Thursday, March 15, 2012

Preceded by "I et earlier"


Today is the Ides of March.

On this day in 44BC, Julius Caesar was assassinated on the steps of the Senate in Rome.

Caesar's last words are a matter of debate among scholars and historians. As Shakespeare has it, they were "Et tu, Brute?" ("You too, Brutus?"), followed by "Then fall, Caesar."

Shakespeare evidently read the Roman historian Suetonius, who wrote that Caesar's last words were the Greek phrase "καὶ σύ, τέκνον;" (roughly, "You too, my child?")

Plutarch said that Caesar said nothing, and pulled his toga over his head when he saw Brutus among the conspirators.

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