Enter Caesar, Agrippa, and Dolabella, with others [including Thidias]

CAESAR          Let him appear that’s come from Antony.

Know you him?

DOLABELLA   Caesar, ’tis his schoolmaster;

An argument that he is plucked, when hither

He sends so poor a pinion of his wing,

Which had superfluous kings for messengers

Not many moons gone by.

Enter Ambassador from Antony

CAESAR                      Approach and speak.             (3.12.1-6)

Picking up the action straight away, with news—in Caesar’s camp—of the emissary from Antony, sent to negotiate. (Caesar’s well-supported, with loyal lieutenants and the others suggesting as many as can be managed; there is a contrast to Antony’s isolation in particular, supported only by Eros.) Caesar’s keen to get on with it: let him appear that’s come from Antony—and, as ever, he wants a briefing. Know you him? Dolabella can oblige, and might well do so with a smile or a hastily suppressed laugh: Caesar, ’tis his schoolmaster, not even a professional, experienced emissary. Not even a proper ambassador! And—as Dolabella rightly infers—this is an argument that he is plucked, proof that Antony’s desperate, scraping the bottom of the barrel, deserted by his troops and supporters, when hither he sends so poor a pinion of his wing, such a random, ill-suited ambassador. The great Roman eagle, fallen on hard times—and while pinion as feather picks up plucked, an undignified image, there’s also perhaps the suggestion that the schoolmaster is a pen-pusher, unworldly, more used to quills than swords, and emphatically inexperienced in the arts of war and politics. How are the mighty fallen—not that long ago, not many moons gone by, Antony would have been able to call on superfluous kings for messengers, he had so many of them on his side. Not now.

And so the schoolmaster-ambassador sidles in, a fish out of water (especially if everyone else is in uniform), perhaps determined not to be cowed, standing on his dignity, doing his best. Approach and speak, says Caesar: no pleasantries here; he knows, and the schoolmaster knows, that all the cards are Caesar’s, and he has the upper hand.