Caesar and Cleopatra

When Caesar first meets Cleopatra, she is an immature 16-year-old girl who believes horror stories about the Romans and is still scared of being punished by her nurse. She shares the throne of Egypt with her brother but has been pushed out into Syria. Using her late father as an example, she sees power as something that is bestowed through royal bloodline rather than something that is earned through discipline and work.

Desperate for guidance, Cleopatra follows Caesar and obeys his orders. He awakens her sense of power, and she takes to it immediately. But unlike Caesar, she has no qualms about killing, and sees the lives of those who are subordinate to her as disposable. She follows Caesar, ravenous for his attention and wisdom, but soon proves that she is much more than a child and Caesar’s acolyte. She is, as she says, a descendent of gods, and possesses a mystical power that baffles Caesar.

When she defies Caesar and orders the death of Pothinus, she demonstrates her instincts as a capable yet ruthless leader. Despite Caesar’s disapproval, the other characters raise the question as to whether her actions are in fact justified, challenging the efficacy of Caesar’s leadership style and decision-making.

Queen’s Cleopatra’s chief nurse, Ftatateeta, is a large, solid older woman with a wrinkled face, “the mouth of a bloodhound and the jaws of a bulldog” (13). She is stately and proud, descended those people who served kings, and she is a substantial person in the palace. Ftatateeta raised Cleopatra and has no fear about punishing the queen or berating her like a child, until Caesar pushes Cleopatra to assert her authority over her nurse as a servant.

Although Ftatateeta continues to be humorously outspoken, she also demonstrates a fierce love and devotion for Cleopatra. She encourages her and frets over her safety. When Cleopatra orders Ftatateeta to kill Pothinus, she does it without question. Her intense loyalty to Cleopatra leads Rufio to decide that Ftatateeta is a threat who must be killed, to which Caesar agrees.

One of Caesar’s loyal officers, Rufio is by his side throughout the play. Rufio is less trusting than Caesar and doesn’t understand why Caesar constantly bothers to allow his enemies to live. He also doesn’t trust Cleopatra and brings Pothinus to speak his suspicions about her to Caesar. Rufio agrees that Pothinus needed to die, but also kills Ftatateeta because he sees her as a threat for killing him. Rufio is surprised when Caesar appoints him governor, since he has no noble blood, but Caesar asserts that he sees him as a son.

Britannus is Caesar’s British slave, and the way he is depicted is particularly significant because Shaw wrote for the British theatre and used his plays to criticize society and bring up important issues. In Shaw’s notes in the text, he comments that Britannus may seem like an anachronism, but defends his choice to make him speak and act like a contemporary Brit.

Britannus may be enslaved, but he is loyal to Caesar. At the end of the play, Caesar praises him for acting more like a free man than a slave. Britannus explains that he is freer as Caesar’s slave than he was as his own man. Britannus becomes a sort of ideal British citizen, subscribing to Caesar’s noble ideals and placing the greater good over personal freedom. 

Cleopatra’s 10-year-old brother, Ptolemy, is the king who shares the throne of Egypt with Cleopatra as queen. The two siblings are legally married, as is the custom for Ancient Egyptian royalty, but they are at war with each other to rule the country. Ptolemy is very much a child who is incapable of ruling for himself. He gives the court a speech that was written by Pothinus, his guardian, and which he has poorly memorized and attempts to recite.

When Ptolemy fights with Cleopatra over Egypt, they are like young siblings arguing over a toy. Pothinus and the other adults around Ptolemy defend his right to the throne because as a child, Ptolemy presents an opportunity for them to rule Egypt by using the boy as a puppet. The acts that are attributed to Ptolemy, such as beheading Pompey and banishing Cleopatra to Syria, are undoubtedly the work of Pothinus and other adults who have his ear.

Ptolemy responds guilelessly to Caesar’s friendliness, and when his advisors are sent from the room, Ptolemy sits passively until Rufio ushers him out. In the final battle, Ptolemy drowns when Caesar attacks his ship, leaving Cleopatra as the sole leader of Egypt.

Pothinus appears as Ptolemy’s guardian, prompting the boy as he tries to give a speech. Caesar dismisses him first, but then takes him prisoner. Caesar barely remembers him when he resurfaces, surprised that Pothinus refused to escape as he had hoped he would. Pothinus is fighting for Ptolemy to remain in control of the throne because as the boy king’s guardian, Pothinus would hold power by telling the child what to do. He threatens to tell Caesar that Cleopatra wants him to go back to Rome, and when Cleopatra dismisses him, he follows through.

Insulted, Cleopatra orders his death, unaware that he is in fact a popular figure; his assassination causes a riot. Ironically, although Caesar disapproves of the killing in the play, the real-life Julius Caesar ordered Pothinus’s execution himself.