Julius Caesar
by William Shakespeare
(Character of Antony)
Before
Caesar's murder, Antony makes four brief appearances in which he speaks a total
of five lines. Twice during Lupercal and again at Caesar's house, he makes
small statements, to show, that he is loyal to Caesar, as a dictator and as a
friend. Caesar's confiding to Antony at Lupercal indicates that he trusts
Antony and sees him as a friend, perhaps even as a protégé. Antony appears in
the Capitol at the beginning of Act 3, Scene 1, but he does not speak before
Trebonius takes him out.
When,
during Lupercal, Caesar describes Cassius as a dangerous man, Antony defends
him as "a noble Roman and well given.". While Antony does not
understand at the time that Cassius is dangerous, and later underestimates
Octavius' determination, as a ruler, he is a perceptive observer who validates
Cassius's assessment of him as being a "shrewd contriver." After the
assassination, Antony quickly realizes that he must deal with Brutus, and he
has the cleverness to take advantage of Brutus' simplicity. When he tells his
servant that "Brutus is noble, wise, valiant, and honest," it is
clear that Antony wants to flatter Brutus and work on those personal qualities
of Brutus that represent moral strength, but that are also fundamental
weaknesses when dealing with a more sophisticated man.
Antony's
requests for protection and for clarification for the assassination are
reasonable in the context of the situation, but Brutus' consent to provide both
ensures, that upon returning to the Capitol, Antony can concentrate on his
ultimate objective of gaining a platform. At the Capitol, by having Brutus
repeat his promises, Antony succeeds in placing him on the defensive and in
establishing a means to evade the more difficult questions being raised by
Cassius. He is not in the slightest
degree deterred by considerations of honesty, when dealing with those whom he
wishes to cheat or manipulate. He knows that Brutus wants to believe that he
(Antony) will join the cause of the conspirators, and he takes advantage of
Brutus' hope when he falsely tells the conspirators, "Friends am I with
you all, and love you all." He will also freely use half-truths and
outright falsehoods to sway the mob at the Forum to do what he wants.
Antony
faces danger in this meeting of Cassius, who knows him as a "clever
man", and from other conspirators, who know him to be a Caesar's friend.
He disposes of the threat of Cassius by paying attention to the more powerful
and brilliant Brutus, whom he remains defensive by reiterating, that he will be
a friend if he gets a satisfactory explanation. He disposes of the remaining conspirators
by boldly raising the subject of his apparent hypocrisy in befriending his
friend's killers, and by then cleverly dismisses his comments to Caesar's
nobility. It is in this manner, that he will turn the citizens towards the
rebellion by saying that he does not want to provoke them. Antony, in fact,
wants two things: to avenge Caesar's murder and to rule Rome. To do both, he
must first undermine the public's trust in the republics, and second, he must
drive them from power by creating a chaotic situation that will allow him to
seize the power in their place. The
method he chooses is to obtain permission to speak at Caesar's funeral, and
that is the only reason he plays the role he does in the Capitol.
In
his soliloquy in the Capitol, Antony reveals that he intends to create civil
strife throughout Italy, and in his oration, he sets it off to a promising
start. He is a politically stunning figure in his speech. He wants to create
rebellion and overthrow the republics so that he and Octavius can
fill the vacuum, and he succeeds completely. From his soliloquy in the Capitol
to the end of the play, he is consistently ambitious, confident, successful and
exceptionally ruthless. He has no concern for the welfare of the citizens of
Rome who will suffer in the civil strife in the civil strife he has instigated,
he is willing to kill a nephew instead of arguing for his life, he seeks to
keep as much as he can of Caesar's legacy to the poor of Rome, and he openly
acknowledges that he will remove Lepidus from power as soon as Lepidus is no
longer of use to him.
He
has some personality conflicts with Octavius, but he is able to re-establish it
on the background so that their differences are always secondary to their
struggle to defeat Brutus and Cassius. Antony is also skilled at locating the
most advantageous point of attack in all of his confrontations. In the Capitol,
instead of confronting all the conspirators, he focuses on Brutus' naive sense
of honor and nobility. In the Forum, rather than construct a reasoned argument
against the assassins, he appeals to the emotion with which he saw the crowd
respond to Brutus' speech.
At
Philippi, when Brutus leaves Cassius's army exposed, Antony immediately
attacks. At the end of the play, when Brutus and Cassius die and the
republicans are defeated, he publicly praises Brutus, for healing the political
wounds of Rome. Ironically, Brutus hoped to remove arbitrary government from
Rome by the assassination, but by murdering Caesar, he established the
conditions for an even more ruthless tyranny to seize power in the persons of
Antony and Octavius.
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