As Brutus begins his speech to the people they obviously want to listen to him. The crowd yell “we will be satisfied” this signifies that they have no idea what has happened but their love for Brutus will suffice non-dependant on his crime. The fickle crowd have chosen their new hero Brutus they show their respect by calling him “noble”. Brutus speaks to the crowd of his honour, he is showing how respected he is throughout Rome. When giving the crowd his reasoning for the murder of Caesar he appeals to the crowds’ patriotic senses by saying that he “did not love Caesar any less but I loved Rome more”. He credits Caesar with his virtues of “fortune” and “valour” but he claims for his ambition he “slew” him. Brutus uses rhetorical questions to involve the crowd “had you rather Caesar was living and die slaves or Caesar dead and live free men?” and later on in the speech saying “as which of you will not?”. These questions make a biased point of view for Brutus and his conspirators. He then crushes the morale for any pro-Caesar Romans left in the crowd by accusing them of being un-patriotic and calling them “vile” and “bondmen”. The crowd show their unanimous decision and support yelling “let him be Caesar”, “live Brutus, live”, “give him a statue with his ancestors”. Brutus finishes his speech and pleads his adoring crowd to stay and listen to Antony “not a man depart, save I alone, till Antony have spoke”.
As Antony starts his speech it is clear that he is struggling to make them listen to him. He tries to align himself with the crowd calling them “friends”, “countrymen” and “Romans”. He assures the anti-Caesar crowd that Caesar is not to be praised calling Brutus an “honourable man”, but goes on to try and disprove Brutus’ claims that Caesar’s ambition. “He brought many captives home to Rome whose ransoms did the general coffers fill?” in roman times prisoners of war were freed upon receiving ransoms, the ransom money gained by Caesar was put into public funding. He asks the rhetorical question of “did this in Caesar seem ambitious?” Still trying to contradict Brutus h moves to a second point trying to persuade the crowd that Caesar was not ambitious “when the poor hath cried, Caesar hath wept” he pauses briefly then claims that “ambition should have been made of sterner stuff ”. After each point Antony makes he goes on to call Brutus an “honourable man” just to try and convince the crowd that he is on Brutus’ side, however, as we go further into his speech the term “honourable man” is said more and more ironically. Antony goes on to make his third and final point trying to convince the crowd that Caesar was not actually ambitious, he reminds the crowd that at the “Lupercol” Caesar was presented the crown three times which “he did thrice refuse”. He reassures the crowd who still love Brutus that he is not here to try and disprove Brutus’ words, even though we the audience already know that he is from his soliloquy earlier on in the play shortly after Caesar's assassination. Antony pauses to hear the reactions from the crowd.
In the next part of Anthony’s speech he can be a little more forthright, as the crowd is feeling much friendlier towards him. Anthony says that he doesn’t want to make the crowd feel “mutiny and rage” when in fact the audience knows that that is exactly what he wants, because he says so in his soliloquy. Anthony uses Caesar's will like a prop, theatrically. We know the will is genuine as it has the “seal” of Caesar on it; and this shows how shrewd Anthony is because the only time he would have had to collect the will was as soon as Anthony heard of Caesars death and this shows that Anthony had been planning to make a speech. Anthony tantalises and teases the crowd with the will “I do not mean to read”, it is obvious to the audience that he did mean to read it or else he wouldn’t have mentioned it in the first place! The crowd have been moved by Anthony’s speech so far, calling the once “honourable” conspirators “traitors”, “villains” and “murderers”. Anthony’s obvious with his psychological game on the crowd by denying them the reading of the will; they want to read it even more. He makes it seem like it was the crowd’s idea “you will compel me then to read the will?” and they are now begging Anthony to read Caesar’s will “read the will”. Yet Anthony still plays with the crowd’s feelings by keeping them in suspense. He is not reading the will until they have seen Caesar’s body and heard more of his speech. They are now calling Anthony “noble” and have total respect for him
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Although Antony has succeeded in making the people uncontrollably angry, he has not finished with them yet. He lies saying he didn’t want to “stir you up to such a sudden flood of mutiny” trying to rid himself of any blame putting it all in the hands of the crowd and that the hysteria has nothing to do with him. He goes on to say “I am no orator” his false modesty, persuades the crowd that Mark Antony is in fact not persuading them at all. He claims that Brutus is a good orator so the crowd think that if anyone has stirred them up it must be him. Antony calls himself a “plain, blunt man” these monosyllables show of the simple mindedness although this shows off his orator skills on how he knows how to do this. He uses alliteration which is which is ironic “wit nor words nor worth”. He gives a metaphor saying that Caesar’s wounds speak. The crowd go to leave but Antony shows his complete hold of the crowd by dragging them all back, they do as he says, the crowd are totally biddable. He gives them long term motivation for their rioting with the reading of Caesars will as he fears that the rioting will not last and he want years of civil war. The final straw for the Romans is that Caesar was to give everyone 75 drachmas each. Antony finishes off his speech with a rhetorical question “here was a Caesar! When will come such another?”
Left alone on the stage, Antony is left triumphant and smug at his achievement. The first person to talk to Antony is Octavius Caesar’s servant telling Antony that Octavius had come to Rome. Antony is pleased by this news and everything appears to be going his way when he is told that Brutus and Cassius had been run out of Rome he says it is to do with how “I have moved the crowd”. The effect that Antony has had on the crowd is that a mob kills Cinna the poet just for having the same name as a conspirator. Antony seizes power at the first opportunity he gets, he tells Octavius that they should get rid of Lepidus and make the three way split they had planned a two way split this shows how very ambitious Antony is. At the end of the play Antony finds the body of Brutus on the battle field, he stands over it and claims that Brutus was “the noblest roman of them all” this shows his true respect for Brutus and admitting all along he knew Brutus did what was right for Rome in his heart and shows how devious and manipulative Antony was to the crowd.