How Julius Caesar's funeral drama fuelled the mob

Summary

History Extra Podcast Episode Summary

Episode Title: How Julius Caesar's Funeral Drama Fuelled the Mob
Date: October 9, 2025
Host: Immediate Media
Guest: Dr. Jessica Clarke (Shortland Jones Rome Scholar, Expert in Ancient Roman Theatre)
Interviewer: Emily Briffitt

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Overview

This episode explores the extraordinary political theatre and street drama that unfolded at Julius Caesar’s funeral in 44 BC. With Dr. Jessica Clarke as guest, the podcast investigates how Mark Antony transformed the funeral into a potent spectacle that manipulated public sentiment, incited mass violence, and shaped the fate of Rome. Dr. Clarke highlights the unique intersections between Roman funerary tradition, public performance, and political propaganda in the late Republic.

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1. Context: The Assassination and Aftermath

• Assassination Background ([02:22])
  • Caesar, after announcing himself as dictator for life in January 44 BC, is assassinated by senators by March 44.
  • The murder was highly theatrical—even mythic—recounted in detail by ancient sources (Suetonius, Plutarch, Nicholas of Damascus).
  • Quote:
    “He utters the famous words, 'And you, my child,' talking to Brutus, who was his kind of protege, and he dies in the Senate House...”
    —Jessica Clarke, [04:41]
• Immediate Aftermath ([05:48])
  • Gladiatorial shows happen simultaneously next door; panic ensues among crowds as rumors spread.
  • “There’s absolute disorder and chaos as everyone's kind of not sure what to do… Who's done it? Who's responsible?”
    —Jessica Clarke, [06:10]

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2. Mark Antony’s Strategy: Political Theatre Instead of Immediate Vengeance

• Antony’s Calculated Approach ([06:51])
  • Despite public fury, Antony does not immediately pursue violent retribution. He recognizes mixed allegiances in Rome and opts for political maneuvering.
  • “He needs to get the crowd on side. And he does that with the way he constructs this public event, with the theatre shows and then also the eulogy that he delivers.”
    —Jessica Clarke, [07:32]

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3. What Was a Roman Funeral?

• Funerary Traditions ([08:12])
  • Roman aristocratic funerals involved public spectacle: eulogies, performances, processions with death masks, and displays of family legacy.
  • Theatre and even gladiatorial games as part of the ceremony were traditional, dating back to 264 BC.
  • Emphasis on public display and family prestige, not just religious rites.

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4. Theatre as Political Weapon

• Propaganda and Entertainment ([10:28])
  • Theatre in Rome was inherently political—performances could only be organized by politicians, turning them into platforms for messaging.
  • Quote:
    “All theatre shows are put on by politicians. In ancient Rome, you can't put on a show independently, therefore automatically we're talking about a political genre...”
    —Jessica Clarke, [10:41]

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5. The Structure and Staging of Caesar’s Funeral

• Similarities and Differences to Standard Funerals ([11:50])
  • Caesar’s funeral followed traditional structure—morning performances, eulogy, then procession—yet its scale and public impact set it apart.
• Choice of Plays ([13:26])
  • Two Greek tragedies staged:
    • The Contest for the Arms of Achilles: Themes of a fallen hero, struggle over legacy, betrayal among comrades.
    • Electra: Focuses on the wrongful murder of a father-king and the justification for revenge.
  • “We can't think of the plays as being neutral… Every other aspect was very carefully considered, so we should also think of these theatre shows as being thought through.”
    —Jessica Clarke, [13:36]

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6. Intended Messages and Public Reaction

• Political Messaging ([16:58])
  • Plays subtly presented Caesar as a wrongfully murdered king and painted the conspirators as envious traitors.
  • The implication: Rome’s legacy must be defended by avenging Caesar, giving Antony’s position powerful legitimacy.
• Atmosphere and Crowd Dynamics ([18:10])
  • Funeral felt more like a political rally or protest than a solemn event—public emotion was a tool being stoked and shaped.
  • Quote:
    “You are at a political event rather than you're sat in a theater seat watching a show… it's going to have an impact.”
    —Jessica Clarke, [18:23]
• Spectacle Details ([19:03])
  • Likely held in Pompey’s Theatre, Rome’s first permanent stone theatre.
  • Large, elaborately staged productions; use of masks, costumes, dramatic devices to intensify spectacle.

