SOURCE: "Shakespeare's Caesar's Plan," in Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, Vol. 10, No. 2 & 3, May & September, 1982, pp. 223-50.

Below, Lowenthal argues that Shakespeare portrays the character Julius Caesar as a great but ruthless leader, uninterested in either justice or the welfare of the common people but focused instead on the continuance of Caesarism.

Only one of Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays deals with an historical figure of the first rank. Coriolanus, Antony, Cleopatra, Henry V were of lesser greatness; Macbeth, Lear, Hamlet would have been lost in historical obscurity but for Shakespeare himself. With Julius Caesar, however, Shakespeare chose a man of almost unrivalled glory. Why Caesar and no other? Why four of ten tragedies about ancient Rome? What was Shakespeare's understanding of Caesar and Rome?

Designed in such a way as to mirror the complexity of their subjects, Shakespeare's plays were all bound to elicit a variety of interpretations and...