Shakespeare's Julius Caeser

In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, there were two honorable men who were great persuaders that manipulated the sheep's' (plebeians) mind. Those two orators were Brutus and Antony, and Antony who comes out on top in the end. Brutus and the conspirators first kill Caesar by stabbing him and then explaining to the Romans their reason for doing such 'good' deed. Brutus gets the attention of every Roman in the town and asks them to hear him out before acting and spilling more blood. To start out with, Brutus’s speech was formal and more directed to the Romans. In his introduction he starts with “Romans, countrymen, and lovers! (13)” He used this to join everyone together and later help him justify Caesar’s death. Throughout his whole speech, he kept calling Caesar ambitious to make it seem like he was only thinking about himself. Then, Brutus delivers a passionate speech involving ethos in which he affirms his position as an honorable and loving friend of Caesar who loved him more than any man in Rome, but only killed him because he loved Rome more. He employs logos and reasons with the crowd that Caesar had grown too powerful and ambitious and if not stopped, would turn the plebs into slaves. Also, Brutus says that he would rather kill Caesar and bear shame before Caesar enslaved the plebs and that Brutus expects the plebs to do the same exact thing if they were put into Brutus's situation. Even though Brutus went first, swayed the sheep's mind, and had a clear advantage over Antony, he still lost in the end. Then, Antony takes the pulpit to deliver his speech and able to deliver a more effective and powerful speech. Antony is able to use pathos effectively by pointing out how Caesar had great empathy for the commoners of Rome, and also he refused the crown three times, yet Brutus called that ambitious. Also, Antony repeatedly used the word “honorable (Scene 2 Line 70+)” to describe Brutus. The effect of this was that he was contradicting Brutus’s speech. Then, Antony uses words like traitor to talk about the conspirators that merciless murdered Caesar and showing the wounds on dead Caesars body. The Romans were furious. Antony acts like he was choking and sad and in order to further persuade them, he showed Caesars will, which was giving the Romans silver coins and access to his gardens which was not ambitious, that the honorable man, Brutus had claimed. Antony's speech overall caused the plebs to cry over Caesar's death and began to go on a hunt for the conspirators to avenge Caesar. In conclusion, Antony’s speech was more persuasive. He made points to difference what Brutus said in his speech about Caesar. He says that Brutus was wrong, and he put a new spin on it. For instance, Brutus says “Had you rather Caesar was living and die all slaves…” which was countered by Antony. It was countered by Antony saying that Caesar felt deeply for his people and that he was a very humble kindhearted person.