Marcus Brutus was a servant and close friend to Caesar. He too portrays his strong relationship with Caesar, but a stronger relationship with Rome and its people and that is why he killed Caesar. He shows this in his speech when he says, “Not that I loved Caesar less but that I loved Rome more.”
Both Brutus and Antony used many persuasive devices to persuade the crowd at the funeral speeches but Antony’s speech was overall better and in the end won over the plebeians.
Brutus’ opening speech uses the rule of three “Romans, countrymen and lovers”. He also uses lots of emotive language such as “I weep for him” and “there is tears for his love”. He also makes use of repetition as a persuading device “I weep for him;…,I rejoice at it; …, I honour him;”. He speech is peppered with repetition. By repeating he is ensuring that is his getting is point across. In the final part of his speech, he again uses repetition, for example- “who here is so rude that would not be a Roman?” and “who is here so vile that would not love his country?” These sentences not only make use of rhetoric but also make out that if you had a problem with the murder of Caesar then you did not love Rome and none of the plebeians wanted to give that impression. Brutus uses patriotism to win Plebeians loyalty.
Again like Brutus, Antony’s speech starts with the rule of three “Friends, Romans, and Countrymen.” Then he uses repetition for example “But Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus in an honourable man… Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, And Brutus is an honourable man.” This shows that he is trying to make a point about Brutus and the conspirators. He uses reverse psychology by saying they are honourable men and by then slowly proving that they aren’t. Next he shows that Caesar wasn’t ambitious “I thrice presented him a kingly crown, which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?” This puts doubt in the minds of the plebeians as Brutus stated in his speech that the reason he had killed Caesar was because he was ambitious. Like Brutus, Antony makes use of emotive language however, Antony used his speech to a much better and powerful effect, examples are “My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, And I must pause till it come back to me.” Hearing this, plebeians start to change their allegiance to Antony. He then makes fun of the fact that the conspirators are honourable by saying it in a sarcastic voice “Who (you all know) are honourable men” Next in his speech he makes all the plebeians feel remorse for Caesar’s cruel death by bribing them with the news that Caesar’s will gifts each one of them with money. This enrages all the plebeians. This makes them think that Caesar was a really good man who did not deserve to die as he had their interests in his heart and they all wanted revenge for the death of a good man. Last of all Antony made use of rhetorical questions such as “You compel me to read the will”.
Overall both speeches used a variety of persuasive devises and were both very good but Antony’s speech still triumphed as the better one which won over the plebeians. This was because he used a bigger variety of persuasive devises and used them better and more effectively than Brutus. One devise that Antony used much better then Brutus was emotive language. Antony made much bigger use of this and used it more often for a better effect. His emotive language was one of the key factors that turned the plebeians against Brutus as Antony made them feel sorry for Caesar’s cruel death and angry towards Brutus and the conspirators. Another big devise Antony used was his cunning ability to use the word “Honourable” in describing Brutus and make it mean the exact opposite. He made the conspirators seem wrong to do what they did and turned the plebeians against them. The other big deciding factor that worked to Antony’s favour was that his speech was after Brutus’. He managed to persuade the people against Brutus and got them very excited and enraged and his speech may not have had the same effect if he had gone first. Brutus had already made his comments and Antony could take advantage of this and make each part of Brutus speech to appear negative or that Brutus intentions were not good for the Plebeians.
I think that these speeches were very good and would still be good in the modern world. This is because they both made use of many persuasive devises which are still in very big use in today’s speeches and have been used in many big influential speeches by Martin Luther King jr, George W Bush and Tony Blair. In fact anybody in power uses such strong and emotive language to get their way and to win loyalty from the public in general or whoever is at the receiving end.
