Note 94 — BRUTUS

From these words the reader may believe that the conspirators feared that very courage of which Caesar himself proves deficient. But by courage, Cassius here means sheer physical bravery, an attribute which no reader either of Pescetti or of Shakespeare can deny him. The courage Caesar lacked was that of his own convictions. Like Macbeth, the known had no terrors for him, but like the Scottish king, he is confounded by the unseen. No Roman could have found fault with a man for heeding the warning of the gods. The historical Caesar, it is true, oft expressed his contempt for omens, while the Caesar of the drama professes to disregard them. But his disregard is superficial, and apparently the result of an attitude which we cannot but attribute to a belief in his own semi-divine being. Rather than be suspected of feelings common enough to ordinary mortals, Caesar deludes himself by a process of self-hypnotism, and is led to his doom, a victim of his lack of true courage, a sacrifice to his own inordinate vanity.