Tricolon Archives | Neel Burton

I Came, I Saw, I Conquered

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

Essay substantially revised on 11 August 2026.

Three is an oddly persuasive number. If I tell you that I have one reason for believing something, you may think I’m impressionable. If I have two reasons, you may suspect that I couldn’t think of a third. But if I tell you, ‘Here are my three reasons,’ the argument feels intelligent and complete.

The same pattern crops up everywhere. Genies grant three wishes, the newborn Jesus was visited by three magi, and Goldilocks had to contend with three bears. Not one, nor two, nor four, but exactly three.

For all D’Artagnan’s heroism, Alexandre Dumas did not entitle his novel The Four Musketeers. If asked, ‘How many ghosts visited Ebenezer Scrooge?’ most people will answer, ‘Three’—completely overlooking the fourth ghost, that of Scrooge’s partner, Jacob Marley.

Trilogies and trinities are a lot more common, and popular, than tetralogies and quaternities (I had to check this word even exists).

The Rule of Three in Rhetoric

Writers and speakers have long understood the peculiar power of three. In rhetoric, three parallel words, clauses, or lines make up a tricolon, a particularly effective type of isocolon, or parallel construction.

Some of the most memorable lines in history are tricolons:

I came, I saw, I conquered. —Julius Caesar upon crossing the Rubicon
Government of the people, by the people, for the people. —Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. —The United States Declaration of Independence

Similar to tricolon is hendiatris, which involves the juxtaposition of three words to express a single idea or total concept, for example, Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (the national motto of France) and ‘wine, women, and song’ (or, nowadays, ‘sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll’).

Winston Churchill’s first speech to the House of Commons as prime minister is remembered as Blood, Sweat, and Tears, even though he said, ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.’ As prime minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair did not make his top priority ‘education’ or even ‘education, education’, but ‘education, education, education’.

When asked a question, Joe Biden often responded by making just two points (“Number 1… Number 2…”), leaving everyone wondering what happened to Number 3.

Number 3 does something that Number 2 cannot: establish a pattern. Once the first two beats have created an expectation, the third fulfils it, giving a tricolon both rhythm and a sense of completion.

Sometimes the third element is also the longest or strongest of the three, creating a rising effect traditionally called a tricolon crescens.

Three is a Pattern

Why is three so much more engaging, satisfying, and memorable than one or two or four? ‘Here are my three reasons.’ ‘I’ll give you three examples.’ ‘These are the three lessons I learnt.’

One is a fluke. Two is a coincidence. Four is one too many—to the extent that if you must have four, it may be better to present them as two linked pairs, and then maybe add a third pair.

Three, however, is the smallest number required to create a pattern and rhythm.

Triple goddesses or deities in groups of three are common in world myth: the Holy Trinity, the Tridevi, Hecate, Artemis, the Fates, the Furies, the Graces, the Graeae, the Morrígan, the Norns… and, I believe, originally stood for fate and the passage of time—the past, the present, and the future.

In Greek myth, when Demeter discovered that her daughter Persephone had been kidnapped by her brother Hades, she abandoned her divine duties and wandered from city to city, bringing by her absence a blight onto the land. Arriving in Eleusis in Attica, she took the form of a crone by the name of Doso and fell upon the good King Celeus for sanctuary.

Persephone, Demeter, and Doso may be regarded as the three aspects of a triple goddess—the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone—that stand for the phases of the moon and the stages of life.

No wonder, then, that the number three is so deeply ingrained in the human psyche.