Thursday 15 March 2007

Ides of March - Julius Caesar


Ides of March

Vincenzo Camuccini, Mort de César, 1798.Generally speaking, a term from the ancient Roman calendar. The Ides fell on the 15th day of March, May, July, or October or the 13th day of any other month.[1] Thus the Ides of March was the 15th day of March.

Ides had real meaning only in the Roman Calendar, which had just been displaced by the Julian Calendar. However, the term "Ides" was still used in a vernacular sense for centuries afterwards to denote the middle of the month.

Specifically, the term is best known because Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March in 44 BC.


Main article: Julius Caesar#Assassination plot
Caesar summoned the Senate to meet in the Pompeii's Theater on the Ides of March, 44 BC the purpose of reading a petition, written by the senators, asking him to hand power back to the Senate. According to the Greek biographer Plutarch, a few days before, the soothsayer Titus Vestricius Spurinna apparently warned Caesar, "Beware the Ides of March." Caesar disregarded the warning:

"The following story, too, is told by many. A certain seer warned Caesar to be on his guard against a great peril on the day of the month of March which the Romans call the Ides; and when the day had come and Caesar was on his way to the senate-house, he greeted the seer with a jest and said: "Well, the Ides of March are come," and the seer said to him softly: "Ay, they are come, but they are not gone." [2]
As the Senate convened, Caesar was attacked and stabbed to death by a group of senators who called themselves the Liberatores ("Liberators"); they justified their action on the grounds that they committed tyrannicide, not murder, and were preserving the Republic from Caesar's alleged monarchical ambitions.

Acknowledgement - Thank you, Cathy, for your wonderful help in accessing some info on the Ides of March; via wikepedia. AND, also for your instruction on how to copy and paste!

Tidbit - Always take appreciative delight in expanding your horizons! Now having learned a tid of a bit, with the copy and paste technique, a whole new world is open! Thank you Cathy; or should I say, "Hail or Salvete Cathy!"

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