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7. Antony’s Eulogy: Masterclass in Manipulation

• Structure and Impact ([21:02])
  • Antony refrained from open accusations. Instead, he read a Senate decree (swearing to protect Caesar), then dramatically displayed Caesar’s bloodied toga.
  • This triggered mass hysteria and anger far beyond what words alone could achieve.
  • Quote:
    “He displays... the bloodied toga of Caesar... and he displays it before the crowd. This is really the thing that sparks the emotional frenzy.”
    —Jessica Clarke, [21:32]
  • Antony’s restraint allowed the crowd to ‘put two and two together’ and draw their own conclusions (while he remained ostensibly neutral).

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8. The Mob Takes Control

• Riot and Chaos ([22:29])
  • The crowd, overcome by emotion, hijacks the funeral, constructing a makeshift pyre and burning Caesar’s body in the Forum.
  • Women throw jewelry into the flames; the atmosphere turns wild and uncontrollable.
  • Quote:
    “They start smashing up the seating, the benches, anything they can find, and they make a makeshift funeral pyre and set it alight.”
    —Jessica Clarke, [22:47]

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9. Aftermath for the Conspirators

• Violent Reprisals ([23:24])
  • The mob turns on perceived and actual assassins; some senators are killed in the streets (e.g., mistaken identity leading to Cinna’s death).
  • Brutus and Cassius barricade themselves, eventually flee Rome, and are hunted down over subsequent years, culminating in their defeat at Philippi (42 BC).
  • Quote:
    “But if we're talking about the impact of this event, we get to a point... where politicians are being murdered in the streets and...the conspiracies are in very serious physical danger, ultimately.”
    —Jessica Clarke, [24:22]

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10. The Historical Legacy of Funeral Theatre

• Assessment of Antony’s Triumph ([25:58])
  • Theatre and spectacle are revealed as central tools of Roman politics, not peripheral amusements.
  • Antony’s stagecraft doesn't win the civil war single-handedly, but it decisively shifts popular sentiment, sets Rome on a radical new course, and positions him for future power struggles.
  • Quote:
    “But the theater and the theatrics are an absolutely crucial part of it, and they really shape the outcome of this event. They shape what happens at Julius Caesar's funeral. And so ultimately they shape Roman history.”
    —Jessica Clarke, [26:47]

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Key Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Theatricality of Politics:
  “Theatre exists across the whole Italian peninsula at this period. We want to be thinking about a political institution as much as it is entertainment.”
  —Jessica Clarke, [10:28]

• On Manipulation:
  “He kind of keeps his hands clean, almost. Even though he absolutely isn't. He's orchestrating this entire event at this point.”
  —Jessica Clarke, [22:18]

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Notable Timestamps

• [02:22] Jessica Clarke recounts the dramatic assassination of Caesar
• [06:51] Discussion of Antony’s careful political response
• [13:26] Selection and analysis of the funeral plays
• [18:10] What it felt like in the crowd at the funeral
• [21:02] Antony’s famous eulogy and the use of Caesar’s toga
• [22:29] The crowd’s riot and impromptu funeral pyre
• [23:29] Fate of the conspirators and the ensuing civil war
• [25:58] Reflection on the historical impact of theatrical politics

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Closing

Dr. Jessica Clarke’s insights underscore how Caesar’s funeral became the most consequential piece of ancient political theatre—where grief, propaganda, and the collective roar of the Roman mob transformed the fate of the Republic. The episode concludes by emphasizing that in Rome, mastering the stage was often the key to mastering power itself.

