Let’s face it. Nobody would give a
rip about the ides of anything, much less the Ides of March, if it hadn’t been for William Shakespeare. In his
play Julius Caesar, he has the Soothsayer warn the doomed ruler, “Beware the ides of March.” (I.ii.66)
Though Shakespeare isn’t known for his historic
accuracy, he pretty much got this one spot on. There really was a Julius Caesar, he really had made himself dictator,
he really wanted that position to be permanent, and there really were a bunch of people willing to kill him in order to stop
that from happening. And they did... well, at least they killed him. (Handwerk) Ironically, in trying to
stop a dictatorship, Brutus and his cohorts actually started a civil war that led to the even worse dictatorship of Augustus.
(Ides of March)
From earliest time, before
Shakespeare and Caesar, the ides of every month were sacred to Jupiter, the chief Roman god. There were sacrifices and
feasts and a good time was had by all, except maybe the sheep. As well, in the old Roman calendar, before Pope Gregory mucked everything up, March was the first month of the year, with ceremonies
lasting through the ides. (Ides of March) There was even a special goddess just for that day, Anna Perenna, the
goddess of the New Year. (Gill) Tied into all of that, the Ides of March pretty much became the equivalent of tax day,
that day of the year when you paid your debts.
“Ides,” which means “to split,” marked the middle of every month in the Roman calendar.
However, to put it always on the same day would make sense. So in March, May, July, and October the ides fall on the
15th, and in every other month on the 13th. (Handwerk) It apparently took the Romans awhile
to figure out that dates work better if you don’t base them on the moon
In general, the phrase “Beware the Ides of March” has come to mean “Beware
any Fateful Day,” which seems a bit redundant. (Gill) But should we really fear the 15th of March?
Aside from Caesar’s death in 44 BCE, the French began a brutal raid of Southern England on that day in 1360. A
cyclone in Samoa destroyed six warships and killed over 200 sailors in 1889 (although it may have prevented a war).
In 1917, on the 15th, Czar Nicholas II gave up his throne, which brought in the Bolsheviks and led to execution
of the Czar and his family (including Anastasia). In 1939 on the Ides of March, Germany occupied Czechoslovakia.
In 1941 at least 60 people died from a blizzard on the Great Plains. In 1952, setting a new record for a single day,
it rained 73.62 inches on the island of La Réunion, out in the Indian Ocean. If that weren’t enough, in
1971, on the Ides of March, CBS cancelled “The Ed Sullivan Show,” which marked the beginning of the end for all
variety shows. Then in 1988 NASA first scared the bejeezus out of everybody by telling us the ozone layer was disappearing.
And in 2003 the World Health Organization issued a warning for SARS, a particularly nasty malady. (Frail) And
let’s not forget the band “The Ides of March,” which had the hit
song “Vehicle,” but nothing else. Nor can we forget
the 2011 film by that same name which starred George Clooney. (Gibson) So maybe we should truly beware the Ides
of March.
