One of Caesar and Cleopatra’s chief concerns is what constitutes an effective leader. In particular, the play grapples with how best to maintain order, control, and a sense of justice among one’s subjects. To do this, the play presents two radically different approaches to discipline and governance. On one side of the spectrum is Julius Caesar, a merciful leader who grants clemency liberally and indiscriminately, regardless of whether he’s dealing with an ally or an enemy. Caesar’s distaste for unnecessary bloodshed often puts him at odds with his lead officer, Rufio, who curses Caesar for letting undeserving subjects escape the consequences of their crimes. For instance, even though Caesar and the Roman general and statesman Pompey had been rivals, Caesar takes no pleasure in learning that Pompey has been assassinated. Caesar’s guiding moral principle is to inflict physical violence upon other humans as little as possible, no matter the risk such a stance might pose to personal pride or national security.
In contrast, Cleopatra proves to be a ruthless leader with an insatiable appetite for vengeance and violence. She has fantasies about poisoning her enslaved people and watching them squirm in pain, and she regularly uses the threat of violence to coerce her subjects into submission. She even admits that she would have no qualms about beheading her own brother if that was what it took for her to regain her rightful claim to the throne. One of Cleopatra’s final acts of violence goes horribly awry when she defies Caesar and orders Ftatateeta to assassinate Pothinus (Ptolemy’s guardian), initiating a city-wide uprising. Caesar admonishes Cleopatra for her misguided action. He suggests that she has initiated an infinite loop of violence where the wronged inflict violence on the wronged, each convinced that they are doing so “in the name of right and honor and peace,” all the while allowing “murder [to] breed murder” and perpetuating a cycle of senseless violence. Shaw juxtaposes Caesar’s merciful nature with Cleopatra’s ruthlessness to illustrate the complexity of meting out punishment and the fragile, imperfect nature of justice.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Vengeance vs. Mercy ThemeTracker
Vengeance vs. Mercy Quotes in Caesar and Cleopatra
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.
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. 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?
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.
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.