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Guest’s Upcoming Book:
Jessica Clarke is the author of A New History of Ancient Roman Theatre (due late 2025).

Transcript

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[Podcast Host]

Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine. The assassination of Julius Caesar is one of the most infamous plots of the ancient world. But the dictator's death wasn't the only moment in his life and afterlife marked by political machinations. Speaking to Emily Briffitt, Jessica Clarke reveals how careful curation and stage management transformed Caesar's funeral into a bloody spectacle of revenge.

[Interviewer]

The assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC really drove tensions sky high in ancient Rome. How had popular feeling in Rome reached such a close? Climactic fervor? What exactly was it that lit that spark?

[Jessica Clarke]

So the assassination of Julius Caesar was is probably one of the most famous assassinations to take place, maybe not only in ancient history, but in history in general. He had just announced he was dictator for life in January of 44, so that year, and then by March, he had been assassinated by his fellow senators. His funeral was therefore an incredibly intense political event. It had been organized by Mark Antony, his most loyal follower, and it was an opportunity to really capture the public mood and win them over to Mark Antony's cause. And he used all sorts of ways of doing that, including most importantly in what we're going to talk about theatre shows at the performance to really incite the crowd and to get emotions running high.

[Interviewer]

So we're obviously chatting very specifically about the staging of Caesar's funeral, but the murder itself was very much a drama in its own rights. For those who might be unfamiliar with the story, why exactly was it so theatrical?

[Jessica Clarke]

Yeah, absolutely. The stories we have of the actual assassination are incredibly dramatic. We've got Suetonius's account, we've got an account from Plutarch. We've got also a slightly lesser, well known account from someone called Nicholas of Damascus, who doesn't often get talked about, but he actually gives us some really crucial information. He was a Greek writer, but all of them tell this story of the great man Caesar arriving in the Senate House. That was part of the theatre of Pompey. So Pompey the great, Caesar's erstwhile rival, had built a huge theater complex, including a Senate House, and this would be the site where Caesar would be assassinated. He arrives at the Senate that morning, famously. He's been warned that he shouldn't be going that day. His wife has read the omens and begs him not to go. He's also warned by soothsayers, if you go, something terrible is going to happen today. Obviously, whether this actually happened is, you know, up for debate, but these are really well told, ancient stories. He ignores these warnings and with some sort of gentle pushing from one of the conspirators, who does get him to go to the Senate House, he arrives that day, he takes his seat, his kind of seat of honour. And the story goes that the conspirators gather round and initially one of the conspirators is asking him, pleading him for the return of his brother who's been exiled. He's on his knees and he's begging and Caesar is saying, no, absolutely not. And then he leans forward and he grabs the front of his tunic and pulls it down and that's the signal. And they all fall upon him. And the idea is that if everyone stabs him, no one will know who deals the final blow. So everyone's responsible. Caesar then famously falls to the ground. He utters the famous words, and you, my child, talking to one of the conspirators, Brutus, who was his kind of protege, and he dies in the Senate House. The conspirators flee the scene and the body's left where it lies and is actually taken home a few hours later by Caesar's slaves, who kind of carry the body back through the streets very unceremoniously. It's kind of quite a sad ending to this Kind of huge dramatic event. It's got quite a kind of quiet ending to it. Almost as if the conspirators suddenly realize what they've done and what's going to happen afterwards. So that's kind of the outline of the actual event itself and what happens.

[Interviewer]

In the immediate aftermath in the city of this bloody moment.

[Jessica Clarke]

Yeah, so different sources tell us slightly different things. And this is where Nicholas of Damascus is actually really helpful, because he tells us that at the moment of the assassination taking place, there is also in the theatre next door, gladiatorial performances happening, according to this source. And he tells us that as the senators kind of start streaming out from where they've committed this deed, news gets to the theatre and the crowd runs out in a panic. And there's absolute disorder and chaos as everyone's kind of not sure what to do, not sure what part of the story is true. Has Caesar been assassinated, really? If so, what does that mean? Who's done it? Who's responsible? And so the chaos then ensues and then within five days, we have the funeral taking place.

