How do Brutus and Cassius respond to Antony in Act 3, Scene 1 of Julius Caesar?

Upon hearing of Caesar's death, Antony requests to be allowed to speak to the conspirators so he might learn the reasons for the murder.  Antony assures the conspirators that he does not doubt their wisdom and offers to shake hands with them, making it seem as if he is sympathetic toward their motivations for killing Caesar.  More importantly, Antony asks for permission to speak at Caesar's funeral, and this request is the root of the disagreement between Brutus and Cassius.

As Brutus is a good-hearted and trusting man, he agrees to let Antony speak, saying, "You shall not in your funeral speech blame us,/ But speak all good you can devise of Caesar,/ And say you do 't by our permission."  Thus, Brutus decides to allow Antony to speak at the funeral after Brutus has finished speaking. 

Cassius, though, is wary of Antony's intentions and says, in an aside to Brutus, "I know not what may fall.  I like it not."  Brutus, however, dismisses Cassius's worry. 

Similar disagreements between Brutus and Cassius occur at other points in the play.  In Act 2, scene 1, the two disagree over whether or not to kill Marc Antony at the same time they murder Caesar.  Brutus insists that Antony is "but a limb of Caesar," and will have no power once Caesar is dead.  Cassius, on the other hand, does not trust Antony and thinks that he needs to be killed, also.  (Similarly, Brutus and Cassius disagree with regard to battle plans in Act 5.  Brutus believes that their army should advance to meet Antony's army at Philipi, while Cassius insists that it will be better for their army to rest and let Antony's army tire themselves out by journeying to Cassius's and Brutus's army.) 

In the case of each of the above-mentioned disagreements between Brutus and Cassius, Brutus ultimately gets his way.  However, though Brutus's plans seem well-thought-out, they prove, once executed, to have been major errors in judgment.

What is Brutus and Cassius' reaction to Antony wanting to speak at Caesar's funeral?

Following Julius Caesar's assassination, Mark Antony cautiously sends his servant to the senators to make sure that he (Antony) is not also in danger and a target of their wrath. When Antony feels comfortable addressing Brutus and Cassius, he expresses his affinity for Julius Caesar and questions their motives. Antony cleverly shakes the senators' hands and asks Brutus if he can give Caesar's funeral oration in the marketplace. Brutus demonstrates his naivety by immediately giving Antony permission to speak at Caesar's funeral. However, Cassius is more discerning, and privately tells Brutus,

"You know not what you do. Do not consent / That Antony speak in his funeral. / Know you how much the people may be moved / By that which he will utter?" (Shakespeare, 3.1.244-248).

Brutus does not listen to Cassius's advice, instead simply telling Antony that he must not blame them (the senators) during his funeral oration. Brutus has faith that Antony will follow his directives and tells him,

"Mark Antony, here, take you Caesar’s body. / You shall not in your funeral speech blame us, / But speak all good you can devise of Caesar, / And say you do ’t by our permission. / Else shall you not have any hand at all / About his funeral. And you shall speak / In the same pulpit whereto I am going, / After my speech is ended" (Shakespeare, 3.1.258-265).

When Brutus and Cassius leave the scene, Antony reveals to the audience his true intentions and feelings regarding the senators, who brutally murdered Julius Caesar. During his funeral oration, Antony incites the masses to riot and becomes Octavius's ally during the bloody civil war.

How do Antony and Octavius react to Brutus's death in Julius Caesar?

Brutus, Cassius, and other conspirators planned to assassinate Caesar. During their deliberations Cassius wanted Marc Antony to be assassinated because of his relationship to Caesar but Brutus objected to this, terming such a move to be contrary to what they expected to achieve by killing Caesar. After Caesar’s death, Brutus gives a public speech trying to explain their reasons for assassinating Caesar but Marc Antony uses the same platform to accuse the conspirators. This forces Brutus and the other conspirators to flee from the public and start a civil war.

Marc Antony joins forces with Octavius in order to wage war against the conspirators who were planning the same. The two forces meet at the battle at Philippi where Brutus and Cassius agree to commit suicide in case they lose the battle. Cassius mistakenly asks his servant to kill him believing they had lost the battle leaving Brutus to engage in the final confrontation where his forces are defeated. Brutus asks Strato to kill him but he only holds the sword so Brutus can run into it.

Brutus dies and the civil war is over but Octavius and Antony praise Brutus and ask that he is honored and all burial rites performed accordingly. They agree to this because according to them he is the only conspirator who actually participated in Caesar’s assassination because he loved Rome more, the rest were just envious of Caesar.

How does Antony insult Cassius and Brutus in Julius Caesar?

