Examples Of Superstition In Julius Caesar

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“Step on a crack and break your mother’s back!” is a rhyme we know all too well. The idea of stepping on a crack in the pavement is an example of a superstition, which is thought to bring bad luck and misfortune to the person who commits the act. Would you risk stepping on a crack and breaking your mother’s back? In ancient Rome they would not have. Superstitions in the ancient days were taken seriously. Being a witness to or experiencing a superstition was one of the worst things that could happen to you in that time period. Julius Caesar, the main character in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, was subject to many superstitious happenings, as were some of his peers. Ignoring these foreboding acts were a bad idea, but Julius didn’t take that into…show more content…
The third and fourth pages describes the feast of Lupercal, which was an ancient Roman festival that celebrated fertility. This entire festival was a superstition in itself. It was believed that women who were not able to bear children would be cured of infertility by being touched by one of the men that ran in a fertility race. One of these infertile women was Julius Caesar’s wife, Calpurnia. Caesar’s close friend, Marc Antony, was running in this race. Caesar wanted Antony to touch Calpurnia in the race, in the hopes that she would be able to bear children, as the text indicates here; “Forget not in your speed, Antonius, to touch Calpurnia; for our elders say the barren, touched in this holy chase, shake off their sterile curse” (825). This statement proves that Rome practically revolved around superstitions. They had an entire festival, the feast of Lupercal, dedicated to the superstition of correcting infertility. This demonstrates that the Caesar, who believe he was a god and was not supposed to believe in superstitions because the people would view him as weak, even believed in superstitious

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