As Plato elegantly put it, “Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.” (III. ii) This use of rhetoric can be seen not only in the forum ancient Rome, but are still in modern day places like presidential debates. Most rhetoric can be classified as one of these types: ethos, or an appeal based on credibility or authority; logos, or an appeal to logic; or pathos, an appeal to emotion. Of course there are many ways these types can be presented, and these different ways are called rhetorical decide. In Julius Caesar, a play written by William Shakespeare, after the assassination of Caesar, Brutus gives a speech to convince the public it was the right thing to do, when he finishes he lets Mark Antony rebut him. Brutus and Antony are both talented …show more content…
The first thing Antony does is to attack Brutus ethos by saying “When that the poor has cried, Caesar hath wept: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honorable man.” (III. ii) By showing the flaw in Brutus argument and then tying the arguments validity to Brutus argument, he is able to discredit the premise of Brutus argument and through that Brutus ethos. However, some may argue that that Brutus has a better ethos appeal to the crowed and that he had interiorized Mark Antony ethos long before Antony tried to discredit him. This would have been done when he introduced mark Antony saying “And, for my sake, stay here with Antony: Do grace to Caesar's corpse, and grace his speech Tending to Caesar's glories; which Mark Antony, by our permission, is allowed to make.” (III. ii) Initially on the surface it might appear that the argument might hold water, but on a deeper analyst shows that he is doing himself more harm the good. He tied his own ethos to mark Antony and also made Mark Antony appears to be just another roman …show more content…
During the start of Antony speech, he used rhetorical questions and logos to question the premise of brute’s argument. Then he used the argument he had just refuted to discredit Brutus’ ethos, and in the process increased his own. However, he really won the crowed over when he reminded them of their love and loyalty to Caesar then showed them the stab wound that the conspirator had inflected on Caesar. Antony us using his knowledge of rhetoric to control the minds of his fellow roman citizens; this only goes to show the damages that could be caused by the use art of persuasion, this danger is still a real threat in the modern