The Estimation of the Noble Romans in Divers Ages

By David Trumbull COPYRIGHT, 2006

THE AGES AND THE MEN
JULIUS CAESAR, 100-44 B.C.
Classical Age
Our representative writer is Plutarch

A life destined for great things.

The most signal preternatural appearances were the great comet, which shone very bright for seven nights after Caesar's death, and then disappeared, and the dimness of the sun, whose orb continued pale and dull for the whole of that year, never showing its ordinary radiance at its rising... The fruits, for that reason, never properly ripened, and began to wither and fall off for want of heat, before they were fully formed. But above all, the phantom which appeared to Brutus showed the murder was not pleasing to the gods.
The Christian Middle Ages
Our representative writer is Dante
In the Purgatorio the life of Caesar is held up to the slothful as a laudable example of swift military action.
    Purgatorio, Canto 18.
Dante encounters Caesar on Terrace 7 --the topmost before the earthly paradise-- where he is being purged of lust on account of his sodomy with the king of Bithynia, rather than in Circle 7 of Hell with the other sodomites who practiced violence against nature.
    Purgatorio, Canto 26.
Rennaisance
Our representative writer is Shakespeare

He towers above his contemporaries and even in death is a major force.

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.
    Julius Caesar, I:2.

O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet!
Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords
In our own proper entrails.

    Julius Caesar, V:3.