Most of the way into his speech he uses a rhetorical question,’ who here have I offended. I pause for a reply.’ This is his way of seeing how he has affected their thinking. When no one reply he feels very confident. This highlights how Brutus does his speeches and that is by asking questions ad appealing to the head rather than the heart. Mark Anthony has a very different tactic, which we will see later.
When Brutus asks another rhetorical question and pauses one of the crowd shouts,’ Brutus for Caesar’. This shows that Brutus’ message has not got across that Rome shouldn’t have a Caesar. At this point he should realize that everything isn’t going to go smoothly for him.
But Brutus doesn’t see this and gets into his stride, at that moment Mark Anthony walks out of the senate with Caesars body. A lady in the crowd screams causing Brutus to have to stop and turn around to see what the commotion is about. Anthony walks down to the bottom of the steps and places Caesars body on the floor covered in his ragged cloak. He walks up a few steps but not as high a Brutus. Brutus quickly recovers and says,’ We have allowed Mark Anthony to speak to you in honour of Caesar’. This shows he is trying to gain control of Anthony. He then leaves quickly.
Anthony starts by saying,’ Friends, Romans, countrymen.’ This shows that he doesn’t want to put himself above the people because it will be better for him if he does not. In his speech he uses sarcasm to discredit what Brutus said. He does this by saying, ‘And Brutus is an honorable man’. By repeating that he shows that Brutus and the conspirators aren’t honorable and that they killed him for personal gain.
There is one line that demolishes what Brutus said and it is, ‘I thrice presented hi with a kingly crown, and thrice he refused it. Was this ambition?’ He uses ‘ambition’ because the people will remember it from Brutus’ speech. He also mentions all the good Caesar did for Rome such as ransoming the prisoners of war back to the country they came from. When Anthony pauses it is for dramatic affect as he says, ‘Bear with me, my heart is in the coffin with Caesar’. This is massive because there is a grown man who appears to be sobbing with his back to a crowd. We know these tears are fake but he does it for affect because he is a great actor. A lady towards the front of the crowd says, ‘Poor soul, his eyes are as red as fire’. This shows how convincing he is and how closely the crowd is paying attention to him.
As he turns round he whips a scroll from under his toga and waves it in the air proclaiming it is Caesars will. The crowd are now on edge, as they know a will brings money. In his next sentence he tells the crowd something whilst pretending he hasn’t told them it, ‘ Tis good you know not you are his heirs’. This tells the crowd what they wanted to hear. He then says, ‘I mustn’t read it for fear of wronging such honorable men’. This shows the power he has as one citizen says, ‘they are traitors, honorable men’. The last bit shows sarcasm and so Anthony knows he is almost finished. But he decides not to read the will yet because he really wants to make them mad. So he says, ‘may I descend?’. He is taking a risk as someone may stab him while he is at ground level.
The crowd asks him to come down and he approaches the body of Caesar. He talks them through how he was murdered and where each dagger went into him. At this time Caesars body is still covered. When he gets to where Brutus stabbed him he says, ‘Ingratitude, more strong than traitors arms.’ This means than when Brutus stabbed him it was more painful than all the other wounds put together. Of course he doesn’t know where he was stabbed by whom but he uses it for affect. As he finishes the last section of that speech he rips the cloak off revealing the true horror of what just happened.
This angers the crowd so much they leave to destroy everything in a blind rage, ‘ Revenge! About! Seek! Burn! Fire! Kill! Slay!’. This is chanted by the whole crowd as they leave. But Anthony feels he isn’t done yet and calls them back to hear why they shouldn’t destroy everything. His reason is that ‘they who have done this deed are honorable’. This leads him into another speech but this time solely about Brutus. It stirs the crowd up more and more as they feel they need to kill Brutus. As Anthony knows he is almost done he mentions the will again. ‘You have forgot the will I told you of’. This he makes up as he goes along because he knows the will is not real. He makes the will into something he can actually do. He says to every man he has left 75 drachmas, also he has left them his private lands as recreation area for all the public. The public leaves to destroy the traitor’s houses and everything else they can lay their hands on.
This shows that Mark Anthony is a much better speaker than Brutus because he got them riled up and wanting to destroy the traitors. He also managed to sway them a lot faster than Brutus managed to. Although he had an easier task as he talked to their hearts and stirred up what they really thought and bought it into the open. Brutus did well to get them to believe that Rome didn’t need a Caesar but the public did not understand this message very well. Anthony only spoke as the conspirators told him to and that was in he praise of Caesar.