1. The
first time Caesar knew about Caesar was when he saw a children’s version of Julius Caesar in the book corner of the school when he was a child. There is also a copy of "Cleopatra", these two constitute my initial impression of ancient Rome. When I read this story when I was a child, I felt inexplicable. The most inexplicable thing was why Caesar was killed. Later, I studied literary history and read the full text of Julius Caesar. After watching the TV series and reading some historical materials, I seem to understand it now. Caesar is Caesar, great Caesar, unique Caesar. He's so deserving of love that losing his love would be crazy enough.
Caesar in the play is not the handsome uncle in the brain, but he has thick eyebrows, big eyes, square chin, and a very majestic look. As soon as he appeared on the stage, I felt that this person seemed to have words written on his face, leaning on his left face, and notation on his right face. He is brave, he is heroic, he is confident, and he is cunning in details. But even if he knew that he was playing with power, he didn't feel it was hypocritical. He looked so strong, so sincere, so reliable, with the confidence and generosity of a strong man, moving like an eagle and still like a mountain. He beat Gaul, he beat Pompey, he beat Cato, he beat all the mighty enemies, he looked like the hero who could make Rome richer and stronger, he looked like he couldn't make mistakes and couldn't fail God.
However, Caesar is a human being, not a god. A human being has desires, a human being has weaknesses, and a human being can make mistakes. A series of mistakes, in exchange for the Senate's twenty-three knives. The blood stained the white robes, the towering green mountains suddenly collapsed, the pillars of the sky collapsed, and the earth shook. He fell to the ground, watching the traitors at the senatorial sword, watching dear Brutus emerge from the traitors and stab him with the fatal blow. There were tears in the eyes of both the murderer and the murdered. And you, Brutus. In the play, Caesar did not say the famous sentence in history, but used his last strength to lift his robe to cover his face. He was a proud Caesar until his death.
Some books say that Caesar died under the statue of Pompey. There is also a saying that at the time of Caesar's assassination, the original Senate was destroyed, and they met in Pompey's theater. People always like the story of reincarnation. The result of the story is the death of Caesar. He fell, on the eve of the collapse of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire, but the wheel of history will not stop. When Rome became a huge cosmopolitan state, the inefficient republic was destined to be replaced by a more efficient one. Caesar's blood could not save the rotten Roman Republic, but Caesar's legacy made the Roman Empire. Caesar is Caesar, great Caesar, unique Caesar. He has never been a king for a day, but generations of kings after him are named after him. He has not seen the Roman Empire for a day, but his name is deeply imprinted in history, like a synonym for kings. The collapsed peaks turned into mountains, laying the foundation for a new era.
2.
Marco Anthony in the Anthony TV series looks exactly like I imagined. He is a super handsome guy. . He looks like a big hero, and a flamboyant hero. It is conceivable that the eldest girl and the little daughter-in-law in Rome were crying and rushing over, and he would not refuse anyone who came. The enchanting ladies also slept, and the roadside girls slept. They acted intuitively, and they were righteous and strong.
Anthony is a man of men, full of masculine charm. His charm is so great that a slutty woman like Attia can move her true feelings for him, and a cunning woman like Cleopatra can shed tears for him. His charisma takes all men and women, so that a dead-headed person like the Golden Retriever Centurion loses his bottom line to work for him, and let Brutus let him get away from the scene of the sword-drawn murder. He is gentle and cruel, affectionate and ruthless. One second he can smile and call himself a brother, and the next second he will turn his face and use force; one second he can be affectionate and sworn, and the next second he will fall in love with another woman, and have two children. At this point, he's an asshole again, and he doesn't even blink his eyelids when he makes a mess. Attia was so angry that she wanted to beat him, Octavia said he was a scumbag, and the centurion said that his soul was sick.
Anthony is not a good politician, not a good husband, and not a good lover. He is a beautiful and strong beast, he belongs to the troubled world, belongs to the battlefield, and it is not in line with the nature of the beast to play tricks in the palace. With Cleopatra, it is not so much the marriage of Apollo and Isis, as the beast meets the tamer, the splendid Egyptian court, surrounded by wine and beauties, and the lion is simmered. Without a cat, the fangs and claws are useless, and the soul will naturally get sick. Fame, wealth and wealth are the bait for murder, and wine, sex and wealth are poisons that eat bones. Anthony, the dissatisfied big cat, happily ate them all. He went to ruin in the gentle township, and was tricked by his lover once.
He lost, he died. After his death, Anthony took off his unbearable Egyptian makeup, and turned back into a handsome and dignified general, and back into a great hero of Rome.
And the age of heroes is over.
Apollo returned to heaven.
3. Cicero has
studied Western literature or Western philosophy, and it is hard not to remember Cicero. I remember him seriously in the books of Western literature. He was a writer, philosopher, orator, Pan Jiang Luhai, a great talent of a generation. There will always be an illusion that this person is the old master in the ivory tower, burying his head in writing books in the vineyard. It's hard to imagine that he is also a political figure who has two boats, and it's hard to imagine that he has a very unphilosophical way to die.
Cicero in the play is not a scholar to be honest. As a representative of the old aristocratic forces in the play, he is an old fox of the Senate, an unscrupulous wallhead, and the number one survivor of the Roman Republic. This actor, who played Hitler, I saw him in the first season and always felt that Yuan was going to Hebei Province. Later, when I saw Cicero's sculpture, I found that the casting was extremely restored, and the sculpture was about the same length, so I accepted the character design. Once I accept this setting, I feel that the actor is very good, his face is full of drama, and he is the only one who can make me stop watching Anthony play handsome for the time being. The disadvantage is probably that he looks darker than the actual character... He obviously didn't know about the assassination of Caesar, but he was more excited than the assassin. He said that he didn't know, let alone Anthony. If I didn't watch it I don't believe in history either.
