Who knew March was so festive? First, we had Pi Day on March 14, and now the Ides of March follows right behind it today, March 15.
However, the Ides of March aren’t really something to celebrate. In fact, people may even greet you on this day by saying, “Beware the Ides of March.” That sure doesn’t sound very joyous. So what are the Ides of March, and should you really be worried about them?
In major and minor ways, a lot of us misunderstand the death of Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 BC. Barry Strauss, a Cornell classics and history professor. He’s the author of The Death of Caesar, a new book that chronicles one of history’s most infamous assassinations and dispels a lot of half-remembered myths.
A lot of those myths come from Shakespeare, who relied exclusively on Plutarch to paint his picture of Rome. But Strauss uses Plutarch in concert with other ancient sources like Nicolaus of Damascus, Suetonius, Appian, and Cassius Dio, as well as the work of other scholars. Weighed against one another, together they form a more complete picture of Rome at the time — and one that happens to bust a lot of myths.
At the time the Roman calendar was created, the phases of the moon determined the dates, and the full moon usually fell on either the 13th or 15th day of the month, which was referred to as the ides. March was the first month in the Roman calendar, so the Ides of March marked the first full moon of the year.
But why do some people still use the expression, “Beware of the Ides of March”? Why do they consider it an unlucky day?
March 15 was very unlucky for one man a very long time ago. On that date in the year 44 BC Julius Caesar was killed.
The British playwright William Shakespeare takes this incident from Roman history and freezes it forever in literature. In Act 1, Scene 2 of “Julius Caesar,” Shakespeare writes about a meeting between the dictator and a “soothsayer,” someone who can predict the future.
“Beware the Ides of March,” says the soothsayer.
Caesar asks, “What man is that?”
And Brutus, Caesar’s loyal friend answers, “A soothsayer says to (bids you) beware the Ides of March.
Caesar does not listen to the warning. He should have. In Act III, Scene I, Shakespeare’s famous line seems to show that Caesar is asking for trouble.
Caesar says to the Soothsayer, “The Ides of March are come.”
The Soothsayer answers, “Aye, Caesar, but not gone.”
Caesar’s friend Brutus will be among the attackers who kill him on the Ides of March.
When he sees that Brutus has turned against him, he says, “Eh tu, Brutus?” This means “You too, Brutus?”
This expression is widely used in Western culture when someone is betrayed by a friend.
Since then, the Ides of March has come to be known as an unlucky day, similar to Friday the 13th. But is it really such a bad day? Well, apparently a lot of other bad things have happened on this date throughout history, including a cyclone that hit Samoa in 1889, the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939 and the cancellation of The Ed Sullivan Show in 1971. Beware the Ides of March indeed.
