King Cymbeline (d. c. A.D. 40) is the title character of Cymbeline, the king of Britain and father of Imogen. Though Cymbeline is the title character, he is not the dominant character. The title of the play suggests the land he rules, rather than him personally. He is a typical king of fairy-tale and romantic literature. He loses his prosperity when he follows evil advisers, and then recovers it in a traditional happy ending through the workings of a benevolent fate. Influenced by his vicious Queen and her son Cloten, he proceeds unjustly against his innocent daughter and her husband, Posthumus. He loses Imogen as he once lost his sons, by another unjust action, the banishment of Belarius twenty years earlier. Moreover, still under the influence of his wife and stepson, he commits Britain to a foolish war against Rome. However, fate intervenes, and Cymbeline is eventually freed from evil.  The Romans are miraculously defeated by the king's long-lost sons, and Cymbeline recovers his family and survives to be merciful to his enemies at the play's close. 

Cymbeline is a passive figure whose competence as a ruler can only be restored by a happy ending brought about by chance, rather than by himself. On the other hand, his crimes are equally not his own; he is only unintentionally cruel, and though wrongheaded, he is quite willing to admit his folly and accept the mercy of providence. He is a figure from traditional lore who is necessary to the plot but does not contribute to it. His character is not fully developed, and what we see is a feeble store of anger in early scenes, a dumbfounded confusion later on, and a mild exaltation at the end. 

Cloten is the uncouth son of the Queen and the rejected suitor of Imoegen who then plans to rape her and kill her husband, Posthumus. Cloten is a comic villain for the most part. He is a stupid and vainglorious man who inspires bemused contempt, though he has his threatening moments and reminds us of the potential for tragedy that underlies the fairy-tale ambience of much of the play. He is finally killed when he happens, entirely by chance, on the lost prince Guiderius, who handily beheads him and then remarks, 'This Cloten was a fool, an empty purse' (4.2.113). His function is that of a fairy-tale villain whose fate is to be defeated by the hand of providence. 

Cloten's personality and function vary considerably in the course of the play. In Acts 1-2 Cloten is quite simply a boor; a braggart who is mocked by his own companions and by Imogen's Lady. Imogen tells him he is not worth the 'mean'st garment' of Posthumus (2.3.132), and complains that she is 'sprited with a fool' (2.3.138). In Act 3 Cloten takes on a different, less inane, air as he blusters patriotically and helps to commit Britain to a foolish war against Rome. Finally, in Act 4 he is the villain who schemes to kill Posthumus in front of Imogen before he rapes her, and who crassly insults Guiderius for his supposed inferiority.

Such changes make it hard to precisely characterize Cloten's function in the play, and this problem offers a hint of Shakespeare's trouble with the Romances, a new genre in which Cymbeline was an experiment. The irregularities in Cloten's personality are similar to those of the play as a whole, and they betray the playwright's difficulty in melding the realistic characters to which he was accustomed with the ethereal figures required by the romances. Cloten seems to be a compound of several types of writing, created as Shakespeare struggled with the task of generating a new type of character, a villain who must convincingly represent evil without being so real as to intrude on a world of fantasy. Though a faulty character, Cloten foreshadows a much more successful figure of this kind, Caliban of The Tempest. 

Posthumus is the husband of Imogen. Banished from Britain for secretly marrying the daughter of King Cymbeline, Posthumus goes to Rome. There, he boasts of Imogen's virtues and wagers the diamond ring she has given him that the courtier Iachimo cannot seduce her. Iachimo is unsuccessful, but he deceives Posthumus, who foolishly believes him and vows revenge on Imogen. By letter, he instructs his servant, Pisanio, to murder her. Once he has established the situation that faces Imogen in Acts 3-4, Posthumus disappears from the play until, near the end, he reappears, stricken with guilt over the murder he believes has been committed. He seeks death in battle and fights for Britain against Rome, but he is not killed. He then seeks death as a Roman prisoner of war, but while in captivity he dreams of his family and the god Jupiter, who promises that his story shall end happily. Unaware of this when he awakes, Posthumus appears before the king as a Roman captive, but he reveals himself when lachimo confesses his deception. Posthumus, in his turn, confesses to Imogen's murder before he discovers that she is alive and he is reunited with her. In the aura of reconciliation that closes the play, the king accepts Posthumus as a son-in-law.   

In the course of the play, Posthumus' qualities vary enormously from the ideal to the seriously Hawed. In this respect he offers clues to the difficulties Shakespeare faced when he wrote the Romances, a new genre of plays in which Cymbeline was an experiment. The playwright faced the problem of integrating realistic settings and characters, which he was accustomed to creating, with the ethereal, almost abstract characters of fairy tale and traditional romantic literature on which the romances were based. Posthumus, like other characters in Cymbeline, demonstrates that he was not always successful.