"Celebrity Biography" records that Cicero died on the way to escape, and the setting in the play is more decent. When I saw the plot of Cicero being killed, I completely realized that this old-fashioned fried dough stick still has integrity, or that the screenwriter left him some integrity. For his friends, for his ideals, he gave up the chance to escape and made a sacrificial burial for the Roman Republic. In the play, Cicero is almost in charge of black humor, and in the opposite play with Anthony, there is a feeling that a scholar meets a soldier and can't make sense, and he contributed a lot of laughs. In the end, Polo commented that "others are pretty good", and nailed the pair of hands that had written countless splendid articles to the gate of the Senate. In fact, he continued this line of thinking. I think in the scene of Cicero's death, the eagle in the sky symbolizes the progress of Rome; the peaches in the garden refer to the legacy of his academic achievements. As a political veteran, Cicero lost his power and his life, but as a philosopher and scholar, Cicero has been remembered by generations.
When watching the play, I was a little puzzled by the bloody drama of the loyal old slave who suddenly appeared when Cicero died. Later, I looked through the history of literature. The book said that many of Cicero's articles were handed down after his death. It was up to his friends and a freed slave who had worked for him as a scribe to sort it out, edit it, and publish it. I think it is the prototype of the slave in the play.
4. Brutus
The Brutus in the play is not the same as my previous cognition. The previous cognition came from Shakespeare, and the image of Brutus in Shakespeare's writing came from "Celebrity Biography", and added a lot of original plots. "Julius Caesar" was completed before, and the four major tragedies were completed after. Before creating a classmate of Hamlet whose brain activities are very special, very rich and tangled, Lao Sha first created a very special, very rich and tangled cloth. Lutus. Brutus in Shakespeare's play is a relatively mature political figure, and this one in "Roma" is an immature youth version, entangled in pain and entanglement.
Brutus in the play is a young man of literature and art. He is not very reliable. He has various typical characteristics of unreliable literary youth. He loves drinking, loves writing poetry, loves rhetoric, hates politics, and his emotions must be expressed. Yu Se shed tears whenever he disagreed. He was like a little white rabbit among a group of poisonous snakes and beasts, so innocent, so pure, so out of place. The old fox snake likes a little white rabbit that can be seen at a glance, not to mention that this little white rabbit is a descendant of the founder of the Roman Republic. He has a prominent family background, is rich in education, and has no threat. How suitable it is to be the gem on the crown scepter. But who would have thought that the soft little white rabbit would turn his face and bite. In Shakespeare's play, Brutus decided to assassinate Cassius. The HBO writers didn't show those two famous speeches, and we didn't hear him say that famous line - I love Caesar, but I love Rome more. Caesar represents the visible present, realpolitik, Rome today and tomorrow. And poor Brutus, who drove ducks onto the shelves to be a hero in vain, finally chose family honor and personal ideals, that is, he chose Rome's yesterday.
The ideal is unattainable, yesterday is unattainable, and it will be a matter of time to shatter one's bones. It is estimated that the funds are not enough. The only war scene in the second season is the battle of Philippi. Brutus and Cassius show a true love at the cost of continuing to lose their IQ. Treated like a martyrdom. By the way, Cassius in the play, with a fake smile on his face, looks like a black belly, not a good person. In the play, his character is not as distinct as in Shakespeare's play, but is mainly a continuation of Seville's will. He controls Brutus and loves Brutus, so in the second season, the viper character collapsed, and he said "You look so gorgeous" with a gentle and indulgent expression. What kind of trouble! Your Roman-style friendship looks so crooked... It is said that in history Brutus committed suicide by cutting his belly. Like his uncle, little Cato, Ruan Meng Wenqing burst into Cato-style arrogance under pressure. Pride, fierce and uncompromising character. There is no mention of this level of kinship in the play, and the method of death in the play is not particularly historical, but the adaptation is acceptable. Brutus finally chose the Roman military death to achieve freedom and growth through self-destruction. To die in battle with dignity, to die for a friend, to die for an ideal, to seek benevolence and benevolence may not be a bad ending.
When I was a child, I liked to distinguish between good people and bad people. I thought that Caesar was a good person, Brutus was also a good person, and Antony and Cicero were all good people. Why do good people and good people fight so hard that you can't live or die? When I was a child, I didn’t understand when I read books. Caesar didn’t say that he didn’t become a king. Even if he became a king, he was almost the Lord of the Ming Dynasty. It was too late to support him. Why did Brutus want him to die. It was only after I grew up that I realized that it is not a matter of course to support a Ming monarch. There are other modes of operation in human society, which are also taken for granted. In Caesar's day, republics were old and monarchies were new. The new and the old do have advantages and disadvantages, but they may not be able to cut right and wrong. Confucius wanted to revive Zhou Li all his life, and Qu Yuan wanted to save Chu and fight against Qin all his life. They are not "old", but we can still read the Analects of Confucius, recite Li Sao, touch their ideals and perceive their confusion and confusion from ancient historical articles. Firmness, their struggles and quests. Brutus died and the Roman Republic disappeared, but not the republic, and we can easily find its deep traces in the modern political system. There are always some things that cannot be measured by success or failure.
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