Antony sends a servant to test the waters — better the servant should be run through than his master — revealing Antony as a consummate survivor. This is not to say that he does not truly grieve Caesar's death. His feelings are clear when he views the corpse and sees the murderers, their arms bathed in Caesar's blood. Yet, he is able to cover his feelings, not only so that he can place himself in a position to avenge Caesar's death, but also so that he can find his own position of power. In contrast to the conspirators — even the sharpest of them, Cassius — Antony is strong and politically savvy. Gone are the images of him as womanizer and drunkard. He's taken charge at the moment of greatest danger and he does so by manipulating Brutus' naïveté.
Speaking of Antony, Brutus says, "I know that we shall have him well to friend," but he is wrong — Antony has a plan to persuade the populace to his side at the funeral oration and turn them against the conspirators. Further, while the conspirators weren't very good at keeping their plans to themselves, Antony has been successful. He knows that his ally, Octavius, is on the outskirts of Rome. A military strategy is already afoot. What it is, Antony doesn't divulge, but because Antony tries to dissuade Octavius from entering Rome, the reader may wonder whether Antony does this in order to avoid sharing power.
The ultimate crisis in this scene is the danger that Rome is now in. Consider the way that Antony expresses his grief over his friend's death, indicating that Caesar's body is no longer his own but has become a symbol for Rome itself: "O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth," describing Caesar as "the ruins of the noblest man." No longer flesh and blood, he stands for the breeching of Rome. It is Rome as well as Caesar whose wounds "Which like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips / To beg the voice and utterance of [Antony's] tongue."
