Julius Caesar never said, “Et tu, Brute?”
A lot of history’s famous quotes are either misattributed or were never spoken in the first place. In addition to the fact that Gandhi never said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” and no one aboard Apollo 13 ever uttered the phrase, “Houston, we have a problem,” Julius Caesar didn’t say, “Et tu, Brute?” (“You too, Brutus?”) as he was stabbed to death by a group of Roman senators that included his supposed bestie. The line comes from Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar and is followed by its protagonist’s last words, “Then fall, Caesar” — as though the betrayal made him lose his will to live more than the stab wounds.
Caesar’s actual last words — or whether he even had the breath to speak any — are unknown. Most ancient scholars, including Roman historians Plutarch and Cassius Dio, believe he said nothing at all, but mention that other sources claim he spoke in Greek: “καὶ σύ, τέκνον,” roughly translating to “You too, my child?” In any case, March 15 — the date of Caesar’s assassination in 44 BCE, better known as the Ides of March — has since become associated with doom and foreboding.