Caesar (Caius Julius), b. c. 100-44. "Et tu Brute!" to Marcus Brutus, on discovering him among the assassins.
Authorities differ: some have it, "What! art thou, too, one of them! Thou, my son!" and others omit the words "my son." If, however, the last two words are to be retained, they express only the difference of age between Cæsar and Brutus. There is no good reason for regarding them as an avowal that Brutus was the fruit of the connection between Julius and Servilia.
He died in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and was ranked amongst the gods, not only by a formal decree, but in the belief of the vulgar. For during the first games which Augustus, his heir, consecrated to his memory, a comet blazed for seven days together, rising always about eleven o'clock; and it was supposed to be the soul of Cæsar, now received into heaven; for which reason, likewise, he is represented in his statue with a star on his brow. The senate-house in which he was slain was ordered to be shut up, and a decree was made that the ides of March should be called parricidal, and that the senate should never more assemble on that day.
J. Eugene Reed: "The Twelve Cæsars."
Leave a comment behind