The Relationship Between Mark Antony and Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar
Commentary on the Relationship between Marc Antony and Julius Caesar

    Loyalty means faithfulness to one's friends, country, ideals, etc. What should one do when these loyalties conflict with one another?  One would have to choose. A choice that can make or break a man, these choices broke many men in the play, Julius Caesar. One did not know who was friend or foe. Julius Caesar was a very honourable man and was respected by many. But the one man who expressed this more than any one in Rome was his loyal friend and aide, Mark Antony.
    Mark Antony was a man who possessed loyalty.  However, with Antony, loyalty to friends and to that of his country did not conflict.  He saw Caesar for what he truly was, a noble Roman.  Antony was a wise man.  Not being sure of the conspirators plot, he gave them a fair chance to justify their unjustifiable assassination.  When wise Antony saw no reason for the death of Caesar he played smart.  Nevertheless, he was shrewd enough to use his love for Caesar to manipulate the murderers into believing his desire to "[take their] hands" and "be pricked in number of [their] friends". Using the guise of a friendly gesture, he internally marked the conspirators for revenge. Because of his innate skill of reading people and melding his actions to their desires, the abettors were blinded by adulation and failed to see the irony in his words. Twisting people's will to suit his own through flattery, expression, and rhetoric is a talent of Antony's.
     Julius Caesar, the man that deserved to be dead the least, was deceased.  He was loyal to his friends, the country, even the strangers of Rome and especially Antony.  He showed it to. I believe that being loyal to a country means also being loyal to the citizens of it, and that he was.  Antony painted the perfect picture of how much Caesar cared when he pointed out in his soliloquy that "when the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept."  Being caring is indeed a good part...