As March approaches and we are blown into the month with its predictable windy days, we often think of the expression, “Beware of the Ides of March” and where the expression came from. So we share this with you. The Romans did not number days of a month sequentially from the first through the last day. Instead, they counted back from three fixed points of the month: the Nones (5th or 7th, depending on the length of the month), the Ides (13th or 15th), and the Kalends (1st of the following month). The Ides occurred near the midpoint, on the 13th for most months, but on the 15th for March, May, July, and October. On the earliest calendar, the Ides of March would have been the first full moon of the New Year.

In modern times, the Ides of March is best known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, stabbed to death at a meeting of the senate. As many as 60 conspirators, led by Brutus and Cassius, were involved. According to Plutarch, a seer had warned that harm would come to Caesar no later than the Ides of March. On his way to the Theatre of Pompey, where he would be assassinated, Caesar passed the seer and joked, “The ides of March have come,” meaning to say that the prophecy had not been fulfilled, to which the seer replied “Aye, 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.”

Throughout history, the Ides of March has come to be a time for festivals and celebrations, both religious and commonplace. On that happy note, we wish all of our followers a joyous time during the beginnings of spring, especially on March 15th.