Julius Caesar Act 4 Quotes

to produce. As John Adams wrote, “Property monopolized or in the Possession of a few is a Curse to Mankind. We should preserve not an Absolute Equality.—this is unnecessary, but preserve all from extreme Poverty, and all others from extravagant Riches.”1 Here are ten steps that I think might help put us more on the course intended by the Revolutionary generation, to help us move beyond where we are stuck and instead toward what we ought to be: 1. Don’t panic Did the founders anticipate a Donald Trump? I would say yes. As James Madison wrote in the most prominent of his contributions to the Federalist Papers, “Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”2 Just after Aaron Burr nearly became president, Jefferson wrote that “bad men will sometimes get in, & with such an immense patronage, may make great progress in corrupting the public mind & principles. This is a subject with which wisdom & patriotism should be occupied.”3 Fortunately the founders built a durable system, one that often in recent years has stymied Trump. He has tried to introduce a retrogressive personal form of rule, but repeatedly has run into a Constitution built instead to foster the rule of law.4 Over the last several years we have seen Madison’s checks and balances operate robustly. Madison designed a structure that could accommodate people acting unethically and venally. Again, our national political gridlock sometimes is not a bug but a feature. It shows our system is working. The key task is to do our best to make sure the machinery of the system works. This begins with ensuring that eligible citizens are able to vote. This ballot box is the basic building block of our system. We should appreciate how strong and flexible our Constitution is. It is all too easy, as one watches the follies and failings of humanity, to conclude that we live in a particularly wicked time. In a poll taken just as I was writing the first part of this book, the majority of Americans surveyed said they think they are living at the lowest point in American history.5 So it is instructive to be reminded that Jefferson held similar beliefs about his own era. He wrote that there were “three epochs in history signalized by the total extinction of national morality.” The first two were in ancient times, following the deaths of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, he thought, and the third was his own age.6 As an aside, Trump’s attacks on immigrants might raise a few eyebrows among the founders. Seven of the thirty-nine people who signed the Constitution were themselves born abroad, most notably Hamilton and James Wilson.7

His arrival on Egyptian shores soon led the ruling King of Egypt Ptolemy XIII into a quandary as to what he should do with the defeated general. The Egyptian government had kept up with the latest developments in the Roman civil war and they knew full well that if they harbored Pompey and protected him from Caesar, the whole force of Rome would soon be marching down on them. However, they also realized that if they simply let Pompey walk away he would most likely seek refuge from Ptolemy’s sister (and wife) Cleopatra VII. The siblings were currently embroiled in a bitter dynastic dispute. It was because of this perceived dilemma that the Ptolemaic government concluded that the only safe way to deal with Pompey was to have him executed. In order to achieve this grisly task they used marked deception. They pretended to accept Pompey’s wish for asylum and sent envoys to him telling him as much. Yet as soon as Pompey set foot on Egyptian soil he was ambushed and struck down. Envoys of Ptolemy then promptly delivered the slain Roman’s head to Julius Caesar. For his part he feigned outrage at the act and used it as an excuse to declare martial law in Egypt.