One gets the impression that Mark Antony's been waiting a long time to say this. He stirred up the mob against Caesar's assassins during his famous funeral oration, but he didn't insult Brutus or Cassius directly to their faces. But now, on the eve of the crunch battle of Philippi, Antony gets the chance to express his true feelings to the ringleaders of the murder plot that claimed the life of his dearest friend.

He also takes this opportunity to put himself on a higher moral plane than Caesar's assassins. He reminds Brutus and Cassius how they fawned over Caesar to lull him into a false sense of security to allow Casca to strike him on the neck. The suggestion here is that there was nothing remotely honorable about their actions that day on the Ides of March. Contrast this with Antony's rhetorical description of Brutus as an "honorable man" during his famous funeral oration.

How does Antony insult Cassius and Brutus in Julius Caesar?

Antony directly insults Brutus and Cassius in only one place in the play. That is when Antony and Octavius have a parley with Brutus and Cassius in Act V, Scene 1, before the battle at Philippi. There are only six lines of significance for your question:

Villains, you did not so when your vile daggers

Hacked one another in the sides of Caesar.

You showed your teeth like apes, and fawned like hounds,

And bowed like bondmen, kissing Caesar's feet,

Whilst damned Casca, like a cur, behind,

Struck Caesar on the neck. O you flatterers!

How do Brutus and Cassius respond to Antony's speech in Julius Caesar?

Brutus very magnanimously gives Antony permission to deliver the main oration at Caesar's funeral. Cassius, who is far more practical and worldly wise than Brutus, warns his partner that this could be a very serious mistake. He says:

You know not what you do. Do not consent
That Antony speak in his funeral.
Know you how much the people may be moved
By that which he will utter?

But Brutus' only fault is that he is infatuated with his own nobility and benevolence. He tells Cassius:

By your pardon,
I will myself into the pulpit first,
And show the reason for our Caesar's death.
What Antony shall speak I will protest
He speaks by leave and by permission;
And that we are contented Caesar shall
Have all true rites and lawful ceremonies,
It shall advantage more than do us wrong.

Brutus' speech is logical but it seems stilted and lacking in feeling. Antony's, by contrast, is spontaneous, natural and democratic, full of emotional appeals--and Brutus did not know that Antony had an "ace in the hole" when he asked permission to give a funeral speech. Antony is concealing Caesar's will in his tunic, and he uses this at the last moment to sway the crowd. Brutus and Cassius are forced to flee the city because the Roman people are burning, killing, and looting. They are looking for any member of the group who plotted to assassinate Caesar, and they are so incensed that they murder a poet who just happens to have the same name as one of the conspirators.

Much later during a parley on the battlefield at Philippi, Cassius tells Antony:

The posture of your blows are yet unknown;
But for your words, they rob the Hybla bees,
And leave them honeyless.

True to his character, Cassius is flattering his enemy with the hope that it might do him some good. He is possibly hinting that he might be persuaded to betray Brutus and come over to the other side even at this eleventh hour, or possibly hoping that his life might be spared if Antony and Octavius win the coming battle, as Cassius has good reason to think they will. He is also taking a subtle dig at Brutus, reminding him of how thoroughly Antony bested him in their oratorical contest on that crucial day, the Ides of March, in Rome.

How do Brutus and Cassius respond to Antony's speech in Julius Caesar?

This part of the play is all about the 'fine art of persuasion' - particularly,as we are all used to it, in terms of politicians getting us to vote for them. Another analogy might be the jury in a court room who are so blown away by an attorney's defense that they are ready to acquit the defendant there and then...until they hear the prosecution case. It is also about good oratory or speech-making. Both men are so persuasive that they carry the 'fickle?' people with them. Think also of Jesus and the crowd baying for his blood and asking for Barrabas.

Perhaps the people are not just 'fickle' and playwrights and audiences including us, are doing them a dis-service. Perhaps what they really need is cool detachment and objectivity so that they can weigh up, compare and contrast each character's speech before rushing off like hot-headed fools to carry out some action or vengeance on behalf of the last speaker to rouse their blood.

First, they are all for Brutus, responding so positively that they even ask him to be their king instead of Caesar. Turned again by the power of invective, they then go for the rousing words of Antony because his skill lies in 'playing with their heads and emotional drives' even to the extent of inaccuracy-perhaps deliberate. Both men manipulate the people's feelings and it is so successful that their early championing of Brutus is completely forgotten in favor of the next speaker who comes along.

How do Brutus and Cassius respond to Antony's speech in Julius Caesar?

