Et Tu, Brute? Meaning, Who Said It, and What the Ancient Sources Report

Start hereSuetonius says Caesar died with only a groan. Shakespeare gives him three Latin words before he falls. So where did "Et tu, Brute?" come from?

Et tu, Brute? is Latin for “And you, Brutus?”, often put as “You too, Brutus?” or “Even you, Brutus?”. The Latin line is Shakespeare’s, from his play Julius Caesar. The ancient writers tell it differently. Suetonius says he died with only a groan, and Cassius Dio that he could say nothing. Both add that some writers had him say to Brutus kai su, teknon, Greek for “you too, child”.

011. The three words

Latin	What it is	In English
et	a joining word	and, too
tu	the word for you	you
Brute	Brutus, in the form used to address him	Brutus

Why Brute and not Brutus? Latin uses a special form, the vocative, for speaking to someone. For second-declension nouns ending in -us, like hortus, Bennett’s New Latin Grammar gives it an -e: horte. So Brutus becomes Brute.

Dictionary.com gives the pronunciation as et too broo-tay.

022. Where the Latin line comes from: the stage

In Act 3, Scene 1 of the Project Gutenberg text, Caesar says “Et tu, Brute?—Then fall, Caesar!” and dies. The MIT Shakespeare text punctuates it differently: “Et tu, Brute! Then fall, Caesar.” The Folger Shakespeare Library says he may have written the play as the first of his plays to be performed at the Globe, in 1599.

The words were in English writing before this play. The 1908 New Hudson edition of it, edited by E. C. Black, gathers the early uses in its introduction:

• The Myrroure for Magistrates (1587) has an English version: “And Brutus thou, my sonne, quoth I”.
• The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of York, printed in 1595, has “Et tu, Brute? wilt thou stab Cæsar too?”. That introduction calls it the play Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 3 is based on. Newer sources treat it as Shakespeare’s own. Ioannis Ziogas of Durham University calls it the first published version of that play. The Folger Shakespeare Library calls the 1595 printing “the first edition of Henry VI Part 3”.
• The introduction adds that the Latin form “possibly originated, as Malone suggested,” in a Latin play on Caesar’s death acted at Oxford in 1582.

033. What the ancient writers report

None of the four was born when Caesar died in 44 BC. Here is who tells it, and how.

Writer	When he lived or wrote	What Caesar says or does	Where
Plutarch, in Greek	Lived about AD 45 to 120	Cries out to Casca in Latin; covers his head on seeing Brutus (in Caesar 66.12 as what some say)	Caesar 66.8, 66.12; Brutus 17.6
Suetonius, in Latin	Wrote mainly in AD 98–138, it seems	A groan, no words; some wrote of a Greek line to Brutus	Julius 82.2
Appian, in Greek	Active under Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus Pius	Rage and outcries, then he veiled himself	Civil Wars 2.117
Cassius Dio, in Greek	Born between AD 155 and 164; his history ends in AD 229	Could say nothing; some added a Greek line to Brutus	44.19.5

The earliest surviving account, an almost contemporary one by Nicolaus of Damascus, gives Caesar no words at all.

Suetonius: a groan, and a story some told

Suetonius has Caesar cry “Why, this is violence!” as his toga was seized. After that, he says, Caesar died “uttering not a word, but merely a groan at the first stroke”. He goes on: “though some have written that when Marcus Brutus rushed at him, he said in Greek, ‘You too, my child?’” (J. C. Rolfe’s translation). His Latin gives the Greek as καὶ σὺ τέκνον. The Greek teknon means “child”; the “my” is the translator’s.

Suetonius also says that when the daggers closed in, he covered his head with his robe.

Cassius Dio: “the truest account”

Cassius Dio prefers the silent version: “This is the truest account”. He says that, with so many attackers, Caesar “was unable to say or do anything, but veiling his face, was slain”. Then he adds that some had Caesar say “Thou, too, my son?” to Brutus as Brutus struck him a powerful blow. Ziogas thinks Dio was probably influenced by Suetonius here, so the two reports may not be independent.

Plutarch and Appian: no words to Brutus

Plutarch has Caesar cry out in Latin at the first blow, “Accursed Casca, what does thou?” (Perrin), but gives him nothing to say to Brutus. Some writers, Plutarch says, have him pull his toga over his head when he saw Brutus’s dagger.

Appian writes of “rage and outcries” until Brutus’s wound. Then Caesar, “veiling himself with his robe, composed himself for death”.

What scholars make of the two versions

Ziogas notes that the Greek version was the less common one in the ancient sources. He adds that modern historians share Suetonius’s and Dio’s doubts. In a note he names one exception, Dubuisson (1980), who defends the story as plausible and historical.

