The plotters have made their defense--it is accepted. Antony, too, defends them--he repeats that they are honorable men, and to reiterate that a man is honorable is to admit that possibly he is not. The act of defense implies guilt--and to turn defense into accusation through pity and love for the one wronged is the supreme task of oratory. From love of Caesar to hate for Brutus and Cassius is but a step. Panic takes the place of confidence among the conspirators--they slink away. The spirit of the mob is uppermost--the only honor left to Caesar is the funeral-pyre. Benches are torn up, windows pulled from their fastenings, every available combustible is added to the pile, and the body of Caesar--he alone calm and untroubled amid all this mad mob--is placed upon this improvised throne of death. Torches flare and the pile is soon in flames. Night comes on, and the same torches that touched to red the funeral-couch of Caesar hunt out the houses of the conspirators who killed him. But the conspirators have fled. One man is supreme, and that man is Mark Antony. * * * * * To maintain a high position requires the skill of a harlequin. It is an abnormality that any man should long tower above his fellows. For a few short weeks Mark Antony was the pride and pet of Rome. He gave fetes, contests, processions and entertainments of lavish kind. "These things are pleasant, but they have to be paid for," said Cicero. Then came from Illyria, Octavius Caesar, aged nineteen, the adopted son of Caesar the Great, and claimed his patrimony. Antony laughed at the stripling, and thought to bribe him with a fete in his honor and a promise, and in the meantime a clerkship where there was no work to speak of and pay in inverse ratio. The boy was weak in body and commonplace in mind--in way of culture he had been overtrained--but he was stubborn. Mark Antony lived so much on the surface of things that he never imagined there was a strong party pushing the "Young Augustus" forward. Finally Antony became impatient with the importuning young man, and threatened to send him on his way with a guard at his heels to see that he did not return. At once a storm broke over the head of Antony. It came from a seemingly clear sky--Antony had to flee, not Octavius. The soldiers of the Great Caesar had been remembered in his will with seventy-five drachmas to every man, and the will must stand or fall as an entirety. Caesar had provided that Octavius should be his successor--this will must be respected. Cicero was the man who made the argument. The army was with the will of the dead man, rather than with the ambition of the living. Antony fled, but gathered a goodly army as he went, intending to return.