Friday, August 31, 2018

Shakespeare's Coriolanus and Spartacus

I just recieved my bluray version of Spartacus (1960) starring Kirk Douglas. I have watched this movie countless times on VHS, DVD and now bluray. Watching Laurence Olivier portray Marcus Licinius Crassus made me think of Shakepeare's Gaius Marcius Corriolanus. This summer I saw the Stratford Festival's fine production of Coriolanus. Both Crassus and Coriolanus are Roman Generals of the Patrician class who dislike and distrust the Roman people.

Coriolanus refers to the common people as curs and fragments, the foes to nobleness and dissentious rogues. His utter contempt for the people is clear.
Who deserves greatness
Deserves your hate; and your affections are
A sick man's appetite, who desires most that
Which would increase his evil. He that depends
Upon your favours swims with fins of lead
And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust Ye?
With every minute you do change a mind,
And call him noble that was now your hate,
Him vile that was your garland. What's the matter,
That in these several places of the city
You cry against the noble senate, who,
Under the gods, keep you in awe, which else

Would feed on one another? 

Like Coriolanus, Crassus does not believe the plebeians deserve the right to rule nor are they to be trusted. Speaking with Marcus Glabrus (John Dall), Crassus says.
Do you think I made you commander of the garrison to
control some rock patch on Vesuvius? It was to control
the streets of Rome!

One day I shall cleanse this Rome which my fathers bequeathed me.
He means to cleans it of undesirables. 

Crassus refers to the people of Rome as the mob. When talking to Julius Caesar (John Gavin) Crassus asks, Why have you left us for Gracchus and the mob?
To which Caesar replies, ... this much I have learned from Gracchus: Rome is the mob.

This line is similar to the line from Shakespeare that was used as a rallying cry against Coriolanus: The people are the city!

After extinguishing the slave rebellion Crassus demands of a duplicitous senator: Did you truly believe that 500 years of  Rome could so easily be delivered into the clutches of a mob?

But Coriolanus believes it can. He fears giving the people too much power.
... In soothing them we nourish 'gainst our Senate
The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition...

... When two authorities are up,
Neither supreme, how soon confusion
May enter 'twixt the gap of both and take
The one by th'other.

When speaking with his slave, Atoninus (Tony Curtis) Crassus explains the position of the common people as the two of them watch Roman soldiers march by.
There, boy, is Rome! The might, the majesty... the terror of Rome.
There's only one way to deal with Rome, Antoninus, you must serve her. You must abase yourself before her. You must grovel at her feet.

When Coriolanus is denied councilship and is banished from Rome by the people, he makes his position clear how he feels about them in a parting shot.
You common cry of curs, whose breath I hate
As reek o'th'rotten fens, whose love I prize
As the dead carcusses of unburried men
That do corrupt my air...

One other comparison of Shakespeare and the movie Spartacus is the scene of Spartacus walking through his camp the night before a major battle. It reminds me of a similar scene in Henry V.

Both Spartacus and Coriolanus are good stories about Rome, freedom and politics. Watch Spartacus and go to Stratford and see Coriolanus.

Stephen Gaspar's books can be found on Amazon















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