Ides of March

Since time immemorial, the 'Ides of March' has been an ominous symbol of destruction and rightly immortalised by Shakespeare through the assassination of the greatest Roman emperor, Julius Caesar. I have usually been bit superstitious of this and believe that one requires being very careful during that time.

Power games have always been an integral part of high positions. It’s very lonely at the top and requires cognizance, vigilance and a sixth sense. It’s hard to trust but nothing gets done without trust. But when trust fails, disloyalty reigns – your closest friend becomes your dearest enemy, another Brutus led by the conniving Cassius. Beware o noble soul - your spirit, reputation may succumb to death leaving a corpse to be digested by vultures!!

Mark Anthony’s widely acclaimed persuasive speech to avenge Caesar’s death has been my favourite since I first read it. Here Mark Anthony was speaking after Brutus spoke on the need to kill Caesar. Brutus and Cassius were currently in power and earlier Brutus has legitimized Caesar's high ambition as against Rome's interest. Thompson's 5 point model of persuasion is used to analyze this speech.

Bait (exordium): Anthony hence first acknowledged the men in power and then refuted the
primary theme of Brutus' speech - Caesar's ambition. He addressed the controversy over
Caesar's ambitious intents and appealed to premises the audience can accept. He then
used pathos to gather sympathy from the audience by crying publicly over Caesar's
death. 'O judgment, thou are fled to brutish hearts And men have lost their reason.'–
a masterful stroke to establish common ground by playing on audience emotional
weaknesses. He hence established rapport with the audience and after planting the
seed of doubt stopped speaking so as to allow the people to interpret his words.
This was necessary here as he was speaking after Brutus who held higher credibility
to him at that point in time. Then when he resumed speaking, he established his full
credibility – 'I will not do then wrong, I rather choose to wrong the dead, to wrong
myself  and you'. He finally put the bait that aroused audience interest to hear more
from him – Caesar's will!!

Problem (narratio): He had subtly raised his problem early on – was Caesar wrongfully killed and the whether the justification of ambition reasonable? This he had posed to the audience before putting the bait.

Solution ( confirmation/probatio): He tried to prove how Caesar loved his countrymen through the will and then described each gory wound on Caesar's body to confirm that he was wronged and betrayed by his beloved friend Brutus. He resurrected Caesar's human characteristics and showed how conspiracy and treason killed not only the man but the entire nation “O, what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, and you, and all of us fell down.”(again establishing connection with the audience).

Pay-off benefit (peroratio): He used logos to describe the Caesar's will and the benefit each audience will get after his death.

Call to action: Anthony's hidden motive was to stir the people and revenge Caesar's death. He never directly mentioned that but throughout his speech he indirectly used words like 'inflame', 'mad' to describe the condition that people may become on hearing Caesar's will. His call to action came before his benefit - “Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue in every wound of Caesar, that should move the stones of Rome to rise and mutiny”.

As Anthony had rightly said in the beginning of the speech,

The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones;

But how often does one get a friend like Mark Anthony to be there for you in the loneliest of times and take your sides? How often does one get to hear a masterful persuader manipulate a wrong to his advantage as subtly as this?

Mischief, thou art afoot, Take thou what course thou wilt!