Beware the Ides of March….fake news or not?

Dear all,

This week’s blog falls on the 15th March, a date that has been cursed as an ill-fated day, thanks in large part to Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’. But did William Shakespeare get all the facts right? With a little bit of amateur research and the help of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s website, it appears that Shakespeare was actually pretty economical with the truth.

For many of us, what we know of Caesar’s assassination on 15 March 44 B.C. is straight out of ‘Julius Caesar’. Shakespeare’s primary source was Sir Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s ‘Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans’, and although he often stuck closely to his source he also changed and invented details to make for more compelling theatre. For better or worse, these elements are now fused in the popular imagination with ancient Roman history.

Here’s a short quiz to test your knowledge of Shakespeare’s ‘fiction’ and Plutarch’s ‘fact’…

True or false?

The day before Caesar is killed, a soothsayer warns him to ‘Beware the Ides of March’ (Act 1, scene 2). False

You don’t become a Roman dictator without some people wanting you dead. Caesar was no fool – he knew that enemies were plotting his overthrow. According to Plutarch, a soothsayer did warn Caesar to be on his guard on the Ides (or midpoint) of March. But the warning came a ‘long time afore’ the actual assassination. On the day itself Caesar met the soothsayer again and told him, ‘The Ides of March be come.’ ‘So be they,’ the soothsayer responded, ‘but yet are they not past.’ The play includes a version of this exchange (Act III, scene 1). But leave it to Shakespeare to compress the timeline of events and come up with such an ominous catchphrase.

Brutus was Caesar’s best mate. False

Plutarch tells us that during Caesar’s war with Pompey the Great for leadership of Rome, Brutus actually sided with Pompey. It was not until Pompey’s defeat that Brutus switched his allegiance. Moreover, Caesar questioned his frenemy’s loyalty in Plutarch, something Shakespeare leaves out. Instead, the play emphasises their closeness.

There were signs portending Caesar’s death. True

In addition to the soothsayer’s warning, Plutarch describes terrifying phenomena leading up to the assassination: strange lights and sounds coming from the heavens, men walking around in flames, a sacrificed animal without a heart, inauspicious birds perched in the Forum and Calphurnia’s dream of her murdered husband. Shakespeare includes many of these details and adds a few more for good measure. In the play Caesar easily shrugs off these omens, but in Plutarch he has the good sense to listen to his wife and decides to postpone the Senate meeting. Too bad he changes his mind in Shakespeare’s version.

Caesar’s last words are ‘Et tu, Brute?’ False

In Plutarch it is Casca who strikes first, causing Caesar to cry out (in North’s translation) ‘O vile traitor Casca, what doest thou?’ Shakespeare’s line may have been inspired by another ancient Roman historian, Suetonius, who writes that Caesar appealed to Brutus in Greek ‘You too, child?’ It was widely rumoured that Brutus was Caesar’s illegitimate son. While the play suggests Caesar’s disbelief, Shakespeare omits the allusion to familial treachery. Maybe Caesar didn’t say anything at all when the conspirators attacked him.

The reality is that many great writers, artists and filmmakers have been slightly economical with the truth in the pursuit of a great story or creative masterpiece. The challenge that any reader or art lover faces is to decipher fact from fiction, and I wonder what Shakespeare might have thought about what we now call ‘fake news’?

Have a great weekend when it arrives.

Jason Whiskerd