The question
What did Julius Caesar say as he was killed? Shakespeare gives a clear answer, and it is the one most people know. The ancient historians give a less tidy one. Suetonius, Plutarch and Cassius Dio each describe the attack in the hall in some detail, and each reports some words. But they disagree about what Caesar said, when he said it and to whom, and they are careful to separate what they believe from what others have claimed. This reading takes the three accounts one at a time, then sets them side by side.
Suetonius: a groan, and a story
In Suetonius’ Life of Julius Caesar, the attack begins with a pretext. Tillius Cimber comes close as if to ask a favour; when Caesar puts him off, Cimber seizes his toga by both shoulders. Caesar cries out Why, this is violence!
and one of the Casca brothers stabs him just below the throat. Caesar catches Casca’s arm and runs it through with his stylus, but another wound stops him as he tries to rise.
Seeing daggers on every side, Caesar covers his head with his robe and draws its lower folds down over his legs with his left hand, in order to fall more decently
. Suetonius then gives the number of wounds and his own account of Caesar’s last sound, followed at once by the other version:
uttering not a word, but merely a groan at the first stroke
though some have written that when Marcus Brutus rushed at him, he said in Greek
You too, my child?
So in Suetonius, Caesar’s only certain words come before the first blow, and they are a protest at being seized, not a reproach to Brutus. The question to Brutus is attached to the account as a report from unnamed writers. Suetonius goes on to say that the body lay in the hall for some time, until three slaves carried it home on a litter with one arm hanging down, and that the physician Antistius judged only one of the wounds, the second one in the breast
, to have been fatal.
Plutarch: words for Casca
Plutarch’s Life of Caesar tells the attack with more movement and more noise. Tullius Cimber, pleading for his exiled brother, pulls Caesar’s toga down from his neck, which is the signal. Casca strikes first, at the neck, and the wound is shallow. Caesar turns, grabs the knife and holds it, and at almost the same moment both men shout, Caesar in Latin and Casca in Greek:
Accursed Casca, what does thou?
Brother, help!
The first line is Caesar’s; the second is Casca calling to his brother. The older English of the translation, “what does thou”, is printed exactly as it stands. These are the only words Plutarch gives Caesar during the attack. Caesar then fights, turning this way and that among the blades. Therefore Brutus also gave him one blow in the groin.
And then comes Plutarch’s own hedge: And it is said by some writers
that when Caesar saw Brutus with his dagger drawn, he stopped resisting, he pulled his toga down over his head
, and sank against the pedestal of Pompey’s statue.
In Plutarch, then, the sight of Brutus produces not a sentence but a gesture: Caesar gives up. The number of wounds is hedged too: For it is said that he received twenty-three
, and Plutarch adds that many of the conspirators wounded each other in the crush.
Cassius Dio: silence
Cassius Dio, in Book 44 of his Roman History, tells the attack most briefly. One of the conspirators, approaching as if to thank Caesar, pulls his toga from his shoulder as the agreed signal, and they fall on him from all sides, so that Caesar was unable to say or do anything
and, veiling his face
, was killed with many wounds. Dio then states his own judgment and records the alternative:
This is the truest account
Thou, too, my son?
The second line is the remark that, in Dio’s words, some have added: said to Brutus when Brutus struck him a powerful blow. Dio does not say who these writers were, and he does not accept their version. He prefers the silent death.
The three accounts compared
| Writer | Words before or at the first blow | Words to Brutus | How the writer frames them |
|---|---|---|---|
| Suetonius 82 | A protest at being seized; then only a groan at the first stroke | A question in Greek, translated “You too, my child?” | His own account is the groan; the question is what some have written |
| Plutarch, Caesar 66 | A shout in Latin at Casca | None; he covers his head on seeing Brutus’ dagger | The covered head is reported as what some writers say |
| Dio 44.19 | None; he could neither speak nor act | A question translated “Thou, too, my son?” | The silent death is the truest account; the question is what some have added |
The side-by-side table extends this comparison to the warnings, the place, the wounds and Shakespeare’s version.
Reading the hedges
The most striking thing about the three accounts is how carefully they are qualified at exactly the point that later became famous. Suetonius writes some have written
. Dio writes that some have added
the words. Plutarch does not report the words at all, and he attaches his own it is said
to Caesar’s surrender at the sight of Brutus. None of the three presents a question to Brutus as something he knows to be true.
That does not prove Caesar said nothing to Brutus. It shows that by the time these writers were working, the remark was already a story with more than one version, and that two careful writers who knew it chose to mark it as doubtful. It is worth noticing, too, that both reported versions are in Greek or translated from it, and that the language of the remark is part of what Suetonius chose to record: he said in Greek
.
What “child” could mean
The Greek word behind “child” and “son” is τέκνον (teknon). The Liddell and Scott Greek lexicon defines it as “child” and notes that in Homer the singular is used only when addressing someone, as a form of address from elders to younger people: my son, my child
. That gives the word a wide range. Said by an older man to a younger one, it could be affectionate, or a reproach that leans on affection, or simply familiar.
Some readers hear something more literal, because Plutarch reports that Caesar had some grounds for believing
that Brutus was his own son. The reading on Brutus looks at that passage closely. It is enough here to say that the word can carry each of these senses, that none of the ancient writers explains which one was meant, and that the words themselves are reported only as hearsay.
The one gesture all three agree on
On words the historians disagree. On one gesture they agree completely: at the end, Caesar covered his face or head. Suetonius says he muffled his head in his robe; Plutarch that he pulled his toga down over his head; Dio that he died veiling his face. Shakespeare, whose Caesar does speak, kept the gesture too, and gave it to Mark Antony to describe at the funeral:
And in his mantle muffling up his face,
Every writer has it, which makes it the best-attested detail of the death in these sources. The famous words, by contrast, are the least certain part of the story. The next reading turns to the man those words were said to be addressed to.
Next: Who Marcus Brutus was, and why his part in the plot stung