March 10, 2015

Ides of March

Written By:  Andrew Eide

You are probably asking yourself why I chose the topic Ides of March right? We are in the month of March and the main topic is Things That Go Marching so I felt it would be an appropriate topic. Additionally, since my last name is Eide and it is pronounced the same as Ide I figured it would make for an amusing topic.

The term is Ides of March which in Latin is:  Idus Martiae. It is the name of the 15th day of March in the Roman calendar, most likely referring to a day of a full moon. The Latin word Idus means half division or in this case the middle of the month. The Ides of March was a festive day dedicated to the god Mars and a military parade was held during the celebration.

In modern times, the term Ides of March is known as the date on which Julius Caesar was killed in 44 B.C. by a group of conspirators led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus.

The story goes that a seer had foreseen that Caesar would be harmed not later than the Ides of March on his way to the Theater of Pompey. Caesar met with that seer and joked about it saying, “The Ides of March have come” meaning to say that the prophecy had not been fulfilled. The seer replied, “Ay, Caesar, but not gone.”  This meeting is famously dramatized in William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, when Caesar is warned by the soothsayer to “beware the Ides of March.

Well there you go. That is the basic explanation I can give you of the Ides of March and where it came from.

Although we are in the month of March 2012, and my last name is pronounced the same way that Ide is pronounced, please rest assured that you do not have to “beware the Eide’s of March.” lol



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