Isaac Asimov - Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1

Those with him, his servants and retainers, made as though to resist, but Cicero, sixty-three years old and tired of the wild vicissitudes of public life, found at the end the physical courage he had so conspicuously lacked throughout his life. Forbidding resistance, he waited calmly for the soldiers and was cut down on December 7, 43 b.c., twenty-one months after Julius Caesar's assassination.

Brutus, meanwhile, has told of the news he himself has received; news to the effect that the triumvirs are on the move eastward, taking the offensive. He says:

—Act IV, scene iii, lines 166-69

Philippi was an important city in the province of Macedonia, and was located about ten miles north of the Aegean Sea. It had been built up on the site of an earlier village in 356 b.c. by Philip II, King of Macedon and father of Alexander the Great The city was named for Philip.

The question now is how best to react to the Triumvirate offensive. Cassius takes the cautious view. He suggests their forces remain on the defensive.

—Act IV, scene iii, lines 198-201

Brutus, however, disagrees. He points out that the provinces between the enemy army and themselves are angered by the looting they have undergone and would join Antony and Octavius. Their own army, on the other hand, is as large as it is ever likely to be, and if they wait it will start declining. He says, sententiously, in a famous passage:

—Act IV, scene iii, lines 217-20

Once again, Brutus contradicts Cassius and has his way and the result proves his judgment to be wrong. Throughout the play, Brutus consistently misjudges the moment when the tide is at the flood, and to place this passage in his mouth seems to intend irony.

Brutus makes ready for sleep, in an almost family atmosphere of concern for his servants (and he is portrayed most nearly noble, in good truth, here). He settles down to read a book when suddenly he cries out:

—Act IV, scene iii, lines 274-76

It is the ghost of Caesar, which Brutus boldly accosts. It tells him only that they will meet again at Philippi.

One might suppose that this was a Shakespearean invention, introduced for dramatic effect, for the chance of turning lights low, producing shadows, and chilling the audience, but, in actual fact, Shakespeare does not have to invent it. The report that Caesar's ghost appeared to Brutus is to be found in Plutarch.

It is with a forward look to this scene, perhaps, that Shakespeare had had Mark Antony speak earlier of "Caesar's spirit."

The fifth act opens in the plains near Philippi, with the opposing armies facing each other and waiting for battle. Octavius, looking at the scene with grim satisfaction, says:

—Act V, scene i, lines 1-4

What had happened between the acts was this. Brutus and Cassius, crossing the straits into Macedonia from Asia Minor, encountered a portion of the triumvir army near Philippi. If the conspirators had attacked at once, they ought to have won, but before they could do so, the rest of the triumvir army arrived and it was a standoff.

The triumvir army now outnumbered the conspirators but was weaker in cavalry. What is more, it was Brutus and Cassius who had the strong position in the hills, while Antony and Octavius occupied a marshy and malarial plain.

Brutus and Cassius had only to stay where they were. It would have been suicidal for Antony and Octavius to try to charge into the hills. Yet to stay on the plains would expose them to hunger and disease.

Indeed, Octavius was already sick, although this doesn't appear in the play. Octavius seemed always to be sick before a battle. In this case, he fell sick at Dyrrhachium (on the coast of what is now Albania) and had to be carried by litter the 250 miles to Philippi.

Cassius opposed battle, maintaining that by waiting it out, the enemy would sooner or later have to retreat and that the effect would be one of victory for the conspirators. He was manifestly correct in this and Antony, putting himself grimly in the conspirators' place, was sure that was exactly what they would do.

Antony still did not count on the egregious stupidity of Brutus. Brutus again opposed Cassius and favored immediate battle. Once again Brutus insisted on having his way. Once again Cassius gave in.

A parley between the opposing commanders was arranged before the battle. Perhaps an accommodation could be arranged. That could not be, however, for the conversation quickly degenerated into recriminations. At one point, Cassius refers bitterly to Antony's oratory (thinking perhaps of the funeral speech) and says:

—Act V, scene i, lines 34-35

Hybla was a town in Sicily, on the southern slopes of Mount Etna, and some forty miles northwest of Syracuse. It was famous, almost proverbial, for its honey.

In the wordy quarrel, Antony does have the best of it and Cassius finally is forced to become aware of Brutus' misjudgments. He says to Brutus angrily:

—Act V, scene i, lines 45-47

Surely he must have thought how, in all likelihood, the conspirators would have been long in control of Rome if only Antony had been killed along with Caesar, as he had advised.

There is nothing, then, but to make ready for the actual battle. Cassius is seriously depressed, perhaps because it has been borne in upon him, forcefully, how wrong Brutus has been all through, and because he bitterly regrets all the times he gave in wrongly.

It is now October 42 b.c., more than two and a half years since the assassination of Caesar, and Cassius says to his aide:

—Act V, scene i, lines 70-72

Since we don't know in what year Cassius was born, we can't say how old he was on the day of the Battle of Philippi. However, Plutarch refers to him as older than Brutus (a view Shakespeare adopts) and Brutus may have been born in 85 b.c. It would seem then that Cassius must be in his mid-forties at least and possibly pushing fifty.

Cassius does not find the fact that the battle will be fought on his birthday to be a good omen. He does not want to fight it. He says to Messala: