The obstetrical expression ‘caesarean section’ (also spelled with a capital C, with -e- instead of -ae- in the first syllable, and with -ian instead of -ean at the end) has always been associated with Julius Caesar. The tradition goes back to the first century AD, when Pliny explained that the name Caesar was coined on the fact that its most famous bearer had been born ‘a caeso matris ventro’ (out of his mother's cut belly).