THOMAS SPENCER
News staff writer

As trustees ended the reign of Auburn President William Walker Tuesday, several saluted the departing president with kind words. But trustee Jack Miller of Mobile mystified the audience by requesting that passages from William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" be included in the minutes.

He simply listed the acts, scenes and lines, asking them to be entered into the minutes without reciting them.

"Mr. Miller, I appreciate that," a befuddled Gov. Bob Riley responded. "For those of us who aren't familiar with that exact passage," Riley began, but was cut off by general laughter. The meeting moved on, so the meaning was lost on most.

For those who aren't familiar with the passage, it begins with a speech by Marcus Antony, standing above a just-assassinated Julius Caesar.

"Oh, pardon me," Antony begs Caesar's corpse, "that I am meek and gentle with these butchers! Thou art the ruins of the noblest man that ever lived in the tide of times. Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood."

Antony goes on to predict "domestic fury and fierce civil strife shall cumber all parts of Italy" and that Caesar's vengeful spirit will return and "let slip the dogs of war, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial."

The passage includes the subsequent speech of Brutus, one of Caesar's assassins, saying he loved Caesar as much as anyone else but acted because "I loved Rome more."

Miller, an erudite attorney, former leader of the state Democratic Party and appointee of former Gov. Don Siegelman, ended his remarks with the Latin phrase, "Res Ipsa Loquitur," which is translated: "The thing speaks for itself."

Which is what he repeated Wednesday when asked to explain the importance of the passages. "Further I will not go," he said.

So it's left to the Auburn family to decide whether Caesar had let power go to his head and whether Brutus was acting treacherously or in the best interest of the Roman republic. But one thing is certain: Beware the ides of March.