Two tribunes, Flavius and Murellus, enter a Roman street, along with various commoners. Flavius and Murellus derisively order the commoners to return home and get back to work: “What, know you not, / Being mechanical, you ought not walk / Upon a labouring day without the sign / Of your profession?” (I.i.2–5). Murellus engages a cobbler in a lengthy inquiry about his profession; misinterpreting the cobbler’s punning replies, Murellus quickly grows angry with him. Flavius interjects to ask why the cobbler is not in his shop working. The cobbler explains that he is taking a holiday from work in order to observe the triumph (a lavish parade celebrating military victory)—he wants to watch Caesar’s procession through the city, which will include the captives won in a recent battle against his archrival Pompey.

Murellus scolds the cobbler and attempts to diminish the significance of Caesar’s victory over Pompey and his consequent triumph. “What conquest brings he home? / What tributaries follow him [Caesar] to Rome / To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?” Murellus asks, suggesting that Caesar’s victory does not merit a triumph since it involves no conquering of a foreign foe to the greater glory of Rome (I.i.31–33). Murellus reminds the commoners of the days when they used to gather to watch and cheer for Pompey’s triumphant returns from battle. Now, however, due to a mere twist of fate, they rush out to celebrate his downfall. Murellus scolds them further for their disloyalty, ordering them to “pray to the gods to intermit the plague / That needs must light on this ingratitude” (I.i.53–54).

The commoners leave, and Flavius instructs Murellus to go to the Capitol, a hill on which rests a temple on whose altars victorious generals offer sacrifice, and remove any crowns placed on statues of Caesar. Flavius adds that he will thin the crowds of commoners observing the triumph and directs Murellus to do likewise, for if they can regulate Caesar’s popular support, they will be able to regulate his power (“These growing feathers plucked from Caesar’s wing / Will make him fly an ordinary pitch” [I.i.71–72]).

Analysis

Although the play opens with Flavius and Murellus noting the fickle nature of the public’s devotion—the crowd now celebrates Caesar’s defeat of Pompey when once it celebrated Pompey’s victories—loyalty to Caesar nonetheless appears to be growing with exceptional force. Caesar’s power and influence are likewise strong: Flavius and Murellus are later punished for removing the decorations from Caesar’s statues.

It is interesting to note the difference between the manner in which Flavius and Murellus conceive of the cobbler and that in which Shakespeare has created him. The cobbler is a typically Shakespearean character—a host of puns and bawdy references reveal his dexterity with language (“all that I live by is with the awl. I meddle / with no tradesman’s matters, nor women’s matters” [I.i.21–22]). The tribunes, however, preoccupied with class distinctions, view the cobbler as nothing more than a plebeian ruffian. Flavius’s reproach of the cobbler for not having his tools about him on a workday reveals his belief that a laborer can be good for one thing and one thing only: laboring. Murellus similarly assumes the cobbler is stupid, although, ironically, it is Murellus himself who misunderstands the cobbler’s answers to his questions. Murellus is unwilling to interpret the cobbler’s shift in allegiance from Pompey to Caesar as anything but a manifestation of dim-witted forgetfulness.

Flavius and Murellus’s concern about Caesar’s meteoric rise to power reflects English sentiment during the Elizabethan age about the consolidation of power in other parts of Europe. The strengthening of the absolutist monarchies in such sovereignties as France and Spain during the sixteenth century threatened the stability of the somewhat more balanced English political system, which, though it was hardly democratic in the modern sense of the word, at least provided nobles and elected representatives with some means of checking royal authority. Caesar’s ascendance helped to effect Rome’s transition from republic to empire, and Shakespeare’s depiction of the prospect of Caesar’s assumption of dictatorial power can be seen as a comment upon the gradual shift toward centralization of power that was taking place in Europe.

It is a chapter of Rome king know as Julius Caesar.This chapter tells us how the conspirators killed the Julius Caesar.