ABSTRACT
The transference of the Roman imperium to the western territories of Britain is sanctioned by the favour of the Roman gods in the last lines of Cymbeline, Shakespeare’s last Roman play; a favour expressed by the flight of birds. The transference is achieved through sweat and blood, resulting in a hard-won honourable peace with Rome, but it is licensed by vision and divination. In fact, Shakespeare mythologizes the event by recourse to a soothsayer and to the westward trajectory of the Roman eagle which we see abandoning the ‘spongy south’ and vanishing into a radiant western sky (4.2. 349-50),1 perhaps pointing even further (as Shakespeare’s audience may well have assumed) towards promising lands on the other side of the ocean.
