CAESAR'S FUNERAL DRAMA

The assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC drove tensions sky-high in ancient Rome. As Jessica Clarke reveals, plays staged at his funeral were carefully chosen to inflame anger and incite revenge on his killers

- 

On 20 March 44 BC, a violent death in Rome was about to send assembled masses into uproar – sparking pandemonium that threatened to engulf the city.

The incident described by the ancient biographer Suetonius wasn't a real murder but, rather, the climax of a theatre show. If we reconstruct the performance, using both Suetonius’s writing and fragments of the scripts that survive from the time, we can picture the leading actor standing in the centre of the stage before a packed auditorium. He would have raised his sword over his head and declaimed boldly, his voice ringing out across the stands: “What, did I save these men so that they might murder me?” With these words, he would have plunged the blade into his chest. Falling forward onto the stage, he would then ‘die’ slowly and dramatically in front of his enthralled audience.

Cries of sorrow broke out from the audience, Suetonius tells us, and shouts of indignation were raised against the characters who had instigated his suicide. Like so many other theatre shows at the time, which are recorded for us by the ancient writer, orator and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero, this performance - staged in the last years of the collapsing Roman Republic - caused a volcanic reaction among the crowd.

The performance was part of the funeral of Gaius Julius Caesar. Five days earlier, the Roman general and dictator had been stabbed to death at a senate meeting by a group of conspirators. The city had gone into mourning, and a huge celebration had been organised to commemorate Caesar's military and political achievements. It would include the usual eulogy and burning of the funeral pyre - but the centrepiece of the event would comprise two magnificent theatre shows.

Incendiary shows

First came the