Notes on the current edition
Julius Caesar
1.
The
stylus, or
graphium, was an iron pen, broad at one end, with a sharp point at the other, used for writing upon waxen tables, the leaves or bark of trees, plates of brass, or lead, etc. For writing upon paper or parchment, the Romans employed a reed, sharpened and split in the point like our pens, called
calamus,
arundo, or
canna. This they dipped in the black liquor emitted by the cuttle fish, which served for ink.
2.
It was customary among the ancients, in great extremities to shroud the face in order to conceal any symptoms of horror or alarm which the countenance might express. The skirt of the toga was drawn round the lower extremities, that there might be no exposure in falling, as the Romans, at this period, wore no covering for the thighs and legs.
3.
Caesar's dying apostrophe to Brutus is represented in all the editions of Suetonius as uttered in Greek, but with some variations. The words, as here translated, are
καὶ σὺ εἶ ἐκείνων; καὶ σὺ. The Salmasian manuscript omits the latter clause. Some commentators suppose that the words
my son, were not merely expressive of the difference of age, or former familiarity between them, but an avowal that Brutus was the fruit of the connection between Julius and Servilia, mentioned before [see p. 40]. But it appears very improbable that Caesar, who had never before acknowledged Brutus to be his son, should make so unnecessary an avowal, at the moment of his death. Exclusively of this objection, the apostrophe seems too verbose, both for the suddenness and urgency of the occasion. But this is not all. Can we suppose that Caesar, though a perfect master of Greek, would at such a time have expressed himself in that language, rather than in Latin, his familiar tongue, and in which he spoke with peculiar elegance? Upon the whole, the probability is, that the words uttered by Caesar were,
Et tu Brute! which, while equally expressive of astonishment with the other version, and even of tenderness, are both more natural, and more emphatic.
