ear 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 Ca