Our next Speaker...

..."For he (Mark Anthony) can do no more than Caesar's arm
when Caesar's head is off"...

Political Cartoons
Drawn by Javan Hammer

I apologize for the quality, my scanner has rebelled and no longer works.   

The cartoons above depict characters Brutus (on left) and Mark Anthony (on right). Brutus is shown inviting up Mark Anthony for the funeral speech.  The beheaded "Caesar" represents how "harmless" Anthony, the arm of Caesar, is.

       
The cartoon featuring Brutus shows him inviting up Mark Anthony, the person who would go on to turn all of Rome against the conspirators. Brutus is an absolutely terrible leader due to the foolish actions he chooses to take. This is a perfect example of why Brutus perhaps should not make his own decisions and instead leave them to others.  It was a rather stupid decision to let Mark Anthony speak in front of a crowd of people who can be so easily persuaded. He was after all on of Caesar's closest friends. In Act II, i, 178, Brutus denounced Anthony as little more than a limb of Caesar and thus not worthy dealing with, after Cassius suggested the wiser move of getting rid of Anthony. Any conspirator who knew better would also get rid of the ones closest to the target first. Brutus in Act III, i, 269-276, gives permission for Anthony to speak at the funeral as long as he doesn't blame the conspirators. Okay,  this was straight up boneheaded!  How did he not expect Anthony to betray them? They had just killed his best friend. You think he'll just brush it aside and let them walk away with it?  I don't think so.  This shows how flawed Brutus is as a leader.

The second cartoon shows the arm of a headless Caesar.  This is taken from Brutus' opinion of Mark Anthony in Act II, i, 194, saying he is basically dead without Caesar.  Even though this quote is from Brutus, its directed at Mark Anthony (I bashed Brutus enough in the first paragraph). This picture is meant to show how dangerous and volatile Mark Anthony is. In Act III,i, 269,Anthony had been given Caesar's body and would later use it to set the people against the conspirators who they had only minutes earlier supported.  Anthony was able to use pathos very well in persuading the people, especially in Act III, ii,117 where after speaking about Caesar's good qualities breaks into tears.  Here is where Anthony is dangerous. He's able to lead people through emotions (since most people think with emotions instead of their brains). He can make them do almost whatever he wants them to. In Act III, i, 280-301, Anthony describes what he wants to unleash on Rome. He goes into a rant of how all of Italy would be engulfed in flames and how death,gore, and destruction would be the norm.  He is successful in doing this as in Act III, iii, the citizens of Rome run around killing anyone who they think is a conspirator, as evident in their killing of the poet Cinna (not conspirator Cinna). Does the republic really need a ruler who uses his feigned emotion to win over people and who would make quartered infants (Act III,i,293-294) the normal, everyday part of life?