Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra displays a remarkable understanding of the period of history it describes, especially in its understanding of the corporate ideology of the Roman Republic. In describing the collapse of the Republic into one-man rule, Shakespeare highlights the roles of other candidates for power (Lepidus, Sextus Pompey) in order to remind the audience of the corporate state that is being left behind. Shakespeare’s depiction of the Roman civil wars as being wars of brother against brother is very unlike his depiction of the English civil wars, where such imagery is very rare compared to cases of father against son.