“The palace, an old, low, Syrian building of whitened mud, is not so ugly as Buckingham Palace; and the officers in the courtyard are more highly civilized than modern English officers: for example, they do not dig up the corpses of their dead enemies and mutilate them, as we dug up Cromwell and Mahdi.” 

In the opening stage directions, Shaw describes Cleopatra’s ancient palace and guards by comparing them to contemporary England. Shaw argues that two millennia of modernization does not necessarily equal progress or superior culture. He refers to Oliver Cromwell, who was a part of the overthrowing of the English throne and led the short-lived British republic known as the Commonwealth in the 17th century until his death in 1658.

After the monarchy was restored, Cromwell and other dead insurgents were disinterred and “executed” posthumously by King Charles II. In 1898, which is much more recent history for Shaw, the British had destroyed the tomb of the Mahdi (Mohammed Ahmed), a Sudanese religious leader who had led a successful rebellion against the occupying Ottoman-Egyptian forces in 1881 and then British armies in 1885. After defiling the Mahdi’s tomb, English military leaders threw his body into the Nile. 

“His subalterns are mostly handsome young fellows whose interest in the game and the story symbolizes with tolerable completeness the main interests in life of which they are conscious.”

Shaw describes the Egyptian soldiers who are guarding Cleopatra’s palace. He is suggesting that they are uncomplex as people, characterizing them as shallow thinkers. The soldiers are subordinate with little power themselves, followers who must be led. Caesar shows later that he feels thusly responsible for his soldiers’ lives when he gives them orders, unlike