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Antony agreed, and at once the Assembly was called and a law passed tendering pardon to all concerned–thus was civil war averted. Caesar was dead, but Rome was safe.

The funeral of Caesar was to occur the next day. It was to be the funeral of a private citizen–the honor of a public funeral-pyre was not to be his. Brutus would say a few words, and Antony, as the closest friend of the dead, would also speak–the body would be buried and all would go on in peace.

Antony had done what he had because it was the only thing he could do. To be successor of Caesar filled his ambition to the brim–but to win the purple by a compromise with the murderers! It turned his soul to gall.

At the funeral of Caesar the Forum was crowded to every corner with a subdued, dejected, breathless throng. People spoke in whispers–no one felt safe–the air was stifled and poisoned with fear and fever.

Brutus spoke first: we do not know his exact words, but we know the temper of the man, and his mental attitude.

Mark Antony had kept the peace, but if he could only feel that the people were with him he would drive the sixty plotting conspirators before him like chaff before the whirlwind.

He would then be Caesar’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 Caesar 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 Caesar 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 Caesar–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 Caesar 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.

* * * * *

To maintain a high position requires the skill of a harlequin. It is an abnormality that any man should long tower above his fellows.

For a few short weeks Mark Antony was the pride and pet of Rome. He gave fetes, contests, processions and entertainments of lavish kind. “These things are pleasant, but they have to be paid for,” said Cicero.

Then came from Illyria, Octavius Caesar, aged nineteen, the adopted son of Caesar the Great, and claimed his patrimony.

Antony laughed at the stripling, and thought to bribe him with a fete in his honor and a promise, and in the meantime a clerkship where there was no work to speak of and pay in inverse ratio.

The boy was weak in body and commonplace in mind–in way of culture he had been overtrained–but he was stubborn.