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Made famous by William Shakespeare, the “Ides of March” are still often discussed whenever the 15th of March is upon us. In ancient Roman custom, it was set aside as a day to settle debts, but it was forever connected to ill fortune and death following the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC.

The actual phrase comes from Act 1, Scene II of Julius Caesar. This is our first meeting with Caesar, and he has just given an order to Antony. A voice cries out from the crowd, grabbing his attention. It is a man who repeatedly says “Beware the ides of March.” Brutus, who was a conspirator against Caesar, informs us that the man is a soothsayer. Caesar is dismissing, calling the man a “dreamer” and moves on.

Shakespeare’s impact on our culture is strong, and even many who have not read the play still know of this scene. Whenever March comes, there are those who love to repeat that famous line as if there is something that we should worry about the day. But do the “Ides” actually mean anything to us? And, for that matter, did they really mean anything to the Romans of Caesar’s day? To answer this question, we must first understand the complicated issue of the Roman calendar.

When the Ides Take Place

We don’t actually know when the “Ides of March” actually takes place in relation to the solar calendar (solstice and equinox). The Roman calendar was structured by the fiat of the rulers, with many adding or removing days at certain points in the year to adjust the months without need to consider if the months actually align with the seasons.

An “Ide” is a period in a month in the Julian calendar system that represents the time just before the middle of the month. Classically, the day is deemed the day before the middle of the month, with some months retaining the Ides on the 13th day after Julius restructured the calendar to avoided overriding or moving various important festivals. March, however, always had 31 days, so the Ides stayed on the 15th day of the month. Therefore, March 15th is always the “Ides” of the month.

There is a religious significance to the day: Ides were a day to worship Jupiter, and March’s was dedicated to the goddess of the year. Symbolically, the date would have been connected to the concept of renewal (new year), of sacredness (Jupiter), and to the very founding of Rome (March). However, the issue is further complicated by what happened to each of the months during Caesar’s reign.

Long before Caesar’s changes, it is possible that March was originally the first month in the Roman year due to its relationship with Spring and its namesake (Mars) being connected to the founding of Rome. We don’t have certain evidence over the specifics of the calendar system, but it is likely that the Romans of Caesar’s followed a traditional Greek system that alternated between 12 and 13 month years with March coming as the 3rd month.

This is an important consideration because there was an addition of an extra month in different years that would have followed (or even placed in the middle of) February, pushing the start of March back. In either system, the beginning of March varied, never falling during the same solar time period each year.

A Calendar Shift

Even if we disregard the addition of a thirteenth month, there were other alterations to the calendar that moved the Ides in relationship to the start of the calendar. Under the pre-Julian system, March began either 57 days after the beginning of January (29 days in January, 28 in February) or 80 days (Mercedonius adding 23 more days). After the reforms of 46 BC, the calendar was fixed at 12 months, with March beginning 59 or 60 days (leap year) following the start of the calendar. Although this was a more consistent system, it was a change that took place only a year before his death.

Matters become more complicated due to the year 46 BC having to be extended to 445 days long to align it with solar positions, and the first “regular” year going into effect in 45 BC. The new calendar added 10 days to match a modern 365 days, with January gaining 2 days. This moved the Ides of March at least 2 days later into the year then their earlier position if we consider an Ides as a fixed date in relation to the solar calendar instead of defined internally by the structure of a month.

We do not operate under the Julian Calendar due to it having a structural problem that created a slow drift away from important solar dates. To address this issue, the Gregorian calendar was created in 1582. The reform removed 3 leap years every 400 years, which led to the removal of 10 days from the calendar.

What We Should Beware

Based on these various issues, we have to wonder when the Ides of March actually takes place. In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the soothsayer warns Caesar to “beware the Ides of March” in mid-February, 44 BC. Was this prediction connected to a seasonal (solar) understanding of dates or was it fixed to the system the Caesar created? If it is the former, then we don’t really know when the Ides take place, but, if it is the latter, then the Ides align with our March 25th, due to the Gregorian calendar shifting dates back 10 days.

Suetonius, in his Life of Caesar, provides this version of what took place: “Again, when he was offering sacrifice, the soothsayer Spurinna warned him to beware of danger, which would come not later than the Ides of March.” Based on this version of the events, it is likely that the soothsayer was warning Caesar that he will be killed within a month’s period from those championing his becoming king of Rome, suggesting that it was immediacy, and not a particular date, that would mark his death.

We do know is that the assassins chose the date due to urgency; Julius was about to leave for a new campaign. The Romans held various feast days on particular dates within a month, but there was no rigorous understanding of when those months should take place. The Ides of March would have been the same within an understanding of March, but March could have been held anywhere from Winter to Summer.

Even the small symbolic value of the Ides of March being retained in Caesar’s time would have been lost due to the shifts in calendar and culture even by Shakespeare’s time. There are far too many complicates to attribute any mystic power or authority inherent in the Ides of March. Instead, we should look to how Shakespeare used the date: it was a way to give Caesar forewarning of his fate and to show how he ignored it due to his own arrogance.

Caesar was assassinated due to the Romans worrying that he would take supreme power over Rome. Although he is a supreme strategist, he was blind to see how upset his actions would have made others, and he felt that he was untouchable. We should not say “beware the ides of March” because we should be afraid that March 15th will bring us ill-fortunate. Instead, we should say it to remind ourselves not to be blind to how our actions could led even our friends to hate us.