Julius Caesar is a play about how language can be used to manipulate. The two speeches by Brutus and Antony immediately succeeding Caesar's assassination manipulate the crowd into condoning, then condemning the act.  Shakespeare has a bit of foreshadowing at the top of the play, where the tribunes manipulate the crowd through speech from celebrating Caesar's arrival to mourning Pompey's death, and the crowd disperses.  Later, Brutus' and Antony's speeches move the crowd from mourning to avenging Caesar's death, and the crowd disperses to punish the "honorable men."  See more at the link:

What effect does Antony and Octavius praising Brutus at his death in Julius Caesar have?

The venerating of Brutus serves to foreshadow trouble between Antony and Octavius, who are both trying to bring about peace and gain more power for themselves.

When you are the victor, you can afford to be eloquent.  Antony and Octavius both had reasons for posthumously pardoning Brutus.  They want an end to the civil war, highlighting the fact that they are the ones in charge.  The best way to bring about peace quickly is to take Brutus’s soldiers into their own armies.  To do this smoothly, they want to acknowledge what Brutus was fighting for.

Antony begins by saying that Brutus was “the noblest Roman of them all” (Act 5, Scene 5).  He goes on to explain that Brutus did what he did not out of ambition or anger, but because he genuinely believed it was good for Rome.

All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them. (Act 5, Scene 5)

Fine sentiments of course.  He is saying that Brutus died an honorable death, and therefore his soldiers can maintain their honor.  Antony wants those soldiers to like him.  He has been maintaining a precarious rule with Octavius and Lepidus, but would rather be the sole ruler of Rome.

Octavius feels the same way.  As much as Antony is loved by Roman soldiers, he cannot match Octavius for cunning and guile.  Octavius acknowledges Antony’s words, and goes one step further.

According to his virtue let us use him,
With all respect and rites of burial.
Within my tent his bones to-night shall lie,
Most like a soldier, order'd honourably. (Act 5, Scene 5)

You have to remember that Brutus was responsible for killing Octavius’s “father,” Julius Caesar.  He has every right to want revenge.  Still, by being gracious and taking charge of the body, he is saying that he harbors no ill will.  (Of course, rumor has it that he actually detached Brutus’s head and tried to send it back to Rome.  Clearly there was ill will.)

Note also that Octavius has already absorbed all of Brutus’s soldiers into his own army, when he said “All that served Brutus, I will entertain them.”  He is making a play to make himself stronger, so that he can eventually oust Antony and be the sole ruler of Rome.  It takes some time, but he does it.

This scene perfectly describes the politics of Rome.  We fought a war, now we are all on the same side.  It also foreshadows the trouble between Antony and Octavius.  The two are hardly best friends, and share power only grudgingly.  Each is biding his time until he can oust the other.  This will not be Rome's last civil war.

In the play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, how do Antony and Octavius react to Brutus’s death?

It is interesting that in this tragedy that bears the name of Julius Caesar, the true tragic hero could be said to be Brutus. This theory is certainly supported by the way in which both Antony and Octavius respond to being told that Brutus killed himself. Note what Antony says about Brutus and in particular how he differed from the other conspirators that plotted to assassinate Caesar:

This was the noblest Roman of them all.

All the conspirators save only he

Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;

He, only in a general honest thought

And common good to all, made one of them.

His life was gentle, and the elements

So mixed in him that Nature might stand up

And say to all the world, "This was a man!"

Note the praise that Antony bestows upon Brutus as he says that he was "the noblest Roman of them all." In addition, Antony argues that he was the only conspirator who did what he did out of pure motives, and that he was a true man. Octavius likewise seems to recognise the innate nobility of Brutus as he orders that the body of Brutus should lie in his tent and that his body will be buried properly.

What effect does Shakespeare achieve in Julius Caesar by having both Antony and Octavius speak well of Brutus when they find his body on the battlefield?

Octavius’s and Antony’s final comments about Brutus serve several purposes. Their compliments demonstrate respect towards their political enemy. Antony calls Brutus honest, well-intended, and “the noblest Roman of them all.” Octavius offers to take care of Brutus’s servants and to bury him with honor. These statements conclude the play, emphasizing to the audience the story’s tragic nature. Brutus was fundamentally good, but tragically flawed. Audiences can be relieved at the restoration of order even as they grieve for Brutus.

This praise also says a lot about the characters of Octavius and Antony. On the one hand, it shows that they are clear-headed leaders who do not let personal sentiment cloud their judgment. They might have disagreed with Brutus and even waged war against him, but it was for the good of Rome. Even they can recognize the man’s virtues. On the other hand, it may simply demonstrate that they are wily politicians. Speaking well of the dead and honoring one’s enemies makes the speaker look like an unbiased and benevolent leader.