Sunday, March 15, 2009

ΚΑΙ ΣΎ ΤΈΚΝΟΝ;


As soon as Caesar took his seat, the conspirators crowded around him as if to pay their respects. Tillius Cimber, who had assumed the lead, came up close, pretending to ask a question. Caesar made a gesture to put him off until later, but Cimber caught his toga by both shoulders. Then as Caesar cried, "Why, this is violence!" one of the Cascas stabbed him from one side just below the throat. Caesar caught Casca's arm and ran it through with his stylus, but as he tried to leap to his feet, he was stopped by another wound. When he saw that he was beset on every side by drawn daggers, he muffled his head in his robe, and at the same time drew down its lap to his feet with his left hand, in order to fall more decently, with the lower part of his body also covered. And in this wise he was stabbed with three and twenty wounds, 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, "You too, my son?"

All the conspirators made off, and he lay there lifeless for some time, and finally three common slaves put him on a litter and carried him home, with one arm hanging down. And of so many wounds none turned out to be mortal, in the opinion of the physician Antistius, except the second one in the breast.

Suetonius reports that Caesar's last words were in Greek: kai su, teknon? You, too, my son?

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