In as much as there were aspects of Addison’s Cato which the author intended to be taken a certain way and which seemed to come down to later audiences more or less intact, there were also most definitely elements of the drama in question whose reinterpretation by audiences generations after the fact represented an understanding of the moral universe of Cato which its creator almost certainly could not have predicted. Consider, by way of explanation, the character of Prince Juba. As written in 1712, Juba’s personality and behavior very much place him in the same kind of role as that fulfilled by Cato’s various children. He is virtuous, loyal, and very devoted to his chosen patron. And though his aid, Syphax, often attempts to convince him that keeping his flag in Cato’s camp will only ever lead to defeat and humiliation, the young prince never once appears to waver. So, what, then, is his struggle? What is it that he overcomes in order to maintain his allegiance to Cato, as Marcus overcomes his desperate love for Lucia, and Marcia overcomes her own love for the young prince himself? It is not Juba’s affection for Marcia, of course, for this only draws him closer to Cato. Nor is it, as aforementioned, any of the poisonous words poured into his ear by Syphax. No, Juba’s handicap – the flaw which he must surmount in order to demonstrate both his loyalty to Cato and the sheer magnetism of the great man’s ideals – is his race.
While it never becomes the text of the play
in the way that Othello’s race forms one of the central themes of the tragedy
which bears his name, the fact that Juba is a prince of Numidia would not have
escaped the notice of contemporary British audiences. Numidia, for the record,
was an ancient kingdom in Africa in what is now Algeria on the coast of the
Mediterranean Sea. Ruled and populated by the native Berber peoples of the
region, it had a long and storied history with its Roman and Carthaginian
neighbors, and by the time of the civil war between Pompey and Caesar had been partially
annexed into the Roman province of the same name. From the Roman perspective of
this era, the Numidians and their kingdom were, to coin a phrase, useful
barbarians whose historical position as buffer between Rome and Rome’s
inveterate rival Carthage made them valuable as either allies or clients to be
called upon in time of war. They were not the equal of Romans, mind you, being
of foreign stock and believing in gods and traditions all their own, but nor
were they seen as wholly unredeemable. From the perspective of early 18th
century Britain, of course, these kinds of strategic considerations would have
mattered less than the simple fact that the Numidians were a native people of
Africa. Their descendants were not among those most commonly enslaved and sold
by contemporary British traders, to be sure, ancient Numidia then falling
within the boundaries of a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. But while a
British audience, in consequence, might not have thought of a slave when
confronted with a character like Prince Juba, they would most definitely have
had every reason to think him a savage.
There is nothing in the least bit savage
about Addison’s portrayal of Juba, as it happens. He is, as aforementioned,
supremely devoted to both Cato and his daughter, Marcia, and utterly unmoved by
whatever adversities he may face as a result. What makes this remarkable,
however – to the point that Cato often makes reference to it himself – is that
Juba is not a Roman. To be sure, he is never treated by the Roman characters in
the play as though he is either lacking in understanding or morally deficient.
He is spoken to, by and large, frankly, plainly, and un-condescendingly. But
his otherness does nevertheless occasionally enter into the conversation. In
some cases it feels like something of a glancing blow, like when Cato responds
to Juba’s suggestion that the group encamped at Utica flee deeper into Africa
in search of allies against Caesar by brining up the ignominious fate of another
African prince. “Canst thou think,” the great man replies,
Cato
will fly before the sword of Caesar?
Reduced,
like Hannibal, to seek relief
From
court to court, and wander up and down
A
vagabond in Afric?
The individual to
which Cato refers is the famed Hannibal, son of Hamilcar (247-181 BC), a
general and statesmen of ancient Carthage who famously led an audacious
invasion of Italy during the Second Punic War (218-201 BC) and dealt the Romans
a series of humiliating defeats. Defeated himself at the climactic Battle of
Zama (202 BC), he spent the waning years of his life in exile providing
military aide to Rome’s various rivals in Asia Minor before finally committing
suicide in order to avoid imprisonment.
Hannibal, in his day, was one of Rome’s
most formidable enemies, and a strategist and tactician almost without equal.
And while Juba’s native Numidia had a similarly complicated relationship with
Hannibal’s Carthage, the young prince nevertheless could not have failed to
understand the significance of Hannibal’s victories in terms of the perceptions
of ancient Africa harbored by contemporary Europeans like the Romans. Hannibal
was proof positive that Rome was not untouchable among ancient Mediterranean
civilizations, and that peoples other than the Romans could be similarly
formidable in war. But this is not the idea which Cato seeks to evoke. He makes
reference to the defeated Hannibal rather than the victorious Hannibal, the
Hannibal of exile, and shame, and ignominious death. And he says to Juba, who
is himself a prince of Africa, that he, Cato, could never do such a thing.
