In this scene, Antony is speaking to the crowd and he turns everyone against the conspirators. He does this through the use of metaphors. Furthermore, he manipulates the crowd by using Caesar’s ‘will’ which I believe to be a lie which Antony made to manupulate the views of the peoples. Antony also uses rhetorical questions to make the crowd question the conspirators as these are more like statements and they push their views more towards Antony’s.
‘Here was a Caesar! When comes such another?’
By using this rhetorical question, Antony is asking the people when another man like Caesar will exist but no one challenged this as no one felt as though Antony was saying something wrong. In other words, the crowd agreed with Antony and therefore made his speech stronger.
In terms of the lies that Antony used, he claimed that he found Caesar’s will in his closet and he used this lie to influence the people that the conspirators murdered Caesar out of cold blood. This is because a will left behind by Caesar in which 75 drachmae are supposedly meant to be given to the every person, would show that Caesar ‘loved’ the people and that what the conspirators were saying were actually lies. Furthermore, by telling the people that Caesar wanted to give them all 75 drachmae, it would cause the conspirators to become bankrupt as they had just taken over the Capitol.
React!