[Interviewer]

Mark Antony really takes advantage of this or fever pitch moment. Why does he choose not to take violent, immediate action and be more methodical about it?

[Jessica Clarke]

Oh, that's a really interesting question. Yeah. Why does Anthony choose the sort of more carefully planned political route rather than enacting this sort of quick vengeance? I think it's a matter of very clever politicking in the city. We should remember that not everyone is necessarily on Mark Antony and Caesar's side. There is support for the conspiracies in the city. Caesar has not been particularly popular, so there is this chaos and quite a lot of confusion over what should happen next. What is the significance of this? So it's not quite as simple as Anthony can just exact retribution against the conspirators who have assassinated this kind of beloved figure. It's quite a difficult, complex, complex moment. And Antony needs to play this right. He needs to win popular approval as much as he needs to get the conspirators exiled from Rome, he needs to get the crowd on side. And he does that with the way he constructs this public event, with the theatre shows and then also the eulogy that he delivers. It's a very clever and, in my opinion, absolutely fascinating piece of political propaganda and political entertainment.

[Interviewer]

Before we get to Julius Caesar's funeral itself, we should touch on an important piece of context here. What did the average Roman funeral look like?

[Jessica Clarke]

Yeah, that's a really good question, because when I talk about theatre, Shows at a funeral. That sounds really odd to a modern listener. Obviously, at our funerals, we do not have performances. An ancient funeral was as much about not only celebrating the life of the deceased, but also ensuring the political futures of the surviving members of the family. It was an opportunity to show how important your family was. We're talking about aristocratic funerals here, and particularly in Rome. So a Roman funeral could involve a eulogy, performances for the crowd, because you want to get, essentially, you want to get a lot of people to come to your funeral and you want to entertain them, and also a parade as well. And in this parade, these very famous Roman funeral parades, members of the family would walk behind the litter carrying the body, and they would often wear masks of other members of the family, kind of the great family members who had done something maybe important in the Roman past, and they're wearing these kind of death masks and parading through the city. So it's a very interesting event that a Roman funeral. And it's as much about public spectacle, public display, as it is about ensuring the transition of the deceased into the afterlife, which is also a very important component of it as well, Making sure that an important individual is being sent off to an afterlife that's appropriate for the life that they actually lived. But it's also a chance to show off. So our very first evidence of Roman theatre shows taking place at a funeral come from 264 BC and the funeral of Junius Brutus Pera. And that's the first evidence we have where shows were put on. And it could be a theatre show, could also be a gladiatorial performance. So a very important part of a Roman funeral.

[Interviewer]

It seems very odd sitting here from this modern perspective, thinking about that balance of entertainment spectacle, a little bit of propaganda in there, and also maybe the religiosity of this quite solemn affair as we would see it in modern eyes. How often was theatre used as almost propaganda? Could this moment be weaponized almost?

[Jessica Clarke]

So I think when we talk about Roman theatre and just ancient theatre in Italy as well, not just in Rome, theatre exists across the whole Italian peninsula at this period. We want to be thinking about a political institution as much as it is entertainment. Today, we tend to think much more of theatre, as maybe we think of Shaftesbury Avenue or Broadway, kind of quite darkly lit, polite audiences. It tends to be quite high art nowadays, I think theatre, whereas TV probably occupies a place today that's more comparable to theatre in terms of its mass appeal, the amount of people who would be attending theatre shows. But A crucial difference is that all theatre shows are put on by politicians. In ancient Rome, you can't put on a show independently, therefore automatically we're talking about a political genre because it is being put on by a politician. And that's why by the time we get to the late republic and we get to Pompey the Great building his theatre, we get to the funeral of Julius Caesar, we are dealing with a very intensely politicized atmosphere around performance and around theatre shows. Again, very different from what we might think of today as theatre.

