Et Tu, Brute?: Review of Day of the Assassins: A History of Political Murder

literaryreview.co.uk

29 points·diodorus··7 comments

All interesting; however the quote attributed to the dying Caesar is 'Tu quoque, Brute, fili mi?' (You too, Brutus, my son?) and not 'Et Tu, Brute?' (And you, Brutus?). I understand the space constraints for the title, but after the murder also the misquotation for the poor Caesar is too much – or, nimis multum, if you prefer.

"Tu quoque" is a later tradition. According to Suetonius, who writes more than a century later but is our oldest source on this, the literal words were in greek and it was "kai su teknon?", which is literally translated as "You too son?".

Teknon literal translation is child, but you’re right, here it’s used in the sense of son.

Three different interpretations of these last words are mentioned in this Quarantine answer: https://www.quora.com/If-you-accept-the-premise-that-Caesars....

The fact that Suetonius wrote some of his works in Greek does not mean Caesar spoke Greek when murdered. Hence attributing to him the Greek 'kai su teknon' is as much inaccurate as any early or later tradition.

I thought the title was quoting Shakespeare.

What does it mean, "Et tu" ? What language is it supposed to be ?

It's Latin:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et_tu,_Brute%3F

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