Octavius Caesar, whose proper name is Caius Octavius, is the only living close relative of Julius Caesar. He is the grandson of Caesar's sister, Julia, and is therefore the grandnephew of Julius. He was born in 63 b.c. and was nineteen years old at the time of the assassination.
Octavius was a sickly youth. He had joined Caesar in Spain (just before the opening of the play) but he was obviously unsuited for war. Nor was his greatuncle anxious to push him into warfare. In default of living children of his own, the Dictator needed Octavius as an heir. Therefore, when Caesar was making ready to move east against Parthia, he ordered the boy to remain in Greece at his studies.
Octavius was still in Greece when news of the assassination reached him, and at once he decided to make for Rome, there to demand what he could of his great uncle's inheritance.
Antony does not welcome the news of the coming of Octavius. He may have loved Julius Caesar, but that does not require him to love Caesar's grandnephew. After all, Antony could reasonably argue that he, as Caesar's loyal lieutenant and a mature man of war, is more realistically Caesar's heir than some sickly child who happens to be related to Caesar by accident of birth. The presence of the boy would merely produce complications and Antony does his best to keep him away. He sends back a message:
Here is a mourning Rome, a dangerous Rome,
No Rome of safety for Octavius yet.
- Act III, scene i, lines 288-89
... I loved Rome more
The next scene moves directly to Caesar's funeral. Actually, it took place on March 20 and the five days between assassination and funeral were busy ones. The conspirators had hurriedly taken hold of the spoils. Many of them have had provinces assigned to them: Brutus will govern Macedonia; Cassius will take over Syria; Decius will have Cisalpine Gaul; Trebonius, part of Asia Minor; Metellus Cimber, another part of Asia Minor; and so on.
For men supposedly actuated only by a noble concern for the commonwealth, they were extraordinarily quick to place themselves in positions of power. Nor was Brutus behindhand in taking his share.
But Shakespeare ignores this and proceeds directly to the funeral.
Brutus begins by addressing a hostile crowd in the forum, offering to explain the circumstances of the assassination. He does so in prose; stilted prose, at that, with laboriously balanced sentences. He insists he loved Caesar and killed him only for the greater good of Rome:
Not that I loved Caesar less,
but that I loved Rome more.
- Act III, scene ii, lines 21-22
The essence of his defense is that Caesar had grown too ambitious for Rome's safety; that is, Caesar was ambitious to be king. Brutus says (and here he is almost convincing):
As Caesar loved me,
I weep for him; as he was fortunate,
I rejoice at it; as he was valiant,
1 honor him; but as he was ambitious,
I slew him.
- Act III, scene ii, lines 24-27
Brutus then prepares to keep his promise of letting Mark Antony speak on behalf of Caesar. With fatuous vanity, he urges the crowd to listen to Antony and himself hurries away as though he is convinced that he has so turned the crowd against Caesar and toward himself that nothing Mark Antony can say will undo matters.
... Brutus is an honorable man
Now Mark Antony is there with Caesar's corpse. Quietly, he begins one of the most famous passages Shakespeare has ever written. (Whatever Antony said in reality-and it must have been effective, for he gained Rome thereby-it is hard to believe that he could possibly have scaled the heights Shakespeare wrote for him.) He begins:
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
- Act III, scene ii, lines 75-76
He admits that if (if) Caesar were ambitious, that was a bad fault and he has certainly been punished for it. As he promised Brutus, he explains that he speaks by permission of the conspirators and he does nothing but praise them:
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest
(For Brutus is an honorable man,
So are they all, all honorable men),
Come 1 to speak in Caesar's funeral.
- Act III, scene ii, lines 83-86
The phrase "Brutus is an honorable man" is to be repeated and repeated by Mark Antony. He gives the praise to Brutus in precisely the fashion Brutus most enjoys, crying out how honorable and noble he is. Yet