Caesar on his triumphal chariot, by Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506).
‘Caesar on his triumphal chariot’ by Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506), held today in the Royal Collection. It shows Julius Caesar riding a chariot on one of his many Triumphs, a festal procession through the streets of Rome awarded to a conquering general. Caesar’s procession following his defeat of the sons of Pompey, his erstwhile rival as ruler of the Roman Republic, offended Marullus because it celebrated the defeat not of a barbarian tribe but of a Roman hero — a distinction the barbarian tribe might have failed to appreciate, see The Speech of King Caratacus. And see An Execrable Crime, which tells how Furius Camillus offended the Roman public with his own over-the-top triumphal march.
WHEREFORE rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome,
To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
O, you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climb’d up to walls and battlements,
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The live-long day, with patient expectation,
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome;
And when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not made an universal shout,
That Tiber trembled underneath her banks,
To hear the replication of your sounds,
Made in her concave shores?
And do you now put on your best attire?
And do you now cull out a holiday?
And do you now strew flowers in his way,
That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood?
Be gone!
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.
Précis
In William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Marullus berated the Roman crowds welcoming Caesar after defeating his rival Pompey. The public were fickle blockheads, he said: Caesar’s only achievement had been to destroy the very man they had worshipped as a hero so recently. The gods punished such treachery with plagues, and they should pray earnestly to be forgiven. (57 / 60 words)
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