An Honorable Man in Titus Andronicus and Julius Caesar

Introduction

Shakespeare’s plays have a depth to them that many see as unparalleled, especially in the modern era and contemporary day. As his good friend Ben Jonson said, Shakespeare “was not of an age, but for all time” (Paster 1). His plays explore deep themes such as love, death, life, meaning, morality, and purpose among others and his ability to get at the essence of these ideas is, I think, the primary reason why his works remain so popular. Indeed, even when the themes he grapples with seem to be influenced by the common notions of his time, the notions with which he works, notwithstanding their perennial dimension, remain relevant because the world we live in today is the modern world, even if it is a much later modern world than Shakespeare’s. One such theme is that of honor. In the plays Titus Andronicus and Julius Caesar, representing work from the entire span of the 1590s with the first being written in 1591 or 1592 and the latter being published in 1599, honor is a central theme, dictating the direction of each play, while also conferring legitimacy on the actions of certain characters (RSC 1). 

The question I aim to answer in this essay is what makes a character honorable in these plays, particularly the character of  Titus Andronicus in Titus Andronicus and Brutus in Julius Caesar. I will do this by first providing an outline of the early modern notion of honor and contextualize that notion by first presenting a medieval one. I will then characterize the early modern notion of honor as a ‘worldly’ notion of honor. Subsequently, with that background in place, I will argue that both Titus Andronicus and Brutus are honorable men according to this ‘worldly’ notion of honor, first by examining the characters individually and in their own plays, and then by exploring the similarities between the presentation of honor in these two plays. 

Ultimately, I will argue that an honorable man in a Shakespearean play is a man who places his state or country as the ultimate good and fulfills his obligations to his country above all other obligations.

The Commonly Held ‘Worldly’ Notion of Honor

The first place to begin in our exploration is to determine, as best we can, the definition of honor that would have been commonly held at Shakespeare’s time, which is the early modern definition of honor. This is done not to see into his mind and clearly find the concept of honor he explicitly had while writing his plays as such a task surely is interesting, but without mystical insight into Shakespeare’s interior life in 1592 and 1599, it is a task that is impossible. Rather, by searching for the commonly held notion of honor during Shakespeare’s time, we can understand what audiences would have perceived as honorable and how the various social, political, and philosophical factors of the time may have affected the portrayal of honor in Titus Andronicus and Julius Caesar. No reading of Shakespeare’s mind required.

In order to contextualize the early modern view of honor, it is worth looking at a medieval definition of honor to see how the early modern view developed and what better medieval thinker to look at for this than St. Thomas Aquinas. He defines honor as “a witnessing to a person's excellence” (ST. II-II, q. 103, a. 1). That is to say, honor is the recognition of excellence in a person. This, on its own, is a rather thin definition, but Aquinas has more in mind than this as he thinks that the excellence which is recognized is that which comes from virtue as “honor more than anything else seems to be that by which virtue is rewarded” (ST. I-II, q. 2, a. 2). Thus, this medieval notion of honor is one which is deeply tied to morality, through the cardinal virtues, and theology, through the heavenly virtues. Such a notion requires, if not presupposes, that God exists and that there is more to reality than the material and only makes sense within this paradigm. Moreover, the highest good, under this worldview, is God and so the honorable man is the one who places God as the ultimate good of his life and first fulfills his obligations to God over all other things.

Moving on from this medieval notion, we come to Niccolo Machiavelli who was one of the most influential political thinkers of the early modern era. His ideas about how rulers should act were revolutionary at the time, and were highly controversial, but also deeply influential. Machiavelli lived at a time where the distinction between Church and state was becoming increasingly clear, mostly through conflicts between the Catholic Church and the interests of earthly kings and queens. Machiavelli did not explicitly provide a philosophical definition of honor since he was primarily a political writer, but his ideas about how the ruler of a state should seek to be feared, disregard ethical norms and values, and should aim to be seen as the primary figure in peoples’ lives led to a shift from viewing God as the highest good, to viewing the state as the highest good (Nederman 1). 

In the rest of the 16th century which followed Machiavelli’s death, England became a state where the Catholic Church and government were completely disunited, with Catholicism being outlawed during the reign of Elizabeth I and the ruling Monarch taking on religious as well as temporal powers, a very Machiavellian concept (Nederman 1). These developments meant that the common conception of honor in the English mind was no longer the Catholic medieval notion proposed by Aquinas, but was one which held the state as the ultimate good in reality. After all, with the Monarch being the head of the Church in England, even God comes to the people through the state in the England of the 1590s. Therefore, the honorable man in England at this point in history is not the morally and theologically virtuous man who upholds the Divine Law, but, rather, the man who fulfills his duties to the state above all else is the modern man. This version of the honorable man follows, what I call, the ‘world’ notion of honor as this conception only makes reference to virtues and duties that pertain to this earthly world, leaving no room for supernatural virtues and obligations.

An Honorable Man in Titus Andronicus

With that philosophical background in place, let us now turn to Titus Andronicus and see what makes the title character an honorable man. I think there are three parts of the play which make clear in what way Titus Andronicus is an honorable man.

The first example I would like to look at would be very early on in the play when Titus Andronicus offers Tamora’s, the Queen of the conquered Goths, first-born son in the name of Roman tradition:

Titus

I give him you, the noblest that survives, 

The eldest son of this distressèd queen.

Tamora

Stay, Roman brethren!—Gracious conqueror, 

Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed, 

A mother’s tears in passion for her son. 

And if thy sons were ever dear to thee, 

O think my son to be as dear to me. 

Sufficeth not that we are brought to Rome 

To beautify thy triumphs and return 

Captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke, 

But must my sons be slaughtered in the streets 

For valiant doings in their country’s cause? 

O, if to fight for king and commonweal 

Were piety in thine, it is in these!

Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood. 

Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods? 

Draw near them then in being merciful. 

Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge. 

Thrice-noble Titus, spare my first-born son.

Titus

Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me. 

These are their brethren whom your Goths beheld 

Alive and dead, and for their brethren slain 

Religiously they ask a sacrifice. 

To this your son is marked, and die he must, 

T’appease their groaning shadows that are gone.

Lucius

Away with him, and make a fire straight, 

And with our swords upon a pile of wood 

Let’s hew his limbs till they be clean consumed. (Titus Andronicus 1.1.102-129)

At this point in the play, Titus Andronicus is a revered warrior as he has just returned from a victorious battlefield and been welcomed home with praise. All of his actions in war have been for and to the benefit of his country. Upon returning home, Titus offers Tamora’s first-born son as a sacrifice to the Roman gods. Thus, his actions are both in accordance with Roman religious tradition, but they are also for the sake of these traditions because Titus performs this action in order to uphold these Roman traditions. I think this is a great example of how Titus is honorable in the worldly sense because if we are looking at this through an objective moral standard, what he does would clearly be considered immoral since it is the willful killing of an innocent person, which is murder. However, in light of the fact that the ultimate good in the play world is his country, Titus’s offer of sacrifice becomes an honorable action, thus fitting the ‘worldly’ notion of honor.

Another example of this worldly honor on display comes shortly after this sequence when Titus allows Saturninus to be Emperor:

Bassianus

Andronicus, I do not flatter thee, 

But honor thee, and will do till I die. 

My faction if thou strengthen with thy friends, 

I will most thankful be, and thanks, to men 

Of noble minds, is honorable meed.

Titus

People of Rome, and people’s tribunes here, 

I ask your voices and your suffrages. 

Will you bestow them friendly on Andronicus?

Tribunes

To gratify the good Andronicus 

And gratulate his safe return to Rome, 

The people will accept whom he admits.

Titus

Tribunes, I thank you, and this suit I make: 

That you create our emperor’s eldest son, 

Lord Saturnine, whose virtues will, I hope, 

Reflect on Rome as Titan’s rays on Earth 

And ripen justice in this commonweal. 

Then, if you will elect by my advice, 

Crown him and say “Long live our emperor.”

Marcus

With voices and applause of every sort, 

Patricians and plebeians, we create 

Lord Saturninus Rome’s great emperor, 

And say “Long live our Emperor Saturnine.”

Saturninus

Titus Andronicus, for thy favors done 

To us in our election this day, 

I give thee thanks in part of thy deserts, 

And will with deeds requite thy gentleness. (Titus Andronicus 1.1.219-237)

There are many examples of Titus’s reverence and respect for Roman tradition here. Firstly, his tone is very deferential to the Tribunes and Saturninus, which is emphasized by the fact that Titus grants Saturninus his wish to become Emperor. On a deeper level, Titus’s deference to Rome and allowance of Saturninus to become Emperor shows that he places the good of Rome over his own benefit since he could have easily become Emperor himself because he is a revered war hero. But no, he gives the Emperorship to Saturninus because it was what the Tribunes desire and Saturninus, as he is the younger, and thus more able bodied, man for the job. Consequently, this case further cements the idea that Titus Andronicus is an honorable man because he places the good of his country over all other goods. 

The final example of the ‘worldly’ notion on display that I would like to discuss is that every end of the play when Titus goes mad and kills Lavinia, his daughter, and Saturninus. Here is what he says after killing his only daughter:

Titus

Killed her for whom my tears have made me blind. 

I am as woeful as Virginius was, 

And have a thousand times more cause than he 

To do this outrage, and it now is done. (Titus Andronicus 5.3.49-52)

The way this reinforces the ‘worldly’ notion of honor in the play is through showing what a dishonorable man does. At this point in the play, Titus has completely lost his mind and now only acts out of selfish, irrational desires as evidenced by the fact that he kills his own daughter because her suffering is too painful for him to bear. This, of course, completely disregards the fact that Lavinia is the actual person who has suffered the most. Moreover, when Titus’s rampage continues he kills Saturninus, the Emperor, and so he ends up committing the ultimate act of treason against Rome, which then quickly leads to his own death and dishonor. The fact that Titus’s dishonorable ending is rooted in the fact that he abandoned his country as the ultimate good, thus, reinforces the idea that the honorable man in Titus Andronicus is the one who places his country above all other goods.

An Honorable Man in Julius Caesar

With the investigation of Titus Andronicus’s honor, and eventual dishonor, in place, it is now time to move to Shakespeare’s other Roman play and turn to the honorable man in Julius Caesar: Brutus. 

I would just like to note, before delving into the text of the play, that Julius Caesar is one of Shakespeare’s most historically accurate plays as he remains very factually faithful to “Thomas North’s very popular English version of Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans” (Pilkington 1). Hence, by finding the way in which Brutus is honorable in the play, we may be able to understand how honor was conceived of in the Roman world. The Roman conception of honor is not something I will discuss at any significant length in this paper, but I just wanted to point it out because it could be an interesting point of research for scholars who want learn about how conceptions of honor have been similar over time as through the play, one can ascertain, at least to any extent, the conception of honor in the Roman and early modern world.

Now, let us turn to the text. The place where it is easiest to see that Brutus is an honorable man is Marc Antony’s monologue following the public pronouncement of Caesar’s death:

Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me;

But Brutus says, he was ambitious,

And Brutus is an honorable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,

And Brutus is an honorable man.

You all did see, that on the Lupercal

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious,

And sure he is an honorable man. (Julius Caesar 3.2.85-100)

Obviously, Marc Antony refers to an honorable man in this passage three times, which, in my view, verifies the claim that Brutus is an honorable man in the play, but I would also like to mention one more passage from Marc Antony’s speech before investigating the text:

I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,

Who (you all know) are honorable men.

I will not do them wrong. I rather choose

To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,

Than I will wrong such honorable men. (Julius Caesar 3.2.124-128)

Now, one might object that the purpose of Marc Antony’s speech is to, through word choice and performance, ironically cast doubt on the honor of Brutus as he says things which seem to cast doubt on Brutus’s honor. For example, Marc Antony casts doubt on Brutus’s justification for Caesar’s assassination by pointing out that Caesar denied being crowned king three times, which runs contrary to Brutus’s claim that Caesar was ambitious. Although, just in the next line, Marc Antony reaffirms Brutus’s honor. I think all this does is illustrate two types of honor at work, one which could be called ontological honor, and the other the ‘worldly’ honor spoken of previously. As “Norman Council points out,” there is a “basic paradox in Brutus’s motive” (Chidester 1). “He is so firmly committed to honor that although typically, for a sixteenth-century man of honor, prepared to risk death for its sake, he also assumes that his honorable instincts will inevitably enable him to serve ‘the general good’” (Chidester 1). The honor that Brutus is deeply committed to is the ‘worldly’ honor, which is recognized by his fellow citizens, as evidenced by the fact that they do not rebel against him when he proclaims Caesar’s death, but the honor which is ordered towards the general or common good is ontological honor. So, I suggest that Marc Antony affirms Brutus’s ‘worldly’ honor, but questions and casts doubt upon his ontological honor. The former kind of honor is what I am interested in.

Moving forward, the next question is what makes Brutus honorable in the play. The answer is pretty clear from the text:

Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all freemen? As Caesar loved me, I wept for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honor him: but as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears, for his love; joy, for his fortune; honor, for his valor; and death for his ambition. (Julius Caesar 3.2.22-28)

Here, we have Brutus’s justification for killing Caesar, but also an explanation of his honor: his consistency. By consistency, I mean that Brutus gives each quality of Caesar’s the natural reaction or consequence it deserves. So just as he weeps because Caesar loved him, he also killed Caesar because of his ambition. This consistency relates to his honor because the consistency of his actions is all in accordance with Roman standards. For example, for the Roman virtue of valor, Brutus honors him, but for the Roman vice of ambition, particularly as it relates to government office, he kills him. All of his actions are, therefore, done in accordance with Roman standards and for the sake of Rome. Moreover, Brutus’s consistency in action is further highlighted by the fact that he says that he will also die for his country when it is necessary:

With this I depart, that as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death. (Julius Caesar 3.2.44-27)

This quote solidifies the idea that the honor Brutus possesses is the ‘worldly’ notion of honor as the quote proves that his highest good, in his mind, is his country. Furthermore, since we know that he is honorable, he must be honorable in the ‘worldly’ sense because his honor derives from his loyalty to his highest good, which is his country.

How the Plays Share the ‘Worldly’ Notion of Honor

The two plays, Titus Andronicus and Julius Caesar, have many similarities. They are both plays set in Ancient Rome. They both deal with familial loyalty, albeit in different ways. They are both rather bloody and full of gore. The only obvious difference between them is that one is fictional and the other historical. 

The similarities run even deeper when we examine the theme of honor in both of the plays. Both plays exemplify the ‘worldly’ notion of honor as Titus Andronicus and Brutus are both honorable men, only because of their loyalty to their country. Their honor is no way linked to a supernatural moral law, or even a natural moral law, as evidenced by the fact that the kind of honor Brutus has is one which is contrary to the ontological honor discussed earlier. This kind of honor is a notion of honor which is widely held today and in Shakespeare’s day because of the world’s increasing secularity. 

Conclusion

When examining Shakespeare’s plays, one is simply awestruck by the depth of them. To use a quote from Pope Benedict XVI that he said in reference to Mozart, Shakespeare’s plays are “by no means just entertainment” they contain “the whole tragedy of human existence” (Staudt 1). The richness and care with which the themes he deals in the plays, seems to be unparalleled, even when, such as in the case of honor, the iteration, as it were, of the theme he discusses is shaped by the temporal social, political, and philosophical conditions in which the plays were written. Thus, there is a perennial element to Shakespeare’s plays, which is likely a major contributing factor in their continued popularity. That perennial element is the philosophical ideas embedded in the plays because even though there are philosophical movements constrained by time, the ideas themselves are eternal, in some sense, because they relate to human nature, which never completely changes. So, the theme of honor in these plays, which inherently relates to human nature since it is humans who can be honorable, is a perennial theme in the plays it exists in. This fact is doubly so with Titus Andronicus and Julius Caesar because the notion of honor in these plays is an early modern notion of honor, which finds harmony into the present day because we still live in the modern world. 

This is why I began this essay by tracing the formation of the early modern, ‘worldly’ as I call it, conception of honor from its medieval roots into Shakespeare’s time and then examined the texts. By analyzing the philosophical concept of honor in the early modern period, we gain a greater understanding of how Shakespeare’s audience and world would have conceived of honor and, therefore, stand to gain a greater understanding of the play themselves. Then, by engaging the text of Titus Andronicus and Julius Caesar after this philosophical study, we can answer the question: what or who is an honorable man in these plays? The answer turns out to be that in both these plays, an honorable man is a man who places his country as the highest value above all others and, first and foremost, fulfills his obligations to his country above all other obligations. This fact is evidenced by Titus Andronicus through his sacrificing of Tamora’s first-born son, consenting to Saturninus becoming Emperor, and is further highlighted by his dishonorable actions towards the end of the play of killing his daughter, Lavina, and the emperor, Saturninus. Brutus, moreover, is an honorable man, despite his murder of Caesar, because all of his controversial actions are done for the sake of Rome, further evidenced by the fact that he says he would die for his country if need be as well. These honorable men are only honorable because they live for their country and, in the case of Titus Andronicus, only become dishonorable when they abandon their country as their top priority. 

These plays remain relevant precisely because of their devotion to their country as in a world which is now more secular than ever, rather than people finding their ultimate meaning and purpose in God or the supernatural, they are left to find these things on earth. Thus, large human institutions and social structures, like the nation, are often places of refuge for those who seek meaning in a secular world since they are entities greater than the individual person. Consequently, examining how the conception of honor in Titus Andronicus and Julius Caesar is either the same or in continuity with contemporary notions of honor, especially patriotic ones, is an interesting area of research which should be explored by other scholars. But, for me, the honorable man who places his country above all else, no matter how relevant or similar it is to our contemporary age’s values, is, in the end, a misguided man. 

Works Cited

Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Theologiae. Edited by Thomas Gilby, Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Chidester, Stephanie. “The Concept of Honor.” Utah Shakespeare Festival, 2023, www.bard.org/study-guides/the-concept-of-honor/.

Nederman, Cary. “Niccolò Machiavelli.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 28 May 2019, plato.stanford.edu/entries/machiavelli/.

Paster, Gail Kern. “Shakespeare’s Genius.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 2023, www.britannica.com/topic/Shakespeares-Genius-1733556. 

Pilkington, Ace G. “The Truth about Julius Caesar.” Utah Shakespeare Festival, 2023, www.bard.org/study-guides/the-truth-about-julius-caesar/.

RSC. “Timeline of Shakespeare’s Plays.” Royal Shakespeare Company, 2023, www.rsc.org.uk/shakespeares-plays/histories-timeline/timeline. 

Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar. Edited by David Daniell, Bloomsbury, 1998.

Shakespeare, William. Titus Andronicus. Edited by Sonia Massai, Penguin Classics, 2001.

Staudt, R. Jared. “Pope Emeritus Benedict’s Favorite Music.” NCR, 30 Jan. 2017, www.ncregister.com/blog/pope-emeritus-benedict-s-favorite-music.