He would then be Cæsar's successor because he had avenged his death.
The orator must show no passion until he has aroused passion in the hearer—oratory is a collaboration. The orator is the active principle—the audience the passive.
Mark Antony, the practised orator, begins with simple propositions to which all agree. Gradually he sends out quivering feelers—the response returns—he continues, the audience answers back—he plays upon their emotion, and soon only one mind is supreme, and that is his own.
We know what he did and how he did it, but his words are lost. Shakespeare, the man of imagination, supplies them.
The plotters have made their defense—it is accepted.
Antony, too, defends them—he repeats that they are honorable men, and to reiterate that a man is honorable is to admit that possibly he is not. The act of defense implies guilt—and to turn defense into accusation through pity and love for the one wronged is the supreme task of oratory.
From love of Cæsar to hate for Brutus and Cassius is but a step. Panic takes the place of confidence among the conspirators—they slink away. The spirit of the mob is uppermost—the only honor left to Cæsar is the funeral-pyre. Benches are torn up, windows pulled from their fastenings, every available combustible is added to the pile, and the body of Cæsar—he alone calm and untroubled amid all this mad mob—is placed upon this improvised throne of death. Torches flare and the pile is soon in flames.
Night comes on, and the same torches that touched to red the funeral-couch of Cæsar hunt out the houses of the conspirators who killed him.
But the conspirators have fled.
One man is supreme, and that man is Mark Antony.