Caesar and Cleopatra depicts Cleopatra as a stereotypically naive 16-year-old prone to impulsivity, irrationality, and selfishness, and it suggests that her youth hinders her ability to gain and hold onto power. Cleopatra’s feud with Ptolemy over the Egyptian throne is less a political conflict than a senseless spat between siblings who don’t like to share. In Act II, for instance, Cleopatra has to physically resist the impulse to stick her tongue out at Ptolemy when he suggests that he wouldn’t hesitate to behead her, should the opportunity present itself. Cleopatra’s immaturity in this otherwise grave circumstance illustrates how her youth and inexperience compromise her ability to be an effective leader. Throughout the play, she repeatedly undermines her goal of reclaiming her royal throne with her inability to conduct herself pragmatically and in the manner of a seasoned politician and soldier like Caesar. For instance, Caesar regularly demonstrates his ability to consider the long-term consequences of his actions. He offers clemency to his foes in Alexandria because he views it as a political strategy through which he can establish a foundation of peace between Alexandria’s Egyptian people and the occupying Roman population. Cleopatra, in contrast, acts on impulse to secure instant gratification. When she orders Ftatateeta to kill Pothinus in Act IV, for example, she does so only to accomplish the immediate goal of punishing Pothinus for insulting her. She fails to consider how the execution of a well-liked public figure might present more significant problems for her and Caesar down the road. In short, her youthful selfishness, shortsightedness, and impulsivity undermine her ability to govern effectively—even in situations where she strives to make decisions on her own rather than emulating Caesar. Cleopatra’s ineffective governance, in turn, suggests that age and experience play a critical role in determining how much power a person can yield. In this light, Cleopatra’s errors of judgment—and even her ruthlessness—become less the mark of an unhinged, incompetent leader than they are a consequence of her youth and inexperience.
It also bears noting that although the play doesn’t explicitly delve into the issue of gender, there are numerous instances where characters devalue or exhibit a bias against women, such as when Caesar immediately sits on Cleopatra’s royal throne at the end of Act I but refuses to sit in Ptolemy’s in Act II. This suggests that gender, like age and experience, significantly impacts a person’s ability to yield power effectively.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Age, Experience, and Power ThemeTracker
Age, Experience, and Power Quotes in Caesar and Cleopatra
Cleopatra is not yet a woman: neither is she wise. But she already troubles men’s wisdom.
In the little world yonder, Sphinx, my place is as high as yours in this great desert; only I wander, and you sit still; I conquer, and you endure; I work and wonder, you watch and wait; I look up and am dazzled, look down and am darkened, look round and am puzzled, whilst your eyes never turn from looking out—out of the world—to the lost region—the home from which we have strayed. Sphinx, you and I, strangers to the race of men, are no strangers to one another: have I not been conscious of you and of this place since I was born? Rome is a madman's dream: this is my Reality.
Of course not: I am the Queen; and I shall live in the palace at Alexandria when I have killed my brother, who drove me out of it. When I am old enough I shall do just what I like. I shall be able to poison the slaves and see them wriggle, and pretend to Ftatateeta that she is going to be put into the fiery furnace.
CLEOPATRA [very seriously] Oh, they would eat us if they caught us. They are barbarians. Their chief is called Julius Caesar. His father was a tiger and his mother a burning mountain; and his nose is like an elephant’s trunk [Caesar involuntarily rubs his nose]. They all have long noses, and ivory tusks, and little tails, and seven arms with a hundred arrows in each; and they live on human flesh.
Ptolemy: Yes—the gods would not suffer—not suffer—[He stops; then, crestfallen] I forgot what the gods would not suffer.
THEODOTUS: Let Pothinus, the King’s guardian, speak for the King.
POTHINUS [suppressing his impatience with difficulty] The King wishes to say that the gods would not suffer the impiety of his sister to go unpunished.
CAESAR. Cleopatra: I really think I must eat you, after all.
CLEOPATRA (kneeling beside him and looking at him with eager interest, half real, half affected to show how intelligent she is). You must not talk to me now as if I were a child.
CAESAR. You have been growing up since the Sphinx introduced us the other night; and you think you know more than I do already.
CLEOPATRA (taken down, and anxious to justify herself). No: that would be very silly of me: of course I know that. But, (suddenly) are you angry with me?
CAESAR. No.
CLEOPATRA (only half believing him). Then why are you so thoughtful?
CAESAR (rising). I have work to do, Cleopatra.
CLEOPATRA (drawing back). Work! (Offended) You are tired of talking to me; and that is your excuse to get away from me.
CHARMIAN. He makes you so terribly prosy and serious and learned and philosophical.
CLEOPATRA: When I was foolish, I did what I liked, except when Ftatateeta beat me; and even then I cheated her and did it by stealth. Now that Caesar has made me wise, it is no use my liking or disliking; I do what must be done, and have no time to attend to myself. That is not happiness; but it is greatness. If Caesar were gone, I think I could govern the Egyptians; for what Caesar is to me, I am to the fools around me.
POTHINUS (looking hard at her). Cleopatra: this may be the vanity of youth.
CLEOPATRA: Love me! Pothinus: Caesar loves no one. Who are those we love? Only those whom we do not hate: all people are strangers and enemies to us except those we love. But it is not so with Caesar. He has no hatred in him: he makes friends with everyone as he does with dogs and children.
POTHINUS. From her own lips I have heard it. You are to be her catspaw: you are to tear the crown from her brother's head and set it on her own, delivering us all into her hand—delivering yourself also. And then Caesar can return to Rome, or depart through the gate of death, which is nearer and surer.
CAESAR (calmly). Well, my friend; and is not this very natural?
POTHINUS (astonished). Natural! Then you do not resent treachery?
CAESAR. Resent! O thou foolish Egyptian, what have I to do with resentment? Do I resent the wind when it chills me, or the night when it makes me stumble in the darkness? Shall I resent youth when it turns from age, and ambition when it turns from servitude? To tell me such a story as this is but to tell me that the sun will rise to-morrow.
CLEOPATRA (sinking back trembling on the bench and covering her face with her hands). I have not betrayed you, Caesar: I swear it.
CAESAR. I know that. I have not trusted you.
CAESAR. If one man in all the world can be found, now or forever, to know that you did wrong, that man will have either to conquer the world as I have, or be crucified by it. […] These knockers at your gate are also believers in vengeance and in stabbing. You have slain their leader: it is right that they shall slay you. […] then in the name of that right (He emphasizes the word with great scorn.) shall I not slay them for murdering their Queen, and be slain in my turn by their countrymen as the invader of their fatherland? Can Rome do less than slay these slayers too, to show the world how Rome avenges her sons and her honor? And so, to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honor and peace, until the gods are tired of blood and create a race that can understand. […]
CAESAR (energetically). On my head be it, then; for it was well done. Rufio: had you set yourself in the seat of the judge, and with hateful ceremonies and appeals to the gods handed that woman over to some hired executioner to be slain before the people in the name of justice, never again would I have touched your hand without a shudder. But this was natural slaying: I feel no horror at it.
