ing two leading Roman senators, Cassius Longinus and
Marcus Brutus. In February 44 b.c., the Roman Senate,
bowing to Caesar’s strength and power, voted to make
him dictator for life. A group of senators, led by sev-
eral who were extremely close to Caesar, concluded that
he needed to be stopped, and they planned to assassi-
nate him. On 15 March 44 b.c.—known as the Ides of
March—Caesar went to the Roman Senate to preside
over that body. As he entered the building, one of the as-
sassination conspirators, Casca, approached him with a
document to read. As Caesar studied it, the others came
forward, drew knives, and attacked the Roman leader. As
Brutus plunged the knife into Caesar, the Roman leader
allegedly cried, “Et tu, Brute?” (“You, too, Brutus?”).
However, historians now believe that he actually said, in
Greek, “Kai su, Technon?” (“You, too, my child?”)—ac-
knowledging that Brutus was Caesar’s illegitimate child
from his mistress Servilia. The assassins fled from the
Senate, believing their act to be heroic. Instead, they
were hunted down and murdered.
Caesar’s assassination at the hands of men who were
his friends has been depicted in the play Julius Caesar by
William Shakespeare, although historians have recently
questioned the conventional view of the assassination,
based on newly discovered evidence.
In March 2003, historian Richard Girling pushed
his thesis in The Sunday Times Magazine (London) that
Caesar well may have staged his own assassination—a
form of what is now called assisted suicide. Girling ex-
plains: “Why would Caesar want to kill himself? He is
the most glorious personage on Earth, able freely to help
himself to anything he fancies, from a peeled grape to
an entire country. Who in his right mind would put an
end to such a life? In searching for the answer we need
to consider both Caesar’s age (at 56 he is, by contempo-
rary standards, an old man) and his state of health. An-
cient texts make it clear that Caesar is by now suffering
grievously from epilepsy—a discovery that... supplies a
crucial link in the evidence chain.” Girling believes that
Caesar probably suffered from temporal-lobe epilepsy,
which explains some of the irrational actions he took
during his life, as well as from reported illnesses that in-
cluded suffering from severe fainting fits and bouts of
diarrhea.
Whatever the theories of Julius Caesar’s death,
15 March 44 b.c. saw the end of a man whose name
still rings through history. A superb politician, states-
man, and strategist, he laid the foundations for his
nephew Octavian (Caesar augustus) to build an em-
pire whose influence is still felt today in literature, law,
and architecture as well as the machinery of democratic
government.References: Balsdon, John Percy Vyvian Dacre, Julius
Caesar: A Political Biography (New York: Atheneum,
1967); Fuller, John Frederick Charles, Julius Caesar: Man,
Soldier, and Tyrant (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Uni-
versity Press, 1965); Caesar, Julius Gaius, The Commen-
taries of C. Julius Caesar, of his Wars in Gallia, and the Civil
Wars betwixt him and Pompey (London: Tho. Newcomb,
1677); Abbott, Frank Frost, A History and Description of
Roman Political Institutions (Boston: Ginn & Company,
1907), 119–122; “Caesar,” in Command: From Alexander
the Great to Zhukov—The Greatest Commanders of World
History, edited by James Lucas (London: Bloomsbury
Publishing, 1988), 32–33; Bruce, George, “Pharsalus I,”
in Collins Dictionary of Wars (Glasgow, Scotland: Harper-
Collins Publishers, 1995), 193; Dodge, Theodore Ayrault,
Cæsar: A History of the Art of War Among the Romans Down
to the End of the Roman Empire (Boston: Houghton, Mif-
flin and Company, 1892); Clarke, Samuel, The Life &
Death of Julius Caesar, the First Founder of the Roman
Empire... (London: Printed for William Miller, 1665);
Girling, Richard, “Et Tu Julius? A New Investigation Has
Yielded a Startling Verdict on History’s Most Infamous
Murder,” The Sunday Times Magazine (London), 9 March
2003, 48–55.Campbell, Sir Colin, Baron Clyde (Colin
Macliver) (1792–1863) British general
Despite being one of the leaders of the British forces in
the Crimea, Sir Colin Campbell is sometimes forgot-
ten next to the more dominant figure of Fitzroy Somer-
set, Baron raglan. Nonetheless, in historical context,
Campbell’s contributions in the Crimea and in a series
of campaigns around the world make him an important
military leader in British history.
Campbell was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on 20
October 1792, the illegitimate son of a carpenter named
Macliver and his mistress Agnes Campbell. He escaped
these humble circumstances by being taken under the
wing of his maternal uncle, Colonel John Campbell,
who in 1807 obtained for his charge a meeting with
the duke of York. The duke became interested in the
15-year-old and granted him a commission but put hiscAmpbell, SiR colin, bARon clyDe