[Interviewer]

How did Julius Caesar's funeral then compare to the average aristocratic family members?

[Jessica Clarke]

Well, I think it follows the same format. It's a pretty standard to have the performances in the morning, to have the eulogy and then to have the procession and the funeral pyre. So structurally, it's very standard. I think using it as a way to commemorate and show off the life of the individual. Again, very standard for the Roman aristocracy. The thing that's slightly different is how high profile this funeral is, how invested the audience and the Roman people are, because we're talking about the man who had just declared himself dictator for life. He was very close to becoming a king of the city. So the key difference really is not only what Anthony does with this funeral, but also just how important it is within the political and just the daily life of Rome as well.

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[Interviewer]

You've mentioned that there were two rather spectacular theatre shows as centerpiece within this funeral. What plays were chosen? What did they try and portray?

[Jessica Clarke]

So I think the selection of plays is fascinating. So if we're talking about an event as significant as this as the funeral of Junius Caesar, we can't think of the plays as being neutral in selections. We shouldn't think of them as anything except very pointed and very, I imagine, very carefully considered. Every other aspect was very carefully considered. So we should also think of these theatre shows as being thought through. We have, first of all, and this comes from Suetonius is the one who tells us this. The contest for the arms of Achilles is the first play. This is a play that's set during the Trojan War. It's set right in the kind of heart of the Trojan War where the two sides are in a stalemate. The Greeks are outside the city and no one's really getting anywhere. They're very beaten down. And Achilles, this great hero, has died. He's been shot by Paris through his Achilles heel. Famously, in the Greek camp, there is a huge disagreement over who should get to use Achilles weapons. Achilles has a very beautiful shield that was made for him by his mother. And the two different Greek generals claim that they have a right to own these weapons. One is Odysseus, who famously will go on to have the adventures of the Odyssey. Kind of known for his cunning, his tricksy way of getting what he wants. He's very clever. And then the other is Ajax, who was Achilles best friend. He's this great warrior. He's a pillar of masculine strength and not necessarily up to the clever, conniving tricks that Odysseus will play. So in the play, they have a fight, they have a disagreement. Odysseus ultimately wins by slightly tricking Ajax and Odysseus is proclaimed the winner. Ajax is devastated by this. Not only by the loss of his friend, but also because he feels very embarrassed by having lost the weapons, which he feels he has a right to, and he takes his own life. Famously, we've got lots of images of Ajax's moment of doing this. He famously falls on his sword and that's how the play concludes. So the key themes just to highlight from this play are the wrongful death of a great hero and a disagreement and contest over who has a right to own the legacy of this great hero, which I think is really important, and hopefully we can circle back to that. But I'll just very quickly say the other play was the Electra. And in this play, this place is set again much after the Trojan War, and it is about the daughter of King Agamemnon. King Agamemnon was the leader of the Greek forces. After he's successful at Troy because the Greeks ultimately win, he returns home and he is murdered by his wife. His daughter Electra is filled with rage that her father, the king, has been murdered, again, wrongfully. And she sets out to revenge her father. And ultimately, by the end of the play, with the help of her brother, she does kill her mother. This, again, just to pull out the key themes. We've got the death of a king, potentially the Wrongful murder of a king and the rightfulness of seeking revenge and exacting your revenge on assassins. So we can start to see some interesting themes emerging from these plays just by looking at their plots.

[Interviewer]

So let's circle back then. What do all these mean, then, in the context of 44 BC? I think we've got some hints, very strong hints here, what Anthony's trying to get at, but let's get right to.