As the play opens, Posthumus is praised by a Gentleman who declares, 'I do not think / so fair an outward, and such stuff within / Endows a man, but he' (1.1.22-24); here, he is simply a traditional romantic prince and a proper mate for Imogen. However, once on his own in Rome he is ludicrously immature, intent on an inflated idea of masculine honour. In 1.5, he, Iachimo, and the Frenchman almost seem to offer a satire on dueling. His wholly unnecessary defense of Imogen's chastity is no less ridiculous than his readiness to disbelieve in it later, and his response is ignoble when he instructs his servant to murder Imogen in revenge. Nevertheless, he is once again the traditional princely hero when he helps the king's long-lost sons, Guiderius and Arviragus, defeat the Romans, and it is certainly to his credit that he comes to regret his earlier actions and feel guilt. However, the basic problem with his character is most evident here. His elaborate attempts at suicide detract from our appreciation of his real personal distress. On one hand, it is difficult to accept Posthumus as a real figure like the victimized Othello, while on the other, he does not provide a bold allegorical representation of human error, like, say, Leontes, of The Winter's Tale. Shakespeare had not yet learned to permit the symbolic to dominate, and Posthumus' human reality interferes with his value as an archetype of jealousy. This makes him a somewhat ridiculous and unsympathetic figure. 

Arviragus is one of the two kidnapped sons of King Cymbeline. Arviragus and his older brother Guiderius have been raised to be woodsmen and hunters in the wilds of Wales by their foster-father Belarius, who kidnapped them in infancy when he was unjustly exiled by Cymbeline. When their sister Imogen, disguised as a young man, happens onto their cave, the boys immediately love 'him', although they don't know that they are siblings. Like Guiderius, Arviragus is inherently noble and desires to prove himself in the greater world of kingly courts and warfare. When the Romans invade Britain, the brothers have their chance. After they save the British army they are honored by the king, and then, in the extraordinary sequence of revelations and reconciliations in 5.5, they are reunited with their father. 

Iachimo is the villain who pretends to have seduced Posthumus' new wife, Imogen. He thus provokes the murderous jealousy in Posthumus that stimulates much of the action of the play.  Motivated only by an irresponsible pleasure in mischief, lachimo wagers that he can seduce Imogen. When he fails, he resorts to trickery. He secretes himself in her bedroom, steals her bracelet, and then poses as her lover. He flaunts his knowledge of her intimate surroundings and declares the bracelet a gift. His plan accomplished in 2.4, lachimo pockets the diamond ring he has won from Posthumus and disappears from the play until very near its close, when he returns to Britain as a member of the Roman army. He proves unsuccessful in combat, and he supposes that his guilt for blackening Imogen's name has weakened him as a warrior. Captured, he confesses to his crime when the disguised Imogen recognizes on his hand the ring he has won. In the aura of reconciliation that closes the play, he is forgiven by Posthumus. 

Lucius is the ambassador from Rome to the Britain of King Cymbeline, later the commander of the invading Roman army and the employer of the disguised Imogen. In 3.1 Lucius informs Cymbeline that Rome demands tribute from Britain. When he receives the king's refusal he transmits his government's declaration of war. However, he adds that he regrets this, for he appreciates the hospitality he has received in Britain. His gentlemanly nature is again evident in 3.5, when he departs from the king's court, and we understand why Pisanio recommends that the disguised Imogen become a page for Lucius. He calls the Roman 'honourable, and . . . most holy' (3.4.178-179). In 4.2 Lucius readily offers employ- ment and protection to Imogen. He believes that she is a young man, Fidele, and he takes particular care of 'him' when the Romans are defeated in battle in 5.2. Finally, in 5.5 Lucius nobly faces death at the hands of the victorious Cymbeline, before he receives mercy in the play's final aura of reconciliation. 

Captain is an officer in the Roman army. In 4.2 the Captain reports to Lucius that the army has landed in Wales. His six terse lines serve to convey information that moves the plot to a new stage. 

Gaoler are the keepers of the captured Posthumus, who is believed to be a Roman prisoner of war. In 5.4 the First Gaoler is a Clown who interrupts the action with humorous remarks on life and death (the Second Gaoler speaks only half a line). He provides comic relief as the plot becomes most troubling. He offers a sardonic philosophy of death as a relief from life, a view that encapsulates Posthumus' depressed state. 

The placement of this character is significant. The Gaoler (after a mute appearance in 5.3, and a brief one at the opening of 5.4) arrives to summon Posthumus to his execution, at 5.4.152. This is after Posthumus has had his vision of Sicilius Leonatus and Jupiter—which we recognize as the climax of the play. Thus, the Gaoler's comic approach to the tragic potential of life comes only after an assurance that the play will have a happy ending. 