Wandering around and begging shelter from foreigners may have been fit enough
for an African like Hannibal, but it would not do for a Roman like Cato. That
Cato says this Juba – again, a native African – would seem to drive home the
intended subtext. “That sort of thing,” he seems to be saying, “May be alright
for people like you, but I could never bring myself to behave in such a
way.” It is, again, something of a glancing blow, but one which is nonetheless
aimed at Juba’s status as something other. He is a noble young man, as Cato
more than once remarks, and one who he is glad to call a friend. But sometimes
he gives cause for his foreign-ness to be remarked upon. Sometimes, that is, he
makes it hard to forget he isn’t Roman.
Addison attempts to drive this point home
in other ways – that Juba isn’t a product of the same world and the same
culture as Cato and his fellow Romans – particularly by pairing Juba with his
nominal aide-de-camp, Syphax. Being, like his co-conspirator Sempronius, an
inveterate schemer and dissembler, Syphax makes a concerted effort during their
most significant exchange in Act 2 to remind Juba that Juba isn’t Roman, that
he has no business getting involved in Roman affairs, and that he is better off
going back to Numidia to claim his father’s kingdom. “Alas, my prince,” he
begins,
How
are you changed of late!
I’ve
known young Juba rise before the sun,
To
beat the thicket where the tiger slept,
Or
seek the lion on his dreadful haunts.
In spite of Juba’s plea that Syphax cease his entreaties, the courtier presses on. “How the old king would smile,” he continues, conjuring the image of Juba’s departed father
To see you weigh the paws, when tipp’d with gold,
And
throw the shaggy spoils about your shoulders.
Part of what Syphax
is trying to do, of course, is remind Juba that he comes from a different world
than the Romans whose company he lately desires to keep. They are statesmen,
and philosophers, and urbanites wholly accustomed to comfort and luxury. Juba,
by contrast, is a prince of the Numidians who once spent his days hunting lions
and carrying the trophies home to his father. Why is he wasting his time with
these people? Why, if he desires the hand of Marcia, does he not mount his
fleetest horse and simply snatch her up? Juba will have none of this – “Would
thou seduce my youth / To do an act that would destroy mine honour?” he retorts
– but the point had already been made. The young man may indeed be as virtuous
as he seems, but this is in spite of the wildness – to a Roman, the barbarity –
of the culture in which he was raised.
The significance of Juba having
surmounted his own heritage is made clearer still in later scenes. Near the
beginning of Act 4, Scene II, for example, Juba appears before Cato to express
his shame over the behavior of Syphax. The duplicitous courtier having lately
attempted to flee from Utica, Juba feels as though he bears responsibility and
presents himself to the great man for judgement. When Cato asks what crime Juba
is so eager to atone for, Juba answers simply, “I’m a Numidian.” This, and
Cato’s response – “And a brave one, too. Thou hast a Roman soul” – are
extremely telling as to the kind of character Addison intends the young prince
to be. When one of his countrymen acts in a dishonorable fashion, he believes
the resulting guilt is his to bear. “I’m a Numidian [,]” he says, as if there
was already cause to suspect that such people were not to be trusted. Indeed,
Cato must remind his young friend that this is not the case, that, “Falsehood
and fraud shoot up in ev’ry soil, / The product of all climes [.]” That fact that
Cato also, mere moments before, declared that Juba has “a Roman soul” would
nevertheless seem to accentuate rather than ameliorate the significance of the
misconception he is attempting to dismiss. Cato does not feel responsible for
Caesar, though Caesar is a fellow Roman, because Cato is wise enough to
understand that culture is no guarantee of goodness or falsehood. Juba himself
would seem to be proof of that, being a Numidian with the “soul of a Roman,”
though this in itself is something of a backhanded compliment. In order for
Juba to be worthwhile in Cato’s eyes, his essence must be like that of a Roman.
He couldn’t just be the Numidian that he is, for Numidia is not the equal of
Rome. No, what is remarkable about Juba – as far as Cato is concerned – is that
he has almost completely transcended his Numidian origins and embraced the soul
of civilization. That is, he has embraced what it truly means to be Roman. He
falls short sometimes – by making distasteful suggestions or feeling shame when
it isn’t necessary – but his soul is where it ought to be.
