Did shakespeare portray octavius correctly in his play”julius caesar”?
From what I’ve seen, yes. Octavius was a conniving little SOB. He used the fact that Marc Antony was having a love affair with Cleopatra as evidence that he was too weak to be a member of the triumvirate that ruled Rome (since he was “letting” a woman rule Egypt). He then attacked Marc Antony and Cleopatra. He defeated them in a naval battle. Marc Antony committed suicide to avoid being captured. Cleopatra was captured, and though the old story is that she committed suicide by being bitten by an asp, that story is now coming into question by historians. No one in Cleopatra’s family had ever committed suicide, and she did not fit the overall profile, according to modern forensic scientists. In fact, she was the type who fought on, no matter what the odds. Also, she identified herself with Isis, the goddess who was in turn identified with the asp, which may be how the asp came into the story. And the asp’s poison would have taken about an hour to work, and the reports say that the guards
