Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Caesar and Cleopatra, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Romanticization of History
Vengeance vs. Mercy
Pragmatism vs. Sentimentality
Empire, Civilization, and Progress
Age, Experience, and Power
Summary
Analysis
A Roman sentinel stands guard outside the palace at Alexandria and looks across the harbor toward the lighthouse. He’s so absorbed in his work that he hardly notices when Ftatateeta, Apollodorus the Sicilian, and four Egyptian porters carrying rolls of carpet, approach him. Apollodorus calls out to the sentinel and criticizes the Romans’ inattentiveness—had Apollodorus not signaled his arrival, the sentinel would have been the fourth Roman guard who failed to notice his party. Unamused, the sentinel informs Apollodorus that the guards are watching the land and water, keeping their eyes peeled for Egyptian forces that might arrive to halt Caesar’s attack on the island of Pharos.
Presumably, Ftatateeta and Apollodorus are headed to the royal palace to deliver the carpets to Cleopatra. The middle of a heated civil war seems an odd time for them to do this, which suggests that they might be up to something—perhaps they’re hiding something inside the rolled-up carpets. Like many other characters in Shaw’s play, Apollodorus was a real historical figure. He was one of Cleopatra’s royal followers and supposedly helped her enter the palace of Alexandria to see Julius Caesar, ingratiate herself with him, and gain his support during the power struggle over the royal throne with Ptolemy XIII.
Themes
Motioning to the rolled carpets, the sentinel asks if Apollodorus is a carpet merchant. The question offends Apollodorus, who is a patrician. Apollodorus explains that he has selected the world’s finest carpets to bring to Cleopatra so that she may choose how to decorate her palace. Nevertheless, the sentinel refuses to let the party through without the password.
Being a patrician, a culturally informed member of the aristocracy, is a central feature of Apollodorus’s identity. He resents the sentinel calling him a merchant because it suggests that he’s a culturally illiterate commoner. Shaw seems to use this character to poke fun at contemporary British culture, where “art for art’s sake,” or the philosophy that art should exist and be appreciated for its craft and beauty outside of fulfilling some social or political function, was a fashionable philosophy.
Themes
As Apollodorus and the sentinel argue back and forth, Ftatateeta grabs the sentinel from behind. She orders Apollodorus to stab him through the throat. Other soldiers rush forward to defend the sentinel and disarm Ftatateeta. Ftatateeta is disappointed that Apollodorus didn’t kill the sentinel when he had the chance. The centurion orders his men to back down after Apollodorus informs him they are coming to the palace on Cleopatra’s orders. However, the centurion tells Apollodorus that nobody—not even the queen—will be allowed back into the harbor. Apollodorus and the others continue toward the palace.
Ftatateeta’s insistence that Apollodorus kill the sentinel shows that she has a similar attitude toward vengeance and violence as Cleopatra. Thus far, Shaw has portrayed the Egyptian court as brutal and unreasonable, and in that regard, little different from the personality of Cleopatra, who is a literal child. It’s possible to read this as a comment about an imperial power’s tendency to infantilize the subjects of the nations it conquers.
Themes
Cleopatra spots the approaching party and calls out to Ftatateeta from the palace window. She runs to greet them, ignoring Ftatateeta’s insistence that it isn’t proper for her to let men to see her. Cleopatra tells Apollodorus that she doesn’t have time to choose a carpet today and orders her visitors to fetch her a boat instead. Apollodorus complies, but the sentinel refuses to let them pass. Cleopatra orders Ftatateeta to strangle the sentinel. Apollodorus threatens the man with his sword. The violence enthralls Cleopatra, and she looks on excitedly from a distance.
This is the second time Ftatateeta has called attention to the scandal of letting men see Cleopatra outside of rigorously structured circumstances. Perhaps this is Shaw’s effort to further recast Cleopatra as a young girl whose activities are highly monitored, and who is protected by the adults in her life, rather than the scheming, manipulative harlot she is depicted as in other fictitious retellings of her life (and in unflattering historical depictions of her written by the Romans).
Themes
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The centurion arrives and explains to Cleopatra that Caesar has ordered the Roman soldiers not to let her leave without his permission, and it’s his “duty” to obey Caesar. Apollodorus argues that “duty” is the term “a stupid man” uses when he is “doing something he is ashamed of.” Apollodorus attempts to bribe the soldiers into abandoning their posts with the promise of wine, but to no avail.
Apollodorus’s insult about the centurion’s adherence to “duty” more broadly critiques the idea that conformity begets oppression. He’s suggesting that people allow themselves to partake in morally dubious acts with the reasoning that they are simply doing their job or following orders. Apollodorus’s noble position is played for comedic intent here, though, since not letting through a couple of carpets to protect the royal residents during a civil war is arguably a reasonable, innocuous position.
