To
make this more vividly present to the excitable Italians he displayed a
waxen image marked with the three-and-twenty wounds, and produced the
very robe which he had worn, all rent and blood-stained. Soul-stirring
dirges added to the solemn horror of the scene. But to us the memorable
speech which Shakespeare puts into Antony's mouth will give the
liveliest notion of the art used and the impression produced. That
impression was instantaneous. The senator friends of the liberators who
had attended the ceremony looked on in moody silence. Soon the menacing
gestures of the crowd made them look to their safety. They fled; and the
multitude insisted on burning the body, as they had burned the body of
Clodius, in the sacred precincts of the Forum. Some of the veterans who
attended the funeral set fire to the bier; benches and firewood heaped
round it soon made a sufficient pile.
From the blazing pyre the crowd rushed, eager for vengeance, to the
houses of the conspirators. But all had fled betimes.
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