“Et tu, Brute? — Then fall, Caesar.”

These famous lines from William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, describing Caesar’s death, are how most of us believe it to have happened. Yet, these words may not necessarily have been the last ones said by the dying Roman general. We actually do not know Caesar’s last words. That may have been true, but there is no written account that preserved that scene largely because the assassins surrounded him.

We know that Caesar was killed on March 15th, 44 BC because Brutus even bragged on his coinage that he killed him on “EID MAR” – the Ides of March.

Gaius Cassius Longinus was the brother-in-law of Brutus. He was a Roman senator and general best known as a leading instigator of the plot to assassinate Julius Caesar. He commanded troops with Brutus during the Battle of Philippi against the forces of Mark Antony and Octavian avenging the assassination of Caesar. When he lost the battle, he committed suicide. None of his coins bragged about killing Caesar.