ABSTRACT
The year the Globe was inaugurated, 1599, when anxiety for Queen Elizabeth’s impending death and uncertainty about her succession were spreading through the population of London, William Shakespeare looked to ancient history for inspiration, choosing to put on stage an exemplary crisis from the past: the end of the Roman republic, ushered in by Caesar’s assassination, and the beginning of the civil wars which, though eventually leading to the birth of the Empire, entailed the extensive spilling of fraternal blood. In showing the unpredictability of the consequences of violence in politics (even for an apparently just cause), Shakespeare may have relied on the traditional function of history as Magistra Vitae, to warn the playgoers to keep strong nerves at moments of political unrest. What may appear as a mere hypothesis is supported by the play’s title, Julius Caesar, for the sound of that name was in itself capable of evoking the ghosts of an awesome classical tradition.1
