ABSTRACT
The seeds of reaction were always there, in Marlowe pre-eminently, and the transition may be watched in the life-work of Ben Jonson. Dramatists were deeply concerned with government: the issues recently raised by Essex's rebellion, the problem of succession and the coronation of James I, all stimulated anxiety. The Emperor is a vicious tyrant, the hero a shameless villain, and the people stupid, bestial or worse. The only good appears in one spectacular suicide and the choric comments of Arruntius. Catiline is more important. Sejanus was of low birth and aims at imperial sway; Catiline of noble birth and he plots against the republic. He is finely tempered and radiates scorn and power with a glamour never approached by Sejanus. Caesar, for a while one of Catiline's supporters, knows that the judgement of history will depend on the outcome and that political reversals can only be compassed by violence and fraud.