Later still, as Cato lays dying in
the final scene of the play, his attempt to express his last hopes to his
friends and children once more draws attention to what both he and Addison find
so remarkable about Juba. Calling forth his daughter, Cato struggles to remark,
Juba loves thee, Marcia—
A
Senator of Rome, while Rome survived,
Would
not have match’d his daughter with a king—
But
Caesar’s arms have thrown down all distinction—
There are, it would
seem, a few different things being communicated in this relatively brief
passage. First, and least problematic, Cato is giving his dying blessing to
Marcia and Juba to pursue the love he has observed between them. Second, he is
taking the last possible opportunity to express the disdain Romans typically
held during the era of the Republic for any form of government – and, by
extension, any sort of culture – other than their own. And third, he is using
the circumstances of the chaos that Caesar has wrought to dismiss the latter in
service of the former. Normally, he is essentially saying, he would never lower
himself to match his daughter with a foreign prince. But the world had been
turned so completely on its head, and Juba has shown that he is close enough to
a Roman in spirit, that Cato will deign to bless their relationship with what
little energy he has left. Make no mistake, neither Juba nor Marcia could ask
for much more. All the same, the manner in which Cato chooses to fulfil their
fondest wish also seems calculated to emphasize how unnatural the match is on
its face. A Senator’s daughter and a Numidian prince? Yes, indeed, it is highly
irregular. But he’s a good lad. Almost Roman, you might say. And these are
strange times.
Notwithstanding the racialized
undertones to the way Addison chooses to depict the character of Juba, there
doesn’t seem to be any parallel figure within the contemporary British
political/cultural sphere which the Numidian prince was explicitly intended to
represent. He was a foreigner, it’s true, and so were the Hanoverians, but it
wasn’t as though they were under any obligation to prove their fealty to Whig
ideals. So long as the Act of Settlement (1701) was successfully enacted,
Sophia and her son George were going to ascend to the throne. All that needed
to qualify them was their adherence to some manner of Protestant Christianity.
No, it’s safe to say that Juba wasn’t intended to be a Hanoverian stand-in. Rather,
along with Marcus, Portius, and Marcia, he is yet another avatar of Whig
devotion and virtue. The fact that he is not Roman – indeed, that he is a
native African – is just another way for Addison to demonstrate the ability of
Cato’s noble influence to raise flawed, faltering people up above their own
weaknesses. It just happens to be the most visceral means of doing just that
which Addison chooses to deploy. The obsessiveness of Marcus and the
lovesickness of Portius and Marcia are understandable enough, to be sure, but
the fact of Juba’s race would surely have been that much more striking to early
18th century British audiences. Cato’s influence is so powerful as
to cause this boy – this savage who once hunted lions on the Libyan plain – to
cast off his failings and embrace the cause of virtue and civilization? If such
things are possible, he must surely be in the right. If Cato can convert a
savage simply by shining upon them with his presence, then his beliefs must
truly be worth dying for.
Transposed onto the American context of the
1760s and 1770s, Juba’s race would naturally seem to take on a rather more
complicated aspect. Juba, recall, being of what we would now think of as Berber
stock, was a native inhabitant of continental North Africa. And while, to see
him, he would not have resembled the African natives to which most contemporary
Americans were familiar, the fact of his origin is what it is. Africa, as far
as they were concerned, was the savage continent from which they imported their
slaves. So, what, then did that make Juba? What would an audience in, say,
colonial Virginia make of the notion of an African prince being treated as
nearly an equal to a cast of Europeans? Indeed, being matched with the daughter
of a Roman statesman? The likeliest answer, upon cursory reflection, would seem
to be that they would not have made anything of it at all. The play takes place
in Roman antiquity, race relations as they existed in 18th century
North America don’t apply, don’t think about it, don’t draw any conclusions,
just put the whole thing out of your mind. Juba is a Numidian, yes? That may
well have made him a native of Africa, technically speaking, but not
necessarily an African in the contemporary parlance. That is to say, he
wouldn’t have been of the same ethnic origin as those inhabitants of Africa
whom most Americans then considered to be fundamentally inferior. And Addison
doesn’t seem inclined to treat his as anything other than a stand-in for his fellow
Whigs. So, why not let that be all that Juba represents? To do otherwise would
be…problematic. And if 18th century Americans were good at nothing
else, they were at the very least highly adept at compartmentalizing things
that might otherwise prove problematic.
