Notes & Queries Archive
REPLY1850

Cæsar's Wife

By J. E.

If the object of "NASO'S" Query (No. 18. p. 277.) be merely to ascertain the origin of the proverb, "Cæsar's wife must be above suspicion," he will find in Suetonius (Jul. Cæs. 74.) to the following effect:— "The name of Pompeia, the wife of Julius Cæsar, having been mixed up with an accusation against P. Clodius, her husband divorced her; not, as he said, because he believed the charge against her, but because he would have those belonging to him as free from suspicion as from crime." J.E. [We have received a similar replay, with the addition of a reference to Plutarch (Julius Cæsar, cap. 10.…

Topics: Proverbs, Historical Customs