Antony, Mark

A historical politician and general of ancient Rome, who appears as a character in the plays Antony and Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare. In a famous speech in Julius Caesar, given after Caesar has been killed, Antony turns public opinion against those who did the killing. Antony's speech begins, “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears”; in it, he repeats several times the words “Brutus is an honorable man.”