…I thrice did offer him a kingly crown – which he did thrice refuse." Marc Antony’s eulogy for Julius Caesar, from the Shakespeare play of the same name.
I memorized and performed that oration for a speech tournament when I was in the eighth grade, and even though at the time I supposed that the Lupercal was one of the seven hills of Rome (or something), rather than a festival, I thought I did it pretty well. Also, that pasage from the speech has stayed with me, lo these many years (about 43, JFTR).
Lately, though, I’ve been wondering about that. Didn’t anyone have a problem with Marc Antony offering Caesar the monarchy (or for that matter, offering it to anyone at all)? I’ve never performed in the play, but if I were ever to be in a production, I would like to (at least in a rehearsal) speak up from the crowd, and say “Yeah, what was up with that? Since when was the kingly crown yours to offer?”
Does this issue tend to get a lot of discussion time among scholars of Shakespeare (and the Roman Empire)?
Really, being approached by Marc Antony with a ritual knife that he’s just used to slaughter a couple goats and a dog so that he can wipe their blood all over my head? I don’t think I’d go for it, either.
Antony was Caesar’s co-consul, so it was as much his place to offer Caesar a crown as it was anyone’s. That said, it’s pretty clear in Shakespeare (and even clearer in his source, Plutarch’s Life of Caesar) that this is a piece of political theater that goes wrong for Antony and Caesar: Caesar doesn’t get the applause he’s hoping for when he’s offered the crown, but instead the people go wild when he makes what is supposed to be an initial, pro forma refusal. At which point, Caesar wisely decides to make the whole show about refusing the crown rather than accepting it.
So in the light of that, Marc Antony rises to the challenge:
ANT: …I thrice did offer him a kingly crown
Which he did thrice refuse.
CITIZEN: And what of that?
What business hadst to offer him the crown?
What right Marc Antony to make him king?
ANT: Thou speakest well, my friend: the point is just,
But mark how long it was until ye spake,
While Caesar knew at once the right from wrong
And spurned it on the instant. Not a thought
Gave Caesar to the offer of the crown;
At once - twice - thrice! he thrust it far away,
For kingship could not tempt him. Therefore, friends,
Mark how ambitious Caesar truly was;
Judge well, for being Romans one and all
Ye have the very wisdom to discern.
Yes, but when it’s mentioned in the eulogy, it actually carries the opposite meaning in a way. You get the idea that Antony is implying that, even if Caesar did become king, the fact that he refused the crown so many times means he’d be humble enough to be a good king.
That whole speech is a mastery of rhetoric: my speech (and English) teacher in high school, who always won speech competitions, said her college speech instructor made her study it for a long time. She even had to memorize it, and to this day can probably rattle it off without any thought.
Wow, I never realized the crown was a set-up by Caesar and Antony, which Caesar wisely abandoned when there was no public support. So the speech is showing Antony to be even more of a scheming manipulative say-anything politician than I realized.
“Hey, remember when Caesar and I tried to make him King and everyone booed and said it was a terrible idea so Caesar pretended he wasn’t in on it? That’s why you should support me politically instead of Caesar’s opponents!”
Just going by fiction, Robert Harris’s ersatz biography of Cicero makes it clear that Caesar was the cagiest cat around. As Harris portrays him, I could definitely see Caesar deftly turning a failed bit of political theater into legendary acclaim. He is a truly scary individual.
