As twenty-first-century readers, when we approach the five tragedies that Shakespeare set in the Greco-Roman world – Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Timon of Athens – we must negotiate among several kinds of cultural and historical differences. A striking moment in Antony and Cleopatra exemplifies the challenge these plays pose for us. In the wake of Antony's death and the victory of his arch-rival Octavius, Cleopatra imagines herself a captive in Rome, chief trophy amongst the victor's spoils:

The Egyptian queen pictures this public display in the terms of Elizabethan theatre, her feminine role performed by a boy; strictly speaking, Shakespeare has created an anachronism. Her theatrical imagery also peers into the future, as it were, reminding us that this play has in fact been staged countless times since Shakespeare penned these lines. His play lives on in our own cultural present, in film and popular culture as well as onstage.