Themes
Suddenly, Cleopatra has an idea. She asks Apollodorus if he’s willing to bring a carpet of her choosing to Caesar and take “great, GREAT care of it.” Apollodorus says that he can, and Cleopatra orders him to stay put while she and Ftatateeta run into the palace to select a carpet. Apollodorus remains outside with the Roman soldiers. He points ahead, observing that the Egyptian army is moving ahead with their goal to recapture Pharos. The centurion orders some of his men to stay put while the rest go with him to warn the south posts of the approaching Egyptian army.
Cleopatra seems to want to get some item or piece of information to Caesar, and she’s realized that she can do so in a rolled-up carpet. This is why she makes Apollodorus to take “great, GREAT care of it,” because whatever she wants to transport is fragile and must be handled with care. It's unclear what Cleopatra needs to get to Caesar, but she demonstrates that she’s adopted some of Caesar’s cleverness and pragmatism by developing a clever way to accomplish the task.
Themes
As the centurion and his men leave, the porters and Ftatateeta reappear with a carpet. Ftatateeta tells Apollodorus that the carpet is a present from Cleopatra to Caesar. It has crystal goblets and sacred pigeons’ eggs rolled up inside it and must be handled very delicately. Apollodorus pays the porters before leaving to beat the Egyptians to the lighthouse. Ftatateeta watches the boat drift away and begs the gods to “bear her safely to the shore.” The sentinel realizes that Ftatateeta has smuggled Cleopatra onto the boat in the rolled-up carpet. He curses her, and Ftatateeta praises the “Gods of Egypt and Vengeance.”
Cleopatra’s plan was to wrap herself in the carpet for Apollodorus to deliver to Caesar. The scene is inspired by supposedly true events. It’s said that Cleopatra hid herself in a bed-sack or carpet to gain entry into the palace at Alexandria, from which her brother, Ptolemy XIII, had banned her. Ftatateeta’s anxiety about the handling of the carpet reveals that, while she condescends and instills fear in Cleopatra, she genuinely seems to care about her wellbeing, as well. Finally, Ftatateeta’s praise of the “gods of Egypt and Vengeance” aligns her position on vengeance with Cleopatra and the other Egyptians. She doesn’t much seem to care about unnecessary bloodshed.
Themes
Meanwhile, at the lighthouse, Rufio rests after the morning’s battle, eating dates out his helmet and drinking wine. Caesar stands behind him on the lighthouse balcony, peering anxiously into the distance. Britannus returns from the top of the lighthouse. He reports seeing messengers walking toward them from the island and sets off to meet them. Once alone, Caesar confesses his fear that the Romans will lose the battle. He wishes he had a better idea of how his soldiers across the embankment are doing. Rufio tells Caesar that men his age forget to eat, which could explain why Caesar feels so pessimistic about the war. Rufio offers his helmet of dates to Caesar, insisting he eat some. Caesar takes offense to Rufio’s comment about his old age but complies with his request. He feels immediately reinvigorated.
Caesar is a skilled and pragmatic leader, but he’s not invincible. Uncertainty haunts him, and he recognizes his capacity to lose battles despite his many victories. Rufio undercuts Caesar’s philosophizing when he suggests that Caesar is only grumpy and forlorn because he's too old to remember to eat. This is played for comic effect and further reimagines Caesar as a heroic but human historical figure. As well, that Rufio offers Caesar dates, specifically, seems perhaps to be an indirect reference to Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, in which the poisonous snake that Cleopatra sends for to die by suicide is brought to her in a basket, concealed beneath a pile of figs. Perhaps the dates foreshadow Cleopatra’s imminent arrival.
Themes
Britannus returns and announces that their Rhodian mariners have obtained a bag of letters passed between Pompey’s party and the occupying army. He explains that the letters will show Caesar who his enemies are once and for all. To Britannus’s horror, Caesar orders him to burn the letters, reasoning that there’s no point in condemning men who have since proved themselves to be Caesar’s friends and allies. Caesar explains that he “do[es] not make human sacrifices to [his] honor, as [Britannus’s] Druids do” and throws the letters into the water.
This is another example of Caesar’s disapproval of vengeance. He thinks it’s senseless to punish soldiers who betrayed him long ago, since they are no danger to him now and could serve a practical purpose to him in the ongoing battle. He opts to do what’s best and leave the soldiers’ past wrongs unpunished to serve the Roman army better in the future. When Caesar tells Britannus that he “do[es] not make human sacrifices to [his] honor, as [Britannus’s] Druids do,” he’s alluding to the supposed practice of the Celts and Druids, ancient contemporaries of Britannus, a Briton, to conduct human sacrifices. It’s worth noting that much of the existing historical documentation attesting to this are unflattering accounts written by the Classical Greek and Roman civilizations with a political agenda. In fact, Caesar himself wrote disparagingly of the religious rites of the people of Gaul in 44 B.C.E. Shaw seems to be criticizing the tendency of imperial powers to disparage and devalue the customs of the nations they conquer.
