Mark Antony's speech at Caesar's funeral

[Octavia]

Hello all. I heard in shakespeares play Julius caesar, that after Caesar's death, Antony made a speech at his funeral. Was there really such a speech? If so, where can I read it?

Thanks.

Octavia.

[spittle]

After Brutus gave a very academic and dry speach (that went completely above the heads of most of his listeners) Mark Antony used theatre to enrage the audience by revealing Caesars blood stained toga and inciting riotous revenge in the listening crowd.

 

If you google 'Mark Antony speach after death of caesar' you'll find what your looking for.

[Nephele]

If you google 'Mark Antony speach after death of caesar' you'll find what your looking for.

 

I think a Google search on "Mark Antony speech after death of Caesar" is far more likely to turn up the well known speech from Shakespeare's play -- which is only Shakespeare's speculation on what Marc Antony may have actually said.

 

I believe we only have historians' second-hand accounts and piecings-together of what the speech might actually have been like. Here's a link to a webpage belonging to Fordham University, which provides Appian's account of Marc Antony's famous funeral oration and what took place (and also showing how it differed from Shakespeare's version):

 

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/app...uliusdeath.html

 

-- Nephele

[ASCLEPIADES]

If you google 'Mark Antony speach after death of caesar' you'll find what your looking for.

 

I think a Google search on "Mark Antony speech after death of Caesar" is far more likely to turn up the well known speech from Shakespeare's play -- which is only Shakespeare's speculation on what Marc Antony may have actually said.

 

I believe we only have historians' second-hand accounts and piecings-together of what the speech might actually have been like. Here's a link to a webpage belonging to Fordham University, which provides Appian's account of Marc Antony's famous funeral oration and what took place (and also showing how it differed from Shakespeare's version):

 

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/app...uliusdeath.html

 

-- Nephele

Salve, Amici.

I agree that the quoted Appian Bellum Civili, Liber II, cp. CXLIII-CXLVIII is the best and most detailed account on M. Antonius' eulogy.

Mestrius Plutarchus basically confirmed Appian's account, especially on his Life of Brutus (cp. XX, sec. III-IV).

 

"For, in the first place, when it was found that the will of Caesar gave to every Roman seventy-five drachmas, and left to the people his gardens beyond the Tiber, where now stands a temple of Fortune, an astonishing kindliness and yearning for Caesar seized the citizens; and in the second place, after Caesar's body had been brought to the forum, Antony pronounced the customary eulogy, and when he saw that the multitude were moved by his words, changed his tone to one of compassion, and taking the robe of Caesar, all bloody as it was, unfolded it to view, pointing out the many places in which it had been pierced and Caesar wounded".

 

 

On the other hand, Caius Suetonius T. told us (Vitae Divus Julius, cp. LXXXIV, sec. II):

Laudationis loco consul Antonius per praeconem pronuntiavit senatus consultum, quo omnia simul ei divina atque humana decreverat, item ius iurandum, quo se cuncti pro salute unius astrinxerant; quibus perpauca a se verba addidit.

 

"Instead of a eulogy the consul Antonius caused a herald to recite the decree of the Senate in which it had voted Caesar all divine and human honours at once, and likewise the oath with which they had all pledged themselves to watch over his personal safety; to which he added a very few words of his own".

[Ingsoc]

Just keep in mind that we don't what was Appianus source for this speech, so it could be a literature device use to express the feeling of a certain person.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Just keep in mind that we don't what was Appianus source for this speech, so it could be a literature device use to express the feeling of a certain person.

Salve, I. We have at least an fist-hand account.

Here comes Marcus Tullius Cicero, In M. Antonium Oratio Philippica II, cp. XC-XCI:

 

Etsi tum, cum optimum te putabant me quidem dissentiente, funeri tyranni, si illud funus fuit, sceleratissime praefuisti. Tua illa pulchra laudatio, tua miseratio, tua cohortatio; tu, tu, inquam, illas faces incendisti, et eas, quibus semustulatus ille est, et eas, quibus incensa L. Bellieni domus deflagravit; tu illos impetus perditorum hominum et ex maxima parte servorum, quos nos vi manuque reppulimus, in nostras domos inmisisti.

 

"You behaved with the greatest wickedness while presiding at the funeral of the tyrant, if that ought to be called a funeral. All that fine panegyric was yours, that commiseration was yours, that exhortation was yours. It was you--you, I say--who hurled those firebrands, both those with which your friend himself was nearly burned, and those by which the house of Lucius Bellienus was set on fire and destroyed. It was you who let loose those attacks of abandoned men, slaves for the most part, which we repelled by violence and our own personal exertions; it was you who set them on to attack our houses".

 

and in addition, ibid, Epistularum ad Atticum, Liber XIV, Epist. X, sec.

 

iam pridem perieramus. meministine te clamare causam perisse si funere elatus esset? at ille etiam in foro combustus laudatusque miserabiliter servique et egentes in tecta nostra cum facibus immissi. quae deinde?

 

"Do you remember that you explained that it was all over with us, if he were allowed a funeral? But he was even burnt in the forum, and a funeral oration was pronounced over him in moving terms, and a number of slaves and starvelings instigated to attack our houses with firebrands".