Et Tu Explained

Six readings on Caesar’s death and the line it left behind

Each reading takes one part of the story and sets out what the primary texts say, in plain language, with the passage named. Read them in order the first time; after that, the side-by-side table is the page to keep open.

  1. What “Et tu, Brute?” means, and where the words come from

    The three words of the most quoted line about Caesar, why Brute ends in an e, and why the Latin form is found in Shakespeare rather than in any ancient account.

  2. The Ides of March, 44 BC, as the ancient writers tell it

    The plot, the warnings and the morning of the murder in Suetonius, Plutarch and Cassius Dio, with each detail credited to the writer who reports it.

  3. Caesar’s last words: a groan, a question in Greek, or silence

    What Suetonius, Plutarch and Cassius Dio each say Caesar said as he was struck, how carefully they hedge it, and what the Greek word for child can carry.

  4. Who Marcus Brutus was, and why his part in the plot stung

    Marcus Brutus in Plutarch and the other ancient sources: his family, his pardon by Caesar, the rumour that he was Caesar’s son, and his death at Philippi.

  5. How Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar turned the murder into a line

    Where “Et tu, Brute?” falls in Julius Caesar, what Shakespeare kept and changed from Plutarch, and the other lines from the play that entered everyday speech.

  6. Betrayal as a theme: from Dante’s frozen lake to Antony’s “unkindest cut”

    How the murder of Caesar became a model of betrayal: Roman reactions, Dante’s place for Brutus beside Judas, and Shakespeare’s Brutus as both traitor and hero.

  7. The accounts side by side: Suetonius, Plutarch, Dio and Shakespeare

    One table comparing what Suetonius, Plutarch, Cassius Dio and Shakespeare each say about the omens, the first blow, the wounds and Caesar’s last words.