Mark Antony (Julius Caesar)

Play

Julius Caesar

Summary

Mark Antony appears in Julius Caesar as Caesar's devoted friend and the consummate political operator who turns the Roman crowd against the conspirators with his masterful funeral oration. Initially appearing submissive to the conspirators after Caesar's death, he reveals himself to be calculating and ruthless: his speech over Caesar's body, with its ironic repetition of "Brutus is an honourable man," is one of Shakespeare's great demonstrations of rhetoric as weapon. He later joins Octavius and Lepidus in the triumvirate that hunts down Brutus and Cassius at Philippi.

Notable Quotations

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; / I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. / The evil that men do lives after them; / The good is oft interred with their bones." *(3.2)*

"For Brutus is an honourable man; / So are they all, all honourable men." *(3.2)*

"O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, / That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!" *(3.1)*

"This was the noblest Roman of them all." *(5.5 — on Brutus)*

Cross-references

• Julius Caesar — the play
• Tragedies
• character_mark_antony — his fuller incarnation in Antony and Cleopatra
• character_julius_caesar — his slain patron and friend
• character_brutus — his great antagonist
• character_octavius_caesar — his fellow triumvir