasn't even Cassius present to argue vainly with him. After twenty days he marched to the attack again in a straightforward head-to-head battle.

He lost again, brought the remnants back to a strong position once again, and might have sold his last bit dear, but that his soldiers refused to fight any more.

There was nothing left to do but find somebody to kill him. This service was performed for him by his servant, Strato, who held the sword while Brutus ran upon it, saying:

—Act V, scene v, lines 50-51

To the end the talk is of Caesar…

There remains only the eulogy to be delivered over Brutus. Antony, surveying the dead body, says:

—Act V, scene v, lines 68-72

Plutarch reports that "it was said" that Antony had, on a number of occasions, said something like this. Was it to win over those who had been on Brutus' side for the war that was to follow between himself and Octavius? Was it out of gratitude, since Brutus had refused to allow Antony to be killed on the ides of March? Did Antony really believe what he said?

In terms of Shakespeare's play, this final eulogy is so devastatingly wrong, it can be accepted only as irony. How can we possibly follow Antony in saying that Brutus was the only one who didn't act out of envy, when Shakespeare shows us that he was the only one who surely acted out of envy.

In the great seduction scene in Act I, scene ii, Cassius turns all his arguments against Brutus' weak point, his monstrous vanity. He paints a world in which Caesar is all and Brutus nothing, knowing that Brutus cannot bear such a thought. Finally, he makes the comparison a brutally direct one:

—Act I, scene ii, lines 142-47

It might be argued that Cassius was speaking generally, comparing Caesar to any other Roman citizen, but the fact is that he made the comparison to Brutus specifically, and Brutus listened. Take this together with Brutus' character as painstakingly revealed in every other facet of the play and we can be certain that he was not the only conspirator not driven by envy. On the contrary, he was the one conspirator who was driven only by envy.

I 1607 Shakespeare returned to North's edition of Plutarch, from which eight years before he had taken material for Julius Caesar. Using Plutarch's biography of Mark Antony, Shakespeare wrote what was virtually a continuation of the earlier play, and made it the most Plutarchian of the three plays he derived from that source.

Antony and Cleopatra begins almost at the point where Julius Caesar had left off.

Brutus and Cassius have been defeated at the double battle at Philippi in 42 b.c. by the troops under Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar. These two, together with Lepidus, the third member of the Triumvirate (see page I-301), are now in a position to divide the Roman realm among themselves.

Octavius Caesar took western Europe for his third, with the capital at Rome itself. It was what he could best use, for it left him with the Senate and the political power-center of the realm. Octavius was a politician and the battles he could best fight (and win) were battles of words with the minds of men at stake.

Lepidus was awarded the province of Africa, centering about the city of Carthage. It was an inconsiderable portion for an inconsiderable man, and Lepidus was and remained a mere appendage of Octavius Caesar. Lepidus grew important only when someone was required to act as go-between where the two major partners were concerned.

Mark Antony had the East and this suited him very well. Except for the days immediately following Julius Caesar's assassination, Antony had never gotten along well in Rome. He preferred the Eastern provinces, which were far the richer and more sophisticated portion of the Roman realm. Mark Antony was a hedonist; he knew how to appreciate pleasure, and in the great cities of the East he knew he would find it.

He was also a soldier who welcomed war, and in the East he knew he would find that too. The Parthians were to be found there. Eleven years before they had destroyed a Roman army (see page I-257) and for that they had never been punished. Antony hoped to deliver that punishment.

All Antony's plans went awry, however, when in 41 b.c. he encountered Cleopatra, the fascinating Queen of Egypt. He fell sufficiently in love with her to forget the necessity of beating the Parthians and to neglect the threat of the slow, crafty advance of Octavius Caesar in Rome.