Caesar's famous dying words to Brutus — *Et tu, Brute?* — come from?
Shakespeare invented the Latin phrase in 1599. The Roman sources are different. Suetonius reports that Caesar said nothing — or, if anything, the Greek phrase *καὶ σύ, τέκνον* ('you too, my child?') to Brutus before pulling his toga over his head. Plutarch agrees on the toga gesture and says Caesar gave up resistance when he saw Brutus among his attackers. The Latin tag *Et tu, Brute?* is one of the most-quoted lines in English literature and has nothing to do with the historical record.
Read the full facts →Gaius Julius Caesar (100–44 BC) was a Roman general, politician, and historian whose conquest of Gaul, civil war against the senate-aligned Pompey, and dictatorial rule of Rome marked the effective end of the Roman Republic. His assassination on the Ides of March 44 BC triggered a second civil war that ended with his adopted heir Octavian becoming the first Roman emperor.
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