None of this is to say, mind you, that Juba
wouldn’t have stood out to American audiences, particularly in the 1770s. His
race may have been too fraught to pay any mind, but his foreignness would
doubtless have drawn a certain amount of attention. An outsider so moved by
ideals not his own that he offers to risk his life to defend them? A person
raised to accept arbitrary rule who eventually comes to embrace the values of
republicanism? The United States of America, in the throes of the Revolutionary
War, was not a stranger to individuals such as this. Thanks in large part to
the efforts of Continental Congressmen-cum-diplomat Silas Deane (1738-1789) and
French polymath and revolutionary Pierre Beaumarchais (1732-1799), a number of
European professional soldiers agreed to serve in the Continental Army, most of
whom arrived to take up their posts at some point over the course of 1777.
Some, like the Frenchman Johann de Kalb (1721-1780), the Polish Casimir Pulaski
(1745-1779), and the Prussian Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (1730-1794), were
experienced officers who chose the mercenary life in an effort to escape from
an unfortunate turn of luck in Europe or because Deane – on his own
recognizance – had offered them promotion and preferment. Others, like the French
aristocrat Gilbert du Motier (1757-1834) and the Polish revolutionary Tadeusz Kościuszko
(1746-1817), were sincerely inspired by the aims of the American rebels and
wished to aid in the realization of their ideals. Of this latter group, du Motier
– more commonly known as the Marquis de Lafayette – would likely have appeared
most similar to prince Juba in the eyes of American readers of Cato
seeking to draw parallels between the events of that play and the struggle
unfolding around them. He was young, after all, and idealistic, and enjoyed a
close personal bond with the nominal leader of the American cause.
There were some important differences
between Juba and Lafayette, it bears mentioning. Juba’s connection to Cato and
his family, for one, was the result of his departed father’s previous
friendship with the great man in question and his death in service of their
shared ideals. While this is only partially correct – Juba’s father in actual
fact having been an ally of Pompey rather than Cato – the idea that the young
prince came to the cause of the Optimates as the result of a family
connection is true enough. And for another, Juba’s devotion to Cato, in
Addison’s telling, is very much tied up with his love for Cato’s daughter,
Marcia. Lafayette, by comparison, was drawn to the American cause very much for
its own sake. A young man in the 1770s who had only just gained a commission in
a French regiment of dragoons, the young noble first became aware of the
nascent rebellion in British America in 1775 at an officer’s dinner in Metz
shortly before he turned eighteen. Likely still bearing something of a grudge
over the death of his father, Michel du Motier (1731-1759), at the hands of the
British at the Battle of Minden (1759), and perhaps moved by his recent
initiation into Freemasonry to attach a great deal of importance to things like
honor and liberty, Lafayette quickly became convinced that the American
struggle was very much his own and set himself to the task of gaining a
commission in the Continental Army. The aforementioned Silas Deane helped to
facilitate this ambition, granting the young man the rank of major general and
providing him with a letter recommendation and introduction. And while both
Lafayette’s father-in-law and the government of Louis XVI conspired to keep him
from making the journey across the Atlantic – French officers, prior to the
sealing of an alliance between the United States and France, being forbidden to
serve in the Continental Army – he was ultimately able to charter a ship and
set sail in the early spring of 1777.
It was Lafayette’s
experience in America, of course, that arguably cast him as the prince Juba of
the American Revolution. Upon having his commission as a major general in the
Continental Army confirmed by Congress in July of 1777, Lafayette was shortly
thereafter introduced to his commanding officer, George Washington, and the two
quickly developed a close and enduring rapport. The young nobleman was
reportedly in awe of Washington, and gladly accepted his offer of friendship
and tutelage. To that end, when the famously humble Commander-in-Chief
attempted to apologize for what he believed to be the embarrassing state of his
encampment during a tour of the same shortly after their first meeting,
Lafayette was said to respond, “I am here to learn, not to teach.” He went on
to serve bravely, in spite of his inexperience, at Brandywine (1777), earning
Washington’s plaudits; at Valley Forge (1777-1778), where he suffered
resolutely alongside his beloved mentor; and at Barren Hill (1778), where he
narrowly avoided British capture. And while Washington had no daughters for the
young Frenchman to fall deeply and irreversibly in love with, he was nonetheless
warmly embraced by his commander as a kind of surrogate son. The two were not
always in complete agreement on matters of military strategy. Indeed,
Washington was often given to chide the younger man – as he did with the likes
of Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) and John Laurens (1754-1782) – when he made
foolish suggestions or seemed overly concerned with seeking after military
glory. But Lafayette was never less than wholly devoted to his American patron,
and Washington in turn came to trust him implicitly.