[Jessica Clarke]

The heart of it. Yeah. So I think what we've got is Anthony, before he gets to his eulogy, he's introducing themes of it is the wrongful death of Caesar, the king has been assassinated. What he's trying to imply by jealous, vindictive conspirators. They've not done this in the name of Rome, They've done this for their own reasons, own personal motivations. And not only is this struggle over who should get the legacy of this king, which ultimately is Rome, who should be allowed to control Rome, there is a rightfulness in seeking revenge and defending the legacy of this king. His legacy should and by Antony will be defended. These are the really important themes. And then to set that up in the morning with the plays in quite a subtle way, and then to go into the eulogy is a, I think, a masterstroke of kind of political engineering. And we know from Suetonius that these plays had a huge effect on the crowd. Suetonius records for us that the crowd had a very strong reaction to them and that emotions were running extremely high. Even before we get to the eulogy.

[Interviewer]

Can you give us a sense of what it might have been like to have been amongst that crowd at the time?

[Jessica Clarke]

I suppose maybe a good comparison for today might be, be if you were at a political protest or perhaps a march, that kind of feeling, maybe, of you are at a political event rather than you're sat in a theater seat watching a show, you're at something that you know is going to have importance in the political structure of your city. You also know that as you're part of a crowd and how you're reacting as a crowd is starting to shape events. It's not neutral what the crowd is doing. It's going to have an impact. So I think, yeah, the best way of thinking about, probably is the experience of being at maybe a political rally rather than sort of sat with your Maltesers in a theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, for example.

[Interviewer]

Where is all of this taking place? Can you give us a sense of, like, the surroundings and what the staging might be like?

[Jessica Clarke]

Rather frustratingly, none of our sources tell us exactly where the shows took place. So we have a couple of options. Potentially they took place on some temporary stages put up in the Roman Forum. We know that the eulogy Anthony delivers is from speaker's platform in the Forum. Very likely, though, is that the plays took place in the permanent theatre of Rome, which was Pompey's Theatre. This was a huge theatre built in 55 BC. It was the first theatre ever to be built in the city. It's quite late to be the first theatre built, if we look at the rest of Italy. But that's sort of a discussion for another day. The staging itself, because these are Greek tragedies that have been translated into Latin for the Roman audiences, we would be thinking of huge productions with changing stage sets, actors in masks and lavish costumes. We know that ancient tragedies had lots of stage devices to allow actors to be lifted up and down trap doors. A Greek tragedy, for example, had a mechanism that opened up the back of the stage and allowed sort of a platform to slide out, and that would be where a body would be displayed. Often with Greek tragedy and then also Roman tragedy, the murders always happen off stage. They never happen on the stage, but then the display of the body afterwards would happen on the stage. So we've got lots of different mechanisms that we know were being used, but we want to think of a huge, spectacular, probably quite gaudy performance as well, and highly stylized as well. These are actors performing in huge masks. Actors wore huge shoes as well, sort of wedged shoes, sort of 80s ABBA type shoes. So they were also incredibly tall, these performers. It's a very stylized, very impactful type of performance as well.

[Interviewer]

And you've been building to this moment of Anthony's eulogy. Emotions were obviously running very high. When Anthony steps up on this platform, what does he tell his audience?

[Jessica Clarke]

So, again, we've got slightly different variations of it in our sources, but essentially he gets onto the stage and what he does is, instead of directly attacking the conspirators, what he does is he reads out a decree that was issued by the Senate just before the assassination took place, swearing to protect Caesar. Swearing to protect the body of Caesar, the rights of Caesar. So he reads this out and then sort of leaves that hanging. And then in one of the versions that we have, he also displays in front of the audience the bloodied toga of Caesar. So he holds up the toga with all of its stab wounds, all of the blood, and he displays it before the crowd. This is really the thing that sparks the Emotional frenzy. By this point, the audience is really wound up. And then to see this artefact from the actual event itself sends things overboard. And it's a very powerful performance. But crucially, again, Anthony's very clever. He doesn't stand before them talking about the wrongfulness of the assassination. He just puts these little pieces in place and lets the audience make their own assertion and put it together for themselves, which is a much cleverer way of doing it.

[Interviewer]

It's almost that his hand has not been bloodied by suggestion.

