When at last Cæsar saw Brutus—his best friend—strike at him, his heart seemed broken and he gave up. Then, exclaiming in Latin, “Et tu, Brute!” which means, “And thou, O Brutus!” he fell down dead. This was in 44 B.C.
Antony, one of Cæsar’s true friends, made a speech over Cæsar’s dead body, and his words so stirred the crowd of people that gathered round that they would have torn the murderers to pieces if they could have caught them.
Shakspere has written a play called “Julius Cæsar,” and the month of July is named after him.
Now whom do you suppose Antony called “The Noblest Roman of Them All”?
“Julius Cæsar”?
No, you’re wrong. Brutus, the friend who stabbed Cæsar, was called, “The Noblest Roman of Them All.”
Why, do you suppose?
You’ll have to read Antony’s speech at the end of the play to find out.
Cæsar was pronounced in Latin “Kaiser”; and in later years the rulers of Germany were called this, and those of another country by the shortened form, “Czar.”