What are the Ides of March?

"Beware the ides of March"It comes up several times in the Shakespeare play as a soothsayer shows up in front of Julius Caesar and Brutus in Shakespeare's "The Tragedy of Julius Caesar."March 15, the ides, is the day that, by most accounts, Caesar was assassinated.But what are the ides?Romans didn't track the calendar or time the way we do today - and no, not in the way we spring forward and fall back. The ides of March are just that particular day in the month of March. The ides appear every month.The Roman calendar, according to Britannica.com, divided months into groupings of days counted before certain named days.So, one grouping, the Kalends, was the beginning of the month. The Ides were the middle, and the Nones were between them.If a month had 31 days, like March, Britannica says, The Kalends would be day 1. Days 2-6 would be "before the Nones." The Nones would be day 7, Days 8-14 "before the ides"Which, if you're following that circuitous explanation... leaves the 15th to be the "ides of March."What makes the day famous, obviously, is not just the Shakespeare play. Julius Caesar was actually assassinated on March 15 - the ides - of 44BC. He was stabbed 23 times by a group of Senators concerned about the amount of power Caesar commanded at the time. He was now dicatator of Rome, declared emperor. It is said 60 to 70 Senators were part of the conspiracy to kill Julius Caesar. According to Smithsonian, while the Senators had hoped to remove the dictatorial power and pave the way for a new republic, Octavian - named heir to Caesar's empire prior to his death - had been consolidating power throughout his time taking over rule of the empire. Throughout a period of about 14 years after the death of Julius Caesar, with the help of Mark Antony - he's not just a literary figure, he existed - Octavian managed to hunt down and kill Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius, the two men who had led the plot to kill Caesar. Yet the remaining people in the conspiracy were hunted and killed as well. In the middle of that all, Mark Antony, then in league with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, made a run for rule himself. It did not end well for either of them.But it was Shakespeare who immortalized the date - March 15 - and pushed the narrative to "beware the ides of March." That play, while set in 44 B.C., was written in 1599. It is one of the plays that exists in the First Folio, one of the earliest versions of his plays in existence.

It comes up several times in the Shakespeare play as a soothsayer shows up in front of Julius Caesar and Brutus in Shakespeare's "The Tragedy of Julius Caesar." March 15, the ides, is the day that, by most accounts, Caesar was assassinated. Romans didn't track the calendar or time the way we do today - and no, not in the way we spring forward and fall back. The ides of March are just that particular day in the month of March. The ides appear every month. The Roman calendar, according to Britannica.com, divided months into groupings of days counted before certain named days. So, one grouping, the Kalends, was the beginning of the month. The Ides were the middle, and the Nones were between them. If a month had 31 days, like March, Britannica says, The Kalends would be day 1. Days 2-6 would be "before the Nones." The Nones would be day 7, Days 8-14 "before the ides" Which, if you're following that circuitous explanation... leaves the 15th to be the "ides of March." What makes the day famous, obviously, is not just the Shakespeare play. Julius Caesar was actually assassinated on March 15 - the ides - of 44BC. He was stabbed 23 times by a group of Senators concerned about the amount of power Caesar commanded at the time. He was now dicatator of Rome, declared emperor. It is said 60 to 70 Senators were part of the conspiracy to kill Julius Caesar. According to Smithsonian, while the Senators had hoped to remove the dictatorial power and pave the way for a new republic, Octavian - named heir to Caesar's empire prior to his death - had been consolidating power throughout his time taking over rule of the empire. Throughout a period of about 14 years after the death of Julius Caesar, with the help of Mark Antony - he's not just a literary figure, he existed - Octavian managed to hunt down and kill Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius, the two men who had led the plot to kill Caesar. Yet the remaining people in the conspiracy were hunted and killed as well. In the middle of that all, Mark Antony, then in league with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, made a run for rule himself. It did not end well for either of them. But it was Shakespeare who immortalized the date - March 15 - and pushed the narrative to "beware the ides of March." That play, while set in 44 B.C., was written in 1599. It is one of the plays that exists in the First Folio, one of the earliest versions of his plays in existence.