The citizens of ancient Rome as depicted in Julius Caeser | Julius Caeser | William Shakespeare | facexor

Write a short note on the citizens of ancient Rome as depicted in Julius Caeser. Show how far they represent the Elizabethan mob rather than the plebs of Roman history.

Answer: In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare introduced the Roman citizens. He had the invaluable guidance of Plutarch in creating the characters of the heroes. But there he had to rely on himself. He did the best that he could, he relied on his own incomparable understanding of human nature and on his familiarity with the citizens of London round about him. His Roman citizens thus became humanized; at the same time, in their words and actions, they showed themselves as typical Elizabethan mob. Whether they were anything similar to the Roman plebs in the wide features of their characters we have no means of judging.

The general public of Shakespeare's Rome is the typical holiday-making crowd of any big city. They are ready to avail themselves of a holiday in a festive mood whenever there is an occasion. They are essentially good-humored, ready for a joke, a little too fond of verbal quibbles, quick in repartees, and essentially fickle-minded. In the large essentials of human nature, they are citizens, not of Rome, but of the world.

But in their local traditions and habits, they are not Roman but Elizabethan. To walk upon a laboring day without the symbol of occupation was a fault with an Elizabethan mechanic. When Henry V returned from his victory at Agincourt, Londoners greeted him much in the same fashion as Shakespeare represents in Act. I. The love for pageantry was known to be a characteristic of the Elizabethan citizens, but of course, it is so everywhere in the world. The scorn which the Tribunes felt for the mass is undoubtedly such as an Elizabethan of the upper classes might have felt for the vulgar mob. Somehow the loud mob of fickle-minded light-hearted men whom Shakespeare labeled as Roman seems to us to be more appropriate to an Elizabethan setting. But perhaps Shakespeare's realism is truer after all than such idealized notions of the plebs as we might entertain.