Parallel lives in contrast: Scars in the Roman Republic versus English hereditary monarchy.

Abstract

Scars are a visible part of the political forum in the Roman Republic and in English hereditary monarchy. Coriolanus's scars are celebrated by Romans in William Shakespeare's Coriolanus; in contrast, an absent record of King Richard II's skin ever breaking is part of the collective fiction of hereditary monarchy in Shakespeare's Richard II. For democracy in Rome, the symbology of scarring may be a practical element in ratifying the office of the consul: as a reminder of Rome's experience with the Tarquin kings they had expelled and to avoid the concentration of power in any one man. Consuls would serve only one year, and there were two consuls each year. Scars demonstrated that these politicians were not gods like kings wished to be. In parallel, scar-free, impenetrable skin preserves King Richard II's symbolism as an anointed monarch. Henry Bolingbroke and his son, Prince Hal and future Henry V, face the psychologic and political consequences of stripping the kingship of this aura, by demonstrating that a king's skin can be penetrated on the battlefield by any of his subjects.