This false trust is built up with the tone and the words used, praising the conspirators, calling them ‘gentlemen’ and ‘noble’.
When Mark Anthony enters, Brutus welcomes him but Mark Anthony does not respond because he runs to Caesar’s corpse. This should have been an obvious indication to Brutus that Mark Anthony would never be fully faithful to Brutus’ cause.
[Brutus] ‘But here comes Anthony. Welcome, Mark Anthony!
[Anthony] O mighty Caesar! Dost though lie so low?’
However, Mark Anthony is also clever, biding his time bye being friendly towards the conspirators:
‘Let each man render me his bloody hand.
First, Marcus Brutus, will I shake with you;
Next, Caius Cassius, do I take your hand;’
Brutus is also naïve in that he lets Mark Anthony speak at Caesar’s funeral in the pulpit:
[Mark Anthony] ‘That I may
Produce his body to the marketplace
And in the pulpit, as becomes a friend,
Speak in the order of his funeral.
[Brutus] You shall, Mark Anthony.’
This also illustrates Mark Anthony’s power to persuade people and build up trust and can be accepted (‘as becomes a friend’) and Brutus agrees that Mark Anthony is his friend and lets him speak at Caesar’s funeral: ‘you shall, Mark Anthony’. He wishes to speak at Caesar’s funeral in order to convince the plebeians that Caesar’s murder was wrong and to get revenge on Brutus.
‘And Caesar’s spirit, raging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.’
He also shows he wants to split Rome up:
‘That mothers shall but smile when they behold:
That infants quartered with hands of war’
Illustrating Mark Anthony’s basic intentions to get rid of the conspirators shown by the speech given.
Mark Anthony speech is more effective in many ways. One thing that makes it more effective is that Mark Anthony has Caesar’s body, dripping with blood because of the many wounds he has suffered, which he shows to the crowd. Brutus gives abstract ideas and reasons like:
‘If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s to him I say that Brutus’ love to Caesar was no less than his’.
Brutus is trying to win the crowd over by saying that
‘Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more’.
His love for Rome was greater therefore ‘as he [Caesar] was ambitious, I slew him’. This is an abstract idea to the plebeians because the plebeians wouldn’t understand love for Rome and patriotism because they were not as highly educated.
Another abstract idea linked to that of Brutus’ ‘love for Rome’ was that he was prepared to die for the good of Rome.
‘I have the same dagger for myself when it shall please my country to need my death’.
The plebeians side with Mark Anthony because his speech portrays simple views on Caesar’s murder, which they can understand. The concepts in Brutus’ speech (for example, patriotism) are hard for the plebeians to relate to as they have never fought in battle and do not have the intellect to understand such perceptions. Mark Anthony sways the crowd to his way of thinking by showing Caesar’s supposed will but not reading from it and saying that the plebeians are Caesar’s heirs. This fills the plebeians with greed:
‘But here’s a parchment with the seal of Caesar,
I found it in his closet, ‘tis his will.’
This sways the more because it makes them think that Caesar has left money for them.
‘‘Tis good, you know not that you are his heirs.’
Thirdly, Mark Anthony infers bad things about the conspirators. He keeps repeating that Brutus is a honourable man. This makes it hollow.
‘Yet Brutus says he is ambitious
And Brutus is an honourable man.’
Mark Anthony also puts ideas into the minds of the plebeians by using reverse psychology:
‘In every wound of Caesar, that should move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.’
[Plebeians] We’ll mutiny’.
This shows that he is manipulating the crowd.
The effectiveness proliferates because Mark Anthony’s speech is after Brutus’ speech and so Mark Anthony can counter all of the points Brutus made. He also shows emotions of his loyalty to Caesar by crying and so pausing in his speech to allow what was said to the plebeians sink in.
‘And men have lost their reason! Bear with me,
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar
And I must pause ‘til it comes back to me.’
So, because of Mark Anthony ability to manipulate and persuade gave him the advantage over Brutus because he was able to use these qualities to sway the crowd.