Our reading: the four accounts agree on more than they differ. All four mention him covering his head or face. Plutarch gives it as what “some writers” say in his Life of Caesar, and states it plainly in his Life of Brutus. None of the four, in his own voice, has Caesar speak to Brutus.

044. What kai su, teknon might have meant

The Greek is three short words, kai su, teknon. Scholars do not agree on how Caesar meant them, if he said them. Here are the main readings, as Ziogas sets them out in Antichthon (2016).

• A cry of shock. Ziogas says Shakespeare’s line shaped “a tradition that interprets Caesar’s last words as an expression of shock at Brutus’ betrayal”. In his view, nothing in the ancient sources that report the words suggests that reading.
• A statement, not a question. The Latin text of Suetonius prints the Greek with a question mark. Ziogas argues it can simply be a statement.
• A curse. He reports that James Russell (1980) read it as a formula to ward off harm or pay back a wrong, like “the same to you”. Ziogas finds problems with it. Frederick Brenk looked at the same link with the evil eye and, Ziogas says, argued against it.
• The start of a saying, used as a threat. Pascal Arnaud (1998), as Ziogas reports him, thought Caesar began a Greek proverb that death cut short. On this reading the words were a threat, predicting that Brutus would share his fate. Ziogas doubts that such a proverb ever existed. Arnaud compares Suetonius’s life of Galba, where Augustus tells the boy Galba, “Thou too, child, wilt have a nibble at this power of mine.”
• A prophecy of death. Ziogas’s own reading is that the words echo a formula of funerary epigrams. “It means ‘You too, son, will die’,” he writes.

Ziogas also notes that teknon need not point to any rumour about Brutus’s father; it can simply be a word of affection.

Our reading: this question is still open. The two ancient writers who report the words do not say how they were meant, and both keep their distance from the story.

055. Brutus, Servilia and the rumour

The “child” in the Greek sends some readers to an old rumour. Here is how firmly the sources state it.

• Suetonius writes that “beyond all others Caesar loved Servilia, the mother of Marcus Brutus”. He does not say that Brutus was Caesar’s son.
• Plutarch says Caesar was intimate with Servilia “as it seems”, and “had some grounds for believing” that Brutus was his own son. He adds that, it is said, Caesar ordered his officers to spare Brutus in the battle of Pharsalus, out of regard for Servilia.
• Appian puts it as a belief: “It was even thought that Brutus was his son”, because Caesar was Servilia’s lover about the time of his birth.

At least one modern historian doubts it. Ziogas quotes the historian A. Lintott: the affair with Servilia “probably commenced after Brutus’ birth”. Even Brutus’s birth year is uncertain: the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica gives his dates as “85, according to some, 79 or 78–42 B.C.”.

Shakespeare knew the rumour. In Henry VI, Part 2, Suffolk speaks of “Brutus’ bastard hand” that “Stabb’d Julius Caesar”. In Julius Caesar, though, he wrote Brute, not “son”.

066. How it is used today

Dictionary.com says the line “is used to express surprise and dismay at the treachery of a supposed friend”. Merriam-Webster describes it as a Latin quotation attributed to Caesar, an exclamation on seeing his friend Brutus among his killers. Our reading: today it is often said half in jest, when a friend sides against you on something small.

Easy mix-ups

• It is not Caesar’s last words in any ancient source. No ancient source gives Caesar these words. The closest is the Greek “You too, child?”, which Suetonius and Dio report only as something some people wrote.
• The ancient version was Greek, not Latin. Suetonius writes in Latin but quotes Caesar in Greek. Shakespeare’s line is Latin inside an English play.

For more lines like this, see our Julius Caesar quotes and famous Latin phrases, or the meanings of veni, vidi, vici and alea iacta est. For the whole day, see our page on the Ides of March; for his life, our Julius Caesar summary.

077. Try it yourself

Our suggestion: the next time a famous line comes with a deathbed, ask three questions. Who reports it, and how long after? Does that writer believe it? Is it in the language the speaker would have used? Here, Suetonius and Dio both hedge, and the familiar Latin comes from a play.

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How we checked this · Last checked October 2026

• We read the death scenes in Suetonius, Plutarch, Appian and Cassius Dio in the Loeb translations on LacusCurtius, and checked the Latin and Greek of Suetonius.
• We read Shakespeare's line in two editions, Project Gutenberg and MIT, which punctuate it differently.
• The scholarly readings of the Greek come from Ioannis Ziogas's 2016 article, which summarises the earlier ones. We did not open those earlier articles, so each is given as he reports it.
• We read Merriam-Webster in a browser, because it blocks scripts.
• Our wording matches our pages on the Ides of March, Julius Caesar quotes and famous Latin phrases.

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