Scholars continue to debate the precise meaning and source of the phrase kai su: it may have been the first part of an ancient Greek proverb, which ended something like ‘will have a bite of my power’ the words also appear on curse tablets, mosaics, funerary inscriptions, and literary epitaphs in epic poetry either to avert evil or, perhaps better, to issue a direct warning or a prophecy. Rather, it was a threat which was intended to predict his killer’s demise. In other words: according to which account you believed, Caesar either fell in silence or he went down cursing Brutus for kai su, teknon (you too, child)was not an expression of shock or despair at Brutus’ betrayal – as Shakespeare’s et tu, Brute? might have us believe. Although some have reported that when Marcus Brutus rushed at him, he said kai su, teknon. He did not utter a word – just a groan at the first blow. And in this way, he was stabbed twenty-three times. Wherever he turned, he saw that drawn daggers were attacking him, he buried his head in his toga, and at the same, using his left hand, he drew its fold down to his feet, so that he would fall more honourably, with the lower part of his body covered too. But even from Suetonius’ brief description of it, which he may have got from an eyewitness account, we can see that he also had access to alternative versions (Suetonius, Divine Julius 82): Unlike the details of the conspiracy, which were shrouded in secrecy from the start, we can piece together a clear account of what happened on the day of Caesar’s death. Leading the plot to kill Caesar were Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus.
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For those who despised his domination, there seemed only one way to free Rome, and soon a conspiracy involving about 20 men was formed.
To contemporary observers, it was clear that Caesar was in no rush to abandon his power. But it probably made no difference what title he took: only a month or so before, he had become ‘dictator for life’. There were fears that Caesar was planning to be appointed king. Our ancient sources tell us that he had accepted honours that were more fitting for a god than a man: Suetonius lists a golden throne, a chariot and litter in the circus procession, as well as temples, altars, statues, his own personal priest and more. In the months leading up to his murder, he had increasingly broken with the traditions of the res publica, which held that no one man should hold too much power at Rome.
On the Ides of March 44 BC, Julius Caesar was famously assassinated in a crowded meeting of the senate. Kathryn Tempest looks at how history remembers his assassin.
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