What made this such an
interesting development – and what speaks to the similarities between prince
Juba and the young marquis – is that Lafayette was a born aristocrat who had
been raised in the famously decadent atmosphere of late 18th century
monarchical France. There was no reason in particular that a man of his
breeding and experience should have identified in the slightest with the
struggle of a foreign people in some colony half a world away. On the contrary,
as a man possessed of inherited wealth and social privilege who was engaged in
military service to a government possessed of many colonies of its own, he
should have been on the side of Parliament and the Crown. His place in the
world depended on maintaining a status quo that had not changed for centuries.
And while the events of an insurrection in the colony of a rival European power
might not seem all that relevant on the surface to the relative stability of
late 18th century France, successful revolutions tend to have unpredictable
ripple effects on the wider world. Notwithstanding all of the factors which
conceivably should have led Lafayette down the path of reactionary
traditionalism, however, he instead chose to risk his life in foreign climes
and for a distinctly revolutionary cause. Partly, as aforementioned, there were
personal reasons very likely behind this turn. And it ought not to be dismissed
that the Marquis de Lafayette was a very young, idealistic man with a rather
romantic turn of mind. But it may also have been the case – in spite of the
mercenary attitudes of those like de Kalb and Pulaski – that the ideals for
which the American revolutionaries were fighting were just that powerful.
Powerful enough to make a stranger into an ally. Powerful enough to turn a
soldier sworn to defend one king into a man willing to die to cast off the rule
of another.
Prince Juba, recall,
was in much the same position as the young marquis. Not only was he raised in a
culture quite foreign to that of Rome and its inhabitants, but he was also a
prince, placing him near the pinnacle of a form of government that the ancient
Romans had long ago taught themselves to instinctively disdain. His family, it
was true, had been an ally of Rome since the general and statesman Pompey had
helped restore his grandfather Hiempsal to the Numidian throne in 81 BC. And
his father, also called Juba, had willingly joined with the Optimates
when their aforementioned defeat at Pharsalus forced them to seek refuge from
Caesar in Africa. But the elder Juba was then defeated at Thapsus and made a
suicide pact with one of his Roman compatriots, Marcus Petreius (110-46 BC).
Granted, it may have been the case that the younger Juba saw this as cause
enough for seeking revenge on the forces of Caesar, or that he believed
continued loyalty to the Optimates constituted a kind of filial
obligation. But it seems just as likely that he should have viewed his father’s
death as the consummation of his family’s debt to Rome. Pompey had given
Hiempsal back his throne, Hiempsal’s son had given his life for Pompey’s
allies. Why should the young prince Juba have taken matters any further than
that? Why should he have risked his own life for the cause that had already
claimed the life of his father? Under the circumstances, the phrase “good money
after bad” come to mind. And yet, as history and Addison both record, this is
exactly what Juba did. Perhaps he made this choice out of respect for his
departed father. As Addison writes it, it was that he was passionately in love
with Marcia. But maybe it was something less material than either. Maybe,
having been exposed to the otherwise foreign ideals of men like Cato, Juba was
inspired to the point that he was willing to die to defend them.
The ability of a
contemporary American audience to draw the kind of comparison suggested above
would doubtless have been aided by a kind of collective desire to see their own
trials reflected in the noble struggle of Joseph Addison’s tragic hero. If
Lafayette was indeed a latter-day prince Juba – young, idealistic, virtuous,
and loyal – then perhaps their story and that of Cato the Younger really were
one and the same. Perhaps the values for which they toiled really were magnetic
enough to draw the assistance of foreign nobles otherwise alien to the notion
that people were entitled to decide for themselves how and by whom they were
governed. Perhaps the American fight for independence from Great Britain really
was about something more than heavy-handed tax policies and political norms.
Weren’t they struggling for the same things as Cato? For justice, and liberty,
and a government in the hands of the people? To be sure, Addison changed some
of the details in his version of the story, but wasn’t the core of it
demonstrably true? Cato did take up arms against the tyranny of Caesar. He did
lead his supporters to exile in the North African desert rather than surrender.
And when the fight was finally, irrevocably lost, he did take his own life
rather than admit of the tyrant’s right to save or condemn it. Weren’t these
the kinds of things that America was then facing? There was no desert, mind
you, and no figure in opposition quite like Julius Caesar. But there were
traitorous dissemblers like Sempronius, and foreign volunteers like Juba, and
above all the same Caesar-like threat of overwhelming military and political
force. If all that was true, then what else could the American struggle for
independence be but a continuation of the struggle of the tragic figure of
Cato? A continuation, yes, and a chance to set things right. To do justice to
Cato and the ideals for which he’d rather die for than abjure. To strike at
Caesar from across the centuries.
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