Themes
Apollodorus approaches Caesar and Britannus outside the lighthouse and explains that he has sailed from Alexandria to give Caesar a gift from Cleopatra. The gift, a Persian carpet, is filled with pigeons’ eggs and crystal goblets and must be handled with care. Caesar orders Apollodorus to return to Alexandria and tell Cleopatra to stop goofing around, since he’ll be back at the palace later that evening. Apollodorus can’t return, however, since somebody threw a bag into the sea which landed on his ship, sinking it. Rufio orders the carpet to be maneuvered off the ship by the crane. Caesar backs away as the crane hoists the carpet into the air. The crane drops the carpet onto the center of the platform, and Rufio and Caesar remove the chain tying it to the crane. The men unroll the carpet, revealing Cleopatra. Caesar is pleased to see her.
Caesar’s directive to Apollodorus to tell Cleopatra to stop messing around reframes Cleopatra’s clever plot to smuggle herself aboard the ship in a carpet to see Caesar as a less a heroic political maneuver and more a childish ploy to get his attention. The bag that hit and sank Apollodorus’s ship is undoubtedly the bag of prisoners’ letters that Britannus brought Caesar. It’s a bit of absurd and coincidental humor that this bag ends up destroying the group’s only option of escaping the island. Symbolically, perhaps, it also suggests that Caesar’s merciful nature can sometimes backfire on him, and it might have served him better to exercise vengeance over clemency, seeing as how it was his desire to pardon rather than punish the letter writers that propelled him to throw the bag into the sea without reading any of the letters.
Themes
Literary Devices
Frazzled but unharmed, Cleopatra gets up, rests her head against Caesar’s chest, and begs him not to leave her to lead his soldiers into battle. Rufio angrily tells Cleopatra that the men will perish if Caesar doesn’t lead them, but Cleopatra insists that soldiers’ lives don’t matter. Caesar orders Apollodorus to take Cleopatra back to the palace. She protests, insisting that everybody there wants to kill her. Caesar tells Cleopatra that the soldiers’ lives are just as important as hers, so it’s essential that he’s there to lead them into battle.
Cleopatra’s behavior in this scene reaffirms that scheming to see Caesar is less a political plot than the product of her childish obsession with him. She fails to understand the high stakes of the ongoing civil war and has no regard for the lives of soldiers. Her interest in being the ruler of Egypt has nothing to do with political power or leadership and more to do with laying claim to something her brother wants. Again, though, Shaw’s portrayal of Cleopatra is sympathetic. She’s a selfish child who can’t see beyond her own desires, not a heartless authoritarian leader.
Themes
Britannus frantically calls down from the parapet to announce that the Egyptians have arrived at the barricade at the west harbor. Caesar bemoans the Romans stationed at the barricade who will now die due to his miscalculations. Rufio blames Caesar for letting Cleopatra distract him from strategizing effectively. Apollodorus returns from the shore. He informs the group that he has dropped the ladder into the sea. While this ensures that the Egyptians can’t reach the group, it also traps them at the lighthouse.
Caesar’s characteristics as a leader come through more in this scene, in which he places his anxieties about the soldiers he commands above concern for himself. The placement of this scene directly after Cleopatra has suggested that the soldiers’ lives don’t matter further emphasizes their opposing principles as leaders. Caesar’s age and experience give him more empathy for others than Cleopatra has.
Themes
Apollodorus tells the group that he can swim to the harbor and send a ship to retrieve them. Caesar suggests that the rest of them swim, too. Rufio points out that Caesar is twice Apollodorus’s age and might not be up for such strenuous activity. Rufio’s slight offends Caesar, and he decides to be the first of them to jump into the water. Caesar tells Rufio to throw Cleopatra into the water once Caesar rises to the surface and then jump in himself. Britannus can’t swim, so Caesar tells him to wait for the rest of them in the lighthouse. Caesar jumps into the water. Cleopatra squirms and shrieks as Rufio tosses her into the sea and then jumps in himself. After a while, Britannus hears cheering coming from the distant sea, signaling that the others have reached the harbor and secured a ship.
Caesar is pragmatic and level-headed under normal circumstances, but it’s clear that his enthusiasm about jumping into the sea is less a practical matter of survival than an impassioned effort to prove that he is still strong and physically capable despite his advanced (relative to Apollodorus) age. That Caesar and Rufio decide to throw Cleopatra into the water without consulting her further establishes her as a young person incapable of making decisions about herself and others. Once more, Caesar handles Cleopatra as though she were his child, not a political peer.
Themes
