What It Is
The crown that Antony offers Caesar at the Lupercal and that he refuses three times. The play never shows the scene: it arrives told, and afterward it reappears in every discussion about whether Caesar wanted to be king.
Where It Appears
In Act I, Scene 2, Casca tells Brutus and Cassius that Antony offered the crown three times and that Caesar pushed it away three times, and that the crowd cried out at each refusal. Casca says he paid no attention, that it was all nonsense, and still thinks Caesar wanted it.
In Act I, Scene 3, Casca tells Cassius that the senators intend to establish Caesar as king the next day, and Cassius answers that he knows where he will carry his dagger.
In Act II, Scene 1, in the orchard, Brutus reasons that Caesar would be crowned and that this might change his nature; with no personal cause against him, he decides on the death for what the crown would make him be.
And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg / Which hatch’d, would, as his kind grow mischievous; / And kill him in the shell(II.1)
In Act II, Scene 2, Decius tells Caesar that the Senate has resolved to give him a crown that day, and uses the offer to persuade him to leave home.
In Act III, Scene 2, in the Forum, Antony reminds the people that, at the Lupercal, he offered Caesar a crown three times and that Caesar refused it three times, and asks whether this was ambition. One citizen concludes that if he did not want the crown, he was not ambitious.
What It Means
The crown is the only public fact that proves or disproves Caesar's ambition, and each scene uses it in favor of whoever is speaking. Casca takes it apart as farce, Cassius turns it into a deadline, Brutus turns it into a forecast, Decius turns it into bait, and Antony turns it into a defense. No one knows whether Caesar wanted it, and the play does not answer.
The assassination is decided by the crown Caesar might come to receive. The play shows that the refusal may have been sincere or theater, and that the death does not depend on which of the two it was: what decides is the reading Brutus makes of what the crown would make Caesar.
Relationships
- Standard themes: Power, Politics, Language and Narration.
- Characters: Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Casca, Brutus, Cassius.
- Neighboring symbols: the Ides of March, the date on which the crown was to be given.