Examples Of Ambition In Julius Caesar

Are honor and ambition that much different? Everyone wants ambition, but not many people are willing to act on that ambition. When those few people do act, they can create a name for themselves, therefore gaining glory and honor. In Julius Caesar, a few ordinary men fear that the recently crowned Caesar will rule with ambition and tyranny. The few began to conjure up a plan to kill the ambitious Caesar as they fear he will lead Rome to its downfall. Little did they know the killing of Caesar would be the thing that resulted in the deterioration of the Republic, but would later form into the Roman Empire. Although Brutus briefly made the citizens of Rome believe he had killed Caesar for a justifiable reason, Mark Antony gave the better speech

He used Ethos to demonstrate his credibility when he explained to the citizens that Caesar was too ambitious to rule Rome. He asks the audience a series of rhetorical questions with a combination of parallelism to open the minds of the citizens to give them an interpretation that Caesar was a dictator and they all live as slaves underneath him. Brutus’s speech was almost successful in masterfully manipulating the audience into what Brutus saw was the truth, until Antony spoke after him. Because of Antony going right after Brutus, he knew how to use the heightened emotions of the audience against them to aid his words. It can also be argued that the foundation of Antony’s speech came before Brutus’s because he was able to manipulate the conspirators after he discovered Caesar’s body in the senate house. He made them believe that he was going to go out into the public and give the same justifiable rationale for the murder of Caesar as Brutus was about to give. Because of Antony’s tactics, he was more

As Antony continues with his speech, the citizens of Rome mindlessly come to their own conclusions. Antony uses the letter to get the citizens to focus on what he is saying and why Caesar was honorable. He says that in Caesar’s will, all citizens will receive a certain sum of money. He uses this as another justification that Caesar was the one who was honorable, while Brutus and the conspirators were the ones that were ambitious. Despite saying this, Antony doesn’t even open the letter, and the citizens believe his word because he gave evidence beforehand, Caesar refusing the crown three times. Continuing, it is also shown that while using the will and throughout his speech, Antony highlights the positive aspects of Caesar’s accomplishments, while Brutus puts Caesar in a negative perspective which does not help his justification that he killed Caesar for Rome, and not because he had a personal rivalry against