Introduction
“Beware the Ides of March” forebodes dastardly events. Julius Caesar is told so by a soothsayer as he appears before the Roman crowd during the Lupercalia, an ancient religious holiday (according to William Shakespeare in Act 1, Scene 2 of his play “Julius Caesar”).
Why beware?
Why should Caesar be beware? In 44 BCE, Caesar, had becoming a powerful Roman dictator and was implementing new laws to strengthen his power. His moves alarmed many who feared the erosion of the Roman Republic.
Led by senators Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, approximately 60 conspirators plotted to assassinate Caesar. So on this day—15 March 44 BCE—as Caesar took his seat in the senate, the conspirators stabbed him to death.
According to Plutarch (a Greek writer), the warning to Caesar came from his wife who had consulted a haruspex. A haruspex was a person trained in haruspicy—divination from the entrails of sacrificed animals (especially livers of sacrificed sheep). The practice came from the Etruscans, early rivals of the Romans in Italy.
The Latin word haruspex is from an archaic word, hīra meaning entrails and intestines. Our modern word hernia meaning protruding viscera comes from the same source.
The ancient Roman calendar
In the ancient Roman calendar, the Romans divided their months based on lunar cycles. Each month had three significant points:
- Kalends—the first day of the month with the appearance of the new moon
- Nones—falling roughly on the fifth or seventh day of the month
- Ides—the middle of the month, specifically on the 13th or 15th day
The Ides coincided with the full moon, and the Romans would honour Jupiter, their sky god, through feasts and sacrifices. The Ides of March also marked the first full moon of the (Roman) year symbolising new beginnings.
The aftermath
Caesar’s assassination threw Rome into chaos. A civil war started from which emerged Caesar’s great-nephew and adopted son, Octavian, who would become the first Roman emperor, Augustus Caesar, in 27 BCE. The Ides of March had set in motion a major shift in history. It was the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire.
Word origin
The word “ides” traces its origins to Latin, as you would expect. However, its exact roots beyond that remain mysterious but some scholars speculate that it has Etruscan origins and meant “to divide”.
The Etruscan language used Greek characters (so we can still identify the sounds) but is a pre-Indo-European (so existed before the main ancestor of most of the languages across Europe, central Asia and India). It was eventually replaced by Latin.
Modern usage
When warned “beware the Ides of March” it is an invocation to be cautious against unforeseen consequences. Caesar’s death should remind us that even the mightiest can fall, and that one event can change destiny.