[I.45] basest metal: The Folio spelling is 'mettle,' and the word here may connote 'spirit,' 'temper.' If it be taken literally, the reference may be to 'lead.' Cf. 'base lead,' The Merchant of Venice, II, ix, 19. In this case the meaning may be that even these men, though as dull and heavy as lead, have yet the sense to be tongue-tied with shame at their conduct. 'Mettle' occurs again in [I, ii, 293]; 'metal' (First Folio, 'mettle') in [I, ii, 306].
[I.46] images. These images were the busts and statues of Cæsar, ceremoniously decked with scarfs and badges in honor of his triumph.
[I.47] ceremonies: ceremonial symbols, festal ornaments. Cf. 'trophies' in l. 71 and 'scarfs' in [I, ii, 282]. Shakespeare employs the word in the same way, as an abstract term used for the concrete thing, in Henry V, IV, i, 109; and, in the singular, in Measure for Measure, II, ii, 59. "After that, there were set up images of Cæsar in the city, with diadems on their heads like kings. Those the two tribunes, Flavius and Marullus, went and pulled down."—Plutarch, Julius Cæsar.
[I.48] Lupercal. The Lupercalia, originally a shepherd festival, were held in honor of Lupercus, the Roman Pan, on the 15th of February, the month being named from Februus, a surname of the god. Lupercus was, primarily, the god of shepherds, said to have been so called because he protected the flocks from wolves. His wife Luperca was the deified she-wolf that suckled Romulus. The festival, in its original idea, was concerned with purification and fertilization.
[I.49] Cæsar's trophies. These are the scarfs and badges mentioned in [note on l. 66], as appears from [ll. 281-282] in the next scene, where it is said that the Tribunes "for pulling scarfs off Cæsar's images, are put to silence."
[I.50] the vulgar: the common people. So in Love's Labour's Lost, I, ii, 51; Henry V, IV, vii, 80.
[I.51] pitch. A technical term in falconry, denoting the height to which a hawk or falcon flies. Cf. I Henry VI, II, iv, 11: "Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch."
[I.52] Scene ... place | Ff omit.
[I.53] Antonius' Pope | Antonio's Ff.
[I.54] Antonius'. The 'Antonio's' of the Folios is the Italian form with which both actors and audience would be more familiar. So in [IV, iii, 102], the Folios read "dearer than Pluto's (i.e. Plutus') mine." Antonius was at this time Consul, as Cæsar himself also was. Each Roman gens had its own priesthood, and also its peculiar religious rites. The priests of the Julian gens (so named from Iulus the son of Æneas) had lately been advanced to the same rank with those of the god Lupercus; and Antony was at this time at their head. It was probably as chief of the Julian Luperci that he officiated on this occasion, stripped, as the old stage direction has it, "for the course."