Ides of March
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the Roman calendar, the Ides of March was a term used to denote 15 March. In general, the Ides fell on the 15th day of the months of March, May, July, or October, or the 13th day of any other month.[1] The term had real meaning only in the traditional Roman calendar, which was displaced by the Julian calendar in 46 BC; however, it was still used in a colloquial sense for centuries afterwards to denote the middle of the month.
In modern times, the term is best known because of Julius Caesar having been assassinated on the Ides of March in 44 BC, the story of which was famously retold in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar.[2] The term has come to be used as a metaphor for impending doom.
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[edit] Assassination of Julius Caesar
Caesar summoned the Senate to meet in the Theatre of Pompey on the Ides of March. 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." [3]
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.
[edit] Usage in modern popular culture
- Thee Mighty Caesars, a garage/punk group fronted by Billy Childish, named an LP "Beware the Ides of March" released in 1985.
- The Ides of March are celebrated every year by the Rome Hash House Harriers with a toga run in the streets of Rome, in the same place where Julius Caesar was killed.
- British heavy metal band Iron Maiden opened their second album (Killers) with an instrumental entitled "The Ides of March."
- In 1970, the American band The Ides of March had a number 2 hit on the Billboard charts with the song "Vehicle."
- In 2005, the Canadian band Silverstein created a song called "Ides of March" on the album "Discovering the Waterfront".
- A paperback reprint of material from MAD Magazine, from the late 1950s, is titled The Ides of MAD; on the cover of the current edition is a bust of the magazine's mascot Alfred E. Neuman, with an inscription in Latin on the base, Quid, Me Vexari? ("What, me Worry?"). The bust and the wall behind it are pelted with eggs and tomatoes.
- In Back To The Future II, George McFly was killed on the Ides of March in 1973
[edit] Trivia
- Cao Cao, one of the greatest warlords of the Three Kingdoms Era of China, also died on the Ides of March in 220 AD and a year later the Kingdom of Shu Han was established by Liu Bei.
