Rick Bowers, University of Alberta

Those critics of Antony and Cleopatra who touch on the subject of Caesar's involvement are usually brief and disparaging before moving on to consider the principal love interest or to draw cultural comparisons between Egypt and Rome. Janet Adelman calls Caesar 'the exemplar of measure' in the play, while Dipak Nandy characterizes him as 'the epitome of the Renaissance "politique" '.¹ J. Leeds Barroll's lengthy characterization of Octavius reinforced the efficient but enigmatic nature of the character, while Lord David Cecil expressed guarded admiration in his study, describing Caesar as 'far-sighted, cool, self-controlled, and so single-mindedly intent on the achievement of his ambition, that nothing, neither the happiness of his sister nor a genuine feeling of pity for Antony in his fall, can turn him from it'.² More recently David Bevington, in his introduction to the New Cambridge Shakespeare, seems to have registered...