Isaac Asimov - Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1

—Act III, scene ii, lines 153-54

And one man in the crowd calls out with passion:

—Act III, scene ii, line 155

There is hatred in the repetition of that phrase so often applied to Brutus, and which Brutus so loves. Another man in the crowd cries out.

—Act III, scene ii, lines 157-58

Mark Antony has them now, but it is still not enough. He intends to make them virtually insane with rage. He descends from the rostrum and has them gather round Caesar's corpse. Antony holds up the cloak Caesar was wearing when he was killed:

—Act III, scene ii, lines 172-75

The Nervii were a fierce Gallic tribe living in what is now Belgium, and Caesar had beaten them in 57 b.c. This was a skillful allusion, too, for it reminded the crowd of Caesar's conquests, not over Romans, but over barbarian Gauls (whom Romans particularly hated because of the memory of the ancient Gallic sack of Rome in 390 b.c.).

To be sure, this passage doesn't square with actual history. Mark Antony couldn't possibly remember the evening of the day on which Caesar overcame the Nervii, since he didn't join Caesar in Gaul till three years later. Moreover, is it likely that Caesar on the supreme day on which he expects to be crowned king will put on a thirteen-year-old cloak? All our information concerning him agrees that he was a dandy, and meticulous with his grooming.

However, it is an effective passage and the real Mark Antony would have used it, regardless of accuracy, if he had thought of it

Now Mark Antony begins to point to the bloodied rents in the mantle where swords had sliced through (and this he actually did, according to Plutarch). What's more, he has progressed to the point where he can begin to stab the conspirators with pointed words.

—Act III, scene ii, lines 176-78

Antony lingers on Brutus' stroke, for it was this man who had instructed him to praise the conspirators, and it is Brutus therefore whom he chiefly wants to destroy with praise. He says:

—Act III, scene ii, lines 183-85

Now he whips away the cloak to reveal Caesar's own gashed body, and that is the equivalent of crying "Havoc," for the maddened crowd breaks out with:

—Act III, scene ii, lines 206-7

But still Mark Antony is not through. He calms them yet again, still keeping to his promise to praise Brutus, by saying:

—Act HI, scene ii, lines 219-20

It is a piece of praise that openly laughs at Brutus, and there is still, after all, the will to read. Antony begins the reading and says:

—Act III, scene ii, lines 243-44

There is more:

—Act III, scene ii, lines 249-53

That brings Antony to his climax. He has wrought on the crowd with pity, with greed, and with gratitude, and they are in the highest state combustible. He gives them one last shout:

—Act III, scene ii, line 254

With that, the crowd explodes. They are utterly mad and ready to destroy the conspirators and Rome with them if necessary. Mark Antony watches them rush off, raving, and says grimly:

—Act III, scene ii, lines 263-64

Shakespeare shows the mob at its frightening work in one incident taken from Plutarch, which involves a minor poet named Helvius Cinna. He was a friend of Caesar's and no relative of Lucius Cornelius Cinna, the conspirator.

Cinna the poet is stopped by elements of the mob who demand he identify himself. He says:

—Act III, scene iii, line 27

The crowd at once sets up its howl and though the poor fellow shrieks that he is not Cinna the conspirator but merely China the poet, they will not listen, crying:

—Act III, scene iii, line 33

Soon enough, the conspirators realize the two deadly mistakes Brutus has made for them; letting Antony live, and letting him speak. The mere name of "conspirator" is now enough to kill.

The servant who had appeared in the earlier scene to talk of Octavius appears soon after the conclusion of Antony's great speech to announce:

—Act III, scene ii, lines 271-72

They hoped at first merely to retire to some nearby town till Rome had cooled down, and then to return. This was not to happen, however. Rome did not cool down; Mark Antony remained in control. The conspirators scattered, some to the respective provinces they had been assigned, some elsewhere. Brutus and Cassius are the only conspirators with whom the play concerns itself in the last two acts. They retire to the eastern provinces.

But Mark Antony was not to have it all his own way. He had no way of knowing it, but the day of his funeral speech was the climax of his life, the apex of his power. He had ended it with the rhetorical cry: "Here was a Caesar! When comes such another?" and eleven lines later that question is answered.

The servant who brings the news of the flight of Brutus and Cassius also announces news concerning his master:

—Act III, scene ii, line 265

Here was another Caesar. He was that literally, for he adopted the name; and he was that figuratively too, for he was even more capable than Julius, winning that for which the older man had died without getting.

There was no way of telling this when Octavius first came; young, sickly, and seeming to be of little account in comparison to the great, magnetic charisma that now clung to Mark Antony. Antony underestimated him(everyone did) and could not tell that, as he himself had been Brutus' nemesis, so Octavius was fated to be his-something that will be made clear enough in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra.

But even without foreseeing the future, Antony can see that Octavius' coming is a serious embarrassment. Caesar's will, which Antony had read with such consummate skill at the funeral, contained clauses he tried to suppress. Caesar, in his will, had named Octavius as his heir and, what's more, had adopted him as his son. This meant that Octavius owned all of Caesar's funds (which Mark Antony had appropriated) and would have become the next king if Caesar had lived long enough to gain the monarchy.