At the end of the play, the eponymous tragic hero Antony has lost the Battle of Actium and ultimately commits suicide after the defeat. It is for this reason that many would say that Caesar achieved a complete victory over his rival; However, is it that simple? Even though Caesar won a military victory in the battle that takes place at the climax of the play, this does not necessarily mean that he won a complete victory. The play is not only about a military conflict and, likewise, the winner of the play cannot be decided solely on the basis of the Battle of Actium. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay. On the one hand, the title of the play refers to both Antony and Cleopatra and makes no reference to Caesar; This is because in the midst of political conflicts and strife, this play is about love. Antony has such a strong love for Cleopatra that for her he would “let Rome melt into the Tiber” and for him she would “depopulate Egypt”. For each other, they would give up their titles and epithets, their power and everything they previously stood for. Antony was the epitome of the Roman man and Cleopatra's name was synonymous with her country, in her final moments as he died in her arms. Antony said: “I am dying, Egypt, I am dying”. Being willing to give up everything for each other shows how strong their feelings are, but Caesar has no such connection with anyone. Caesar is shown alone; his cold, calculating and Machiavellian nature portrays him as a very opposed bureaucrat, even incapable of showing his emotions for much of the play. Her refusal to ever engage in prose shows her calculating and economical tendencies and her eagerness to deliver her sister to his enemy despite claims that she is a sister "that no brother / ever loved so dearly" can bring the public to doubt. his emotional abilities. When discussing Antony's absence with Lepidus, he says "the man in ebb, never loved until he was not worth love", which is essentially complaining about the fact that people will always complain about the current leader and hope for a new one until the new leader takes power. in which case they will continue to complain about him, he thinks people can't see a good emperor when he is right in front of them. Although it is simply his verdict on how politics works, it is expressed in aphoristic language, the repetition of "love" and the current anger directed at Antony may lead the audience to believe that Caesar is jealous of the love that Cleopatra gives to Antony. If Antony has something that Caesar cannot, then surely Caesar's victory cannot be considered completely complete. Plus, you could even say it's a small victory for Antony if Caesar is truly jealous, which isn't hard to believe as it's shown. It is not unusual for Caesar to feel jealous of Antony. Caesar never received the same respect as Antony and probably never will. A recurring motif in the play is the mythologization of Antoine both by himself and by others, often choral figures who show the general public's view of Antoine. His eyes are "like those of veneered Mars", he can "speak as loud as Mars" and his relationship with Cleopatra is likened to "what Venus did with Mars". He is often compared to the Roman god of war, but the only mention of Caesar as mythological is a joke, mocking Lepidus's eagerness to flatter Caesar when Enobarbus says "Caesar?" Well, it's the Jupiter ofmen." To which Agrippa replies: “What is Antony? The god of Jupiter. Even from this light-hearted joke at Lepidus' expense, the choral figures of Agrippa and Enobarbus show a clear sense of a perceived hierarchy in which Antony is above Caesar. The reason Agrippa and Enobarbus find it amusing to say this is clearly because in their eyes, and therefore in the eyes of the masses, Caesar does not deserve such mythologization or respect. Enobarbus shows this again in his dialogue with Lepidus upon the arrival of Antony and Caesar in which Lepidus says: "Here is the noble Anton." and Enobarbus then said: “And there, Caesar.” Antony receives an epithet, as is often the case in the play, but Caesar does not. While Antony is flattered (perhaps unduly) throughout the play, Caesar is mocked. In his first mention in the play, he is referred to as "the rare-bearded Caesar", mocking him for his youth and therefore his perceived inability to be emperor. This contrasts with the moment in the play where Enobarbus fantasizes about what it would be like to become emperor. to be the “bearer of Antonius’s beard”. Antony is further linked to masculinity while Caesar is established as a childish figure, deserving neither the respect nor the position he occupies. When Caesar declaims: “He calls me boy and reprimands me because he had power,” he behaves like the very person Antony constantly compares him to, a child, and this outburst represents an abandonment of his Machiavellian principles. Caesar's victory cannot be truly complete if he never gets the respect that his defeated rival demanded and one could even say that simply angering Caesar with the insults is a small victory for Antony. What is arguably Antony's final victory against Caesar is his death. . Although this seems contradictory, it is important to note that he died on his own terms, he is "a Roman by a valiantly defeated Roman." Antony, by putting