Caesar and Cleopatra premiered in 1899, at the tail end of a century during which the British Empire’s most significant expansion of power took place in Africa. At its height in 1922, the Empire spanned a quarter of the world and ruled over 450 million people. George Bernard Shaw belonged to a leftist organization called the Fabian Society. While Fabians advocated for the protection of the human rights of people who lived in colonies under British rule, they didn’t reject imperial expansion altogether. In fact, the Fabian Society supported imperial expansion. This belief rested on the notion that the world naturally evolved into big, powerful states and that British imperial policy could be an instrument of progress, spreading effective, just governance throughout the world. The view that the expansion and development of civilization are inexorably linked with progress is present throughout the play. Julius Caesar repeatedly declares his belief in the power of the Roman Empire to advance society. When, in Act V, Apollodorus accuses Rome of producing no art, Caesar protests, asking Apollodorus: “Is peace not an art? Is war not an art? Is government not an art? Is civilization not an art?”
At the same time, the play offers ample criticism of imperialist expansion. While Caesar can justifiably praise certain achievements wrought through the expansion of the Roman Empire, his unwavering support of imperialist expansion also causes him to devalue and misunderstand the complexities of Ancient Egyptian culture. In Act II, for instance, Caesar’s disregard for Egyptian culture and the past allows the library of Alexandria to burn, destroying priceless historical artifacts. Caesar and Cleopatra’s examination of the Roman Empire’s occupation of Egypt offers a lens through which the reader may critique the British imperialist expansion of Shaw’s contemporary England and other cultural practices of the mid-Victorian era. At a broader level, Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra challenges the notion that technological advancement and the expansion of civilization are inherently tied to progress.
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Empire, Civilization, and Progress Quotes in Caesar and Cleopatra
Ye poor posterity, think not that ye are the first. Other fools before ye have seen the sun rise and set, and the moon change her shape and her hour. As they were so ye are; and yet not so great; for the pyramids my people built stand to this day; whilst the dustheaps on which ye slave, and which ye call empires, scatter in the wind even as ye pile your dead sons’ bodies on them to make yet more dust.
All this ye shall see; and ye shall marvel, after your ignorant manner, that men twenty centuries ago were already just such as you, and spoke and lived as ye speak and live, no worse and no better, no wiser and no sillier.
The palace, an old, low, Syrian building of whitened mud, is not so ugly as Buckingham Palace; and the officers in the courtyard are more highly civilized than modern English officers: for example, they do not dig up the corpses of their dead enemies and mutilate them, as we have dug up Cromwell and the Mahdi.
They care nothing about cowardice, these Romans: they fight to win. The pride and honor of war are nothing to them.
BELZANOR [with solemn arrogance] Ftatateeta: I am Belzanor, the captain of the Queen’s guard, descended from the gods.
FTATATEETA [retorting his arrogance with interest] Belzanor: I am Ftatateeta, the Queen’s chief nurse; and your divine ancestors were proud to be painted on the wall in the pyramids whom my fathers served.
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.
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 [recovering his self-possession] Pardon him, Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
CAESAR. Vengeance! Vengeance!! Oh, if I could stoop to vengeance, what would I not exact from you as the price of this murdered man's blood. (They shrink back, appalled and disconcerted.) Was he not my son-in-law, my ancient friend, for 20 years the master of great Rome, for 30 years the compeller of victory? Did not I, as a Roman, share his glory? Was the Fate that forced us to fight for the mastery of the world, of our making? Am I Julius Caesar, or am I a wolf, that you fling to me the grey head of the old soldier, the laurelled conqueror, the mighty Roman, treacherously struck down by this callous ruffian, and then claim my gratitude for it! (To Lucius Septimius) Begone: you fill me with horror.
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.
THEODOTUS. What is burning there is the memory of mankind.
CAESAR. A shameful memory. Let it burn.
THEODOTUS (wildly). Will you destroy the past?
CAESAR. Ay, and build the future with its ruins.
APOLLODORUS. I do not keep a shop. Mine is a temple of the arts. I am a worshipper of beauty. My calling is to choose beautiful things for beautiful Queens. My motto is Art for Art's sake.
CAESAR. In the fire. Would you have me waste the next three years of my life in proscribing and condemning men who will be my friends when I have proved that my friendship is worth more than Pompey's was—than Cato's is. O incorrigible British islander: am I a bull dog, to seek quarrels merely to show how stubborn my jaws are?
APOLLODORUS. I understand, Caesar. Rome will produce no art itself; but it will buy up and take away whatever the other nations produce.
CAESAR. What! Rome produces no art! Is peace not an art? Is war not an art? Is government not an art? Is civilization not an art? All these we give you in exchange for a few ornaments. You will have the best of the bargain. […]