[Jessica Clarke]

Yeah, exactly. He kind of keeps his hands clean, almost. Even though he absolutely isn't. He's orchestrating this entire event at this point.

[Interviewer]

Did it follow the traditional structure of a Roman funeral?

[Jessica Clarke]

It did not. It took a very different structure. So after the eulogy is delivered and the crowd is incredibly upset, this would then be when the funeral procession should happen. And we know that the crowd kind of intercepts the funeral procession as it's coming into the Forum. They don't have the patience to wait for the body to arrive at the official funeral pyre. They kind of storm the procession. They pull the body and its funeral couch just down where it is. They start smashing up the seating, the benches, anything they can find, and they make a makeshift funeral pyre and set it alight. So not in the official spot where it should be happening. It's this makeshift mob like funeral pyre that takes place. Women apparently rip off their jewellery and throw it into the flames. Obviously, this is coming from sources that are really telling it as most dramatically as they possibly can, but that's what we learn from Suetonius.

[Interviewer]

Do we know how Caesar's political enemies reacted at this sort of time?

[Jessica Clarke]

So the conspirators themselves eventually were to flee Rome very shortly afterwards, and we know that they were in physical danger by the end of this event. The mob that is incited at the end of the eulogy, they eventually rampage through the streets of Rome and they come across a man named Cinna and they mistake him for the sinner who was involved in the assassination. It's not that Cinna, he's incorrectly identified, but the mob don't know this and they murder him in the streets and they parade his head through the streets. They aren't able to find Brutus and Cassius, who are the key instigators of the conspiracy because they've posted guards around their house, so they already know the danger that they might be in. But if we're talking about the impact of this event, we get to a point by the end of this funeral where politicians are being murdered in the streets and there is incredible. The conspiracies are in very serious physical danger, ultimately.

[Interviewer]

What happened to the conspirators?

[Jessica Clarke]

So eventually they do flee from Rome. They're left with no choice. They flee to south of Italy and then eventually they leave the Italian peninsula. They're pursued and they are defeated at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC. So it takes quite a few years for them to eventually be tracked down. We have a long period of time where the conspirators are trying to regain power in Rome. They're trying to win back favor, they're trying to marshal support, but ultimately they are defeated. We know, for example, that Brutus tried to put on some plays in Rome after he'd been exiled to try and win back support. So just another example of just how important the theatre is, that even when he's away from Rome, Brutus is still trying to get the theatre under his control. But ultimately they are defeated in 42 BC, and Antony is the one who will return to Rome successful. And then that leads into the next phase of Roman history, which is where Anthony will start his conflict with Octavian, who will eventually become the first emperor, Emperor Augustus. But that's the next phase of civil war that Rome then descends into after Philippi in 42.

[Interviewer]

So in this moment, Antony has. He's really triumphed. How much of that would you say was down to this moment of theatrics, the staging of these plays?

[Jessica Clarke]

So I think the theatrics are a really important part of Roman political culture. They're not the only component. There are lots of pieces in this political jigsaw and that applies to other areas of the Roman system. You need to win your support of the people when you're electioneering. You need to be a good public speaker, you need to have lots of aristocratic connections in order to, you know, make sure that your bills are passed. There's all sorts of very traditional political aspects of ensuring a good political career, and with an event like Julius Caesar's funeral, ensuring that it goes as you want it to. But the theater and the theatrics are an absolutely crucial part of it, and they really shape the outcome of this event. They shape what happens at Julius Caesar's funeral. And so ultimately they shape Roman history. We can't really fully understand Roman politics and the events of Roman history if we don't put the theatre into centre stage. Essentially.

[Podcast Host]

That was Jessica Clarke speaking to Emily Briffitt. Jessica has just finished her PhD specialising in ancient Roman Theatre and is the Shortland Jones rome Scholar for 2026, working at the British School at Rome. Her upcoming book is A new History of Ancient Roman Theatre, which is due to be published in late 2025.

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