it this way, relives his days of glory as a warrior; he simultaneously died an honorable death in battle and prevented Caesar from committing suicide in battle. His name became synonymous with the idea of ​​a Roman hero, as Philo said "when he is not Antony / he lacks too much of that great property / which should still go with Antony". To possess the quality of being like Antoine is to be an almost divine legend. The only thing greater than an “Antoine” would be the winner of an “Antoine,” and in his final moments, he managed to be both. By removing Caesar from the picture, the audience perceives him as unimportant, both in Antony's death and in general. It is Antony who triumphs at this point, while Caesar brushes aside his other potential adversary, lying about the reasoning and saying it was because "Lepidus had become too cruel." he could not defeat Antoine because it was Antoine himself who took this victory from him. As Cleopatra says, “none but Antony / should conquer Antony.” His death is also a triumph in that he dies in the arms of his lover, Cleopatra. Caesar's only goal in this play was to bring Antony back to Rome, away from her. So it must have been a crushing defeat when Antony died not only far from Rome, in Egypt, but also in the arms of the woman against whom Caesar was powerless. the fight for Antoine. Caesar has proven himself incapable of destroying the relationship between Antony and Cleopatra and since this was his goal from the beginning of the play, this is obviously a huge failure on Caesar's part. His original intentions were to regain Antony's help as he had to bear "so great a weight in his lightness", but Caesar has lost Antony and Lepidus and is ultimately left alone to rule an empire that will be much more difficult tocontrol without any control. the support of those who were once his friends. This not only raises the question of whether Caesar's victory is "complete", but also whether it can even be considered a victory. Although Antony did not conquer Caesar per se, this does not necessarily mean that Caesar conquered Antony, it seems that this play instead ends with a situation in which there are no winners. He himself, in the last words of the piece, recognizes that it is a matter of “great solemnity”. After all, can we really see it as a victory for Caesar when the repercussions will directly disadvantage him? It is impossible to deny that Caesar has put him in a position in which he has no rival, he has won the battle at the climax of the play and he has thus secured his position as ruler of the greatest empire in the world. This cannot in any way be considered a victory in itself, regardless of any other factors. Caesar is shown to have a clear understanding of military tactics as he challenges Antony to fight him at sea, which he and Antony know to be his weakness. Caesar predicts that Antony's pride will triumph over all reason and he is right when Antony proclaims "I will fight at sea." Antony's pride and stubbornness are at the origin of his downfall, he is begged by a soldier "O noble emperor, do not fight by sea" but even this flattery fails to convince him and "The most great song of the world is lost / with much ignorance". Public opinion of Antony is clearly wrong because he is not the "Mars-like" military hero he once was, but a deluded and stubborn old man who has "embraced / Kingdoms and provinces". He is said to have "embraced" them because his ignorance and blind pride are the result of his infatuation with Cleopatra, which is one of Antony's crucial weaknesses in the play if you want to see it through Caesar's eyes The irony is that if we have to base our conclusion on the results of this battle, then it is Caesar who most deserves the comparisons to Mars, Antony is no longer there. man he once was and he is beaten with relative ease by someone he previously thought of as a child. Antony is a bathetic character who was once a legendary military hero but has recently become an "old rascal" and a "trumpet fool", there is however no bathos in Caesar's character, while he does not never had and perhaps never will have the respect that Antoine once had in his prime, at least there was no disgrace on his part. We can see this by the use of epithets throughout the play, while Caesar was rarely given any at any point in the play, it is notable that towards the end of the play the number of epithets used to refer to Antoine decreases considerably. represents the public's awareness that he is no longer "an Antoine". This can be demonstrated, for example, in the lines of one of Antony's unnamed soldiers. He refers to Antony as his "noble emperor", which is not even true (he is not an emperor) and thus shows how much he respects him and gives in to flattery, however, the same soldier removes later any epithet and therefore any sign. of respect and simply calls him “Antony”. He has lost respect not only because he cannot live up to his own reputation, but also because he has betrayed everything he once stood for. Antony was the epitome of what a Roman should be, but he abandoned his home and his people and, in the first lines of the play, expresses his indifference to Rome by saying: "Let the broad fall ark / of the remote empire! » He becomes aggressive and violent, as shown by his whipping.