This pioneering study argues the influence of Plato's political thought on Shakespeare's Roman works: The Rape of Lucrece, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Titus Andronicus. Shakespeare equates the ruin of Rome with what he foresees as the corresponding decline of England deriving from England's kindred political ills, in particular the burgeoning democratic impulses fostered by the politics of both Elizabeth and James.