Queen is the wife King Cymbeline and stepmother of his daughter Imogen The Queen, one of several villains in the play, The most purely vicious of them. She had planned that Imogen marry her son, the oafish Cloten, but Imogen eloped with Posthumus instead. Posthumus is exiled, and the Queen directs her malice towards Imogen and Pisanio, Posthumus' servant who has stayed with Imogen. She is the archetypal wicked stepmother, and her villainy is clear from her initial appearance, in 1.2, when she pretends to protect Imogen but reveals her malice in an aside. Imogen is undeceived and notes the Queen's 'dissembling courtesv' (1 2 15); thus, the Queen's wickedness is immediately established. In 1.6 the Queen collects poison from the physician Cornelius and offers it to Pisanio as health-giving potion in the hope that he will take it and die. However, Cornelius -will not trust one other malice' (1.6.35), and has substituted a sleeping potion for the poison. The Queen is ultimately ineffective, but her evil intent is a prominent element of the first half of the play. 

Imogen is the daughter of King Cymbeline and wife of Posthumus. Imogen, the central character of the play, loses the love other husband through no fault other own, is exposed to great danger and wanders in the wilderness, and then is finally restored to happiness. She embodies the play's lesson that while humanity may exhibit courage and an undefeatable spirit of love, our happiness nevertheless depends on providence. Imogen has long been among the favorite heroines in Shakespeare. The Victorian poet Swinburne extravagantly called her 'the woman best beloved in all the world of song and all the tide of time'. However, her great charm is also evidence of a failure on the playwright's part as he struggled with a new/genre, the Romances. 

Imogen is subjected to a harrowing sequence of misfortunes. Her father banishes Posthumus to Italy, and she faces the unwanted courtship of both the boorish Cloten and the oily Iachimo, the latter of whom malevolently convinces Posthumus that she has been unfaithful. Posthumus thereupon arranges for her murder in the wilds of Wales. A faithful servant, Pisanio, warns her and provides her with a disguise as a young man, but she finds herself stranded in the wilderness. After several adventurous episodes during which she comes to believe Posthumus is dead and is herself believed to be dead by others, she returns to her father's court in the guise of a Roman prisoner of war. In the final scene's sequence of reconciliations her identity is revealed, and she is reunited with both husband and father. 

Though Imogen has always enchanted audiences, her resourcefulness and charm suggest one who battles against destiny rather than the helpless victim of fate. In the literature on which Shakespeare's romances were based, the traditional character type corresponding to Imogen was the fairy-tale princess who is adored for her beauty and passive calm, an object of intrigue but not a participant in it. She represents humanity's helplessness and inspires pity in her plight, rather than admiration for her pluck. Imogen is intermittently presented in terms of this ideal. To Pisanio, she is 'more goddess-like than wife-like* (3.2.8), and lachimo compares her to 'th'Arabian bird' (1.7.17), the fabled Phoenix who cannot die. She sometimes seems to be a helpless puppet of the plot, as when she immediately accepts lachimo's transparently false excuse for having proposed adultery with a humble 'You make amends' (1.7.168). Moreover, she adopts a purely conventional morality when she refuses to sleep with Posthumus even after they are married, presumably because she awaits her father's approval of the match. 

Also, any servants of King Cymbeline, in 3.5 an Attendant is sent to find Imogen and returns to report briefly that her chambers are locked and silent. This informs the court of what the audience already knows—that Imogen has fled. The Attendant serves merely as an instrument of communication. Also, a number of Attendants mutely swell the king's retinue when he is informed of the approaching Roman army, in 4.3; their function is purely decorative. 

Jupiter is the Roman king of the gods, appears to the desperate Posthumus in a vision where he assures the spirit of Posthumus' father, Sicilius Leonatus, that the young man will be restored to good fortune. He then departs, and leaves a tablet with a cryptic message (5.4.138-145) that is interpreted later by the Soothsayer as an allegory of reunion and renewal.  Posthumus does not realize that his chaotic drift towards tragedy has ended with the god's appearance,  and he is still intent on death. However, the audience is aware that he shall be 'happier much by his affliction made' (5.4.108), as the god puts it. Thus, Jupiter embodies the play's moral: that humanity depends on providence for happiness.

Jupiter's style is very formal. He speaks in rhyming verse and old-fashioned language unlike anything else in the play. This signifies his supernatural nature. In performance, his lines are sometimes sung. The stage direction at his entrance reads, Jupiter descends in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle . . .' (5.4.- 92); this makes it clear that either the Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe, or both, were equipped with a mechanical apparatus that permitted characters to enter a scene from above by being lowered from the ceiling. As in the present case, this permitted a literal deus ex machina, or 'god from the machine', the phrase for a surprise appearance by a god who resolves the situation of a play. The machine was originally a cranelike device used in ancient Greek theatre to lower actors portraying deities as though they were descending from heaven.