Question

Read the excerpt from Julius Caesar, act 3, scene 2.

ANTONY. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend1445
me your ears.
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interrèd with their bones.
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.1450
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest—
For Brutus is an honourable man,
So are they all, all honourable men—1455
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me.
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,1460
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept.
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,1465
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?

Which conclusion does this excerpt best support?

Antony agrees with Brutus’ definition of ambition.
Antony wants to make the people angry by manipulating the words of Brutus and favoring Caesar.
Antony believes that Brutus and the others are as virtuous as Caesar.
Antony wishes that Caesar would have been more generous and a better friend.

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Answer 1

Antony wants to make the people angry by manipulating the words of Brutus and favoring Caesar.

Step-by-step explanation:

In the excerpt of Antony's speech above, he clearly does not agree with Brutus' description of Caesar as an ambitious person. The rhetorical questions he asked and the answers to them show clearly that Caesar was not ambitious. Surely, a person who wept with the poor and three times rejected kingly crown was in no way an ambitious person.

While Brutus castigated Caesar in his speech, Antony helped the people see his good side. When he later showed the crowd the will left by Caesar where every citizen had a share in Caesar's wealth, the people then clearly understood that Brutus and Cassius were the traitors.