Antony’s speech begins with the famous quote, “Friends, Romans, Country men, lend me your ears.” He proceeds to tell the audience his purpose; “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” He then continues his speech.
He uses primary and secondary motivation steps. The primary motivation step is his dramatic entrance with the body of Caesar, and his opening words, and his secondary motivation step is telling his audience about Caesar being ambitious and questioning whether or not he actually was ambitious. He then comes to the conclusion that he was not very ambitious, but he does not want to go against Brutus’ word because “Brutus is an honourable man.”
The main goals of his speech are to make the citizens trust him, and believe him. He tells them of Caesar, and praises him, because that is what the people want to hear. But he does not praise him too much because he said at the beginning of his speech that he “comes to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”
Antony loved and admired Caesar. He pretended to befriend the conspirators, and asks that he be allowed to speak at Caesar’s funeral. He then tells the crowd of what the conspirators did, and continues to tell them Caesar’s will, which fires them up making them angry with the conspirators. This was Antony’s intention, although he hides it by saying “let me not stir you up to such a sudden flood of mutiny,” which covers his intentions.
Antony was a skilled orator, and his speech sways the crowd. They begin to think that the conspirators may have had a good reason to assassinate Caesar, but they end up wanting revenge. He denies his amazing skills when he says “I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech to stir men’s blood,” which he says to stop the crowd from thinking that he may be trying to manipulate them.
Antoney’s role in condemning men to death shows that he can be as cold hearted as he is passionate. He tells the crowd of his love for Caesar, and that the conspirators were honourable men, then he secretly fires up the crowd by telling them how good Caesar was, making them want revenge on the conspirators.
He gets the crowd’s attention by using a variety of different techniques. He repeats himself when he says “Brutus is an honourable man,” and he also repeats himself when he is questioning Caesar’s ambition. He tells the crowd of all the times that Caesar was not ambitious “I thrice presented him a kingly crown, which he did thrice refuse” then he asks the crowd “was this ambition?” suggesting that Caesar was not ambitious, then he says, “yet Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honourable man.” He continues to persuade the audience that he believes Brutus, “I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, but here I am to speak what I do know.”
There is also common usage of alliteration. “Kingly crown,” and “Brutish beasts,” are just a couple. Antony uses alliteration as a way of getting the crowd to listen. The use of alliteration makes his speech sound poetic.
To polish off the speech he tells the audience Caesar’s will. First he tells them that he won’t read it because he doesn’t want to stir up the crowd. Then, after keeping them in much anticipation (which he does intentionally) he tells them, making them much more raged at Caesar’s conspirators.
His closing words are “Here was Caesar, when comes such another?” making the people more angry with Caesar’s conspirators. The crowd then decides to seek revenge on Caesar’s conspirators.
