"Beware the Ides of March"

Morte de Césare (Death of Caesar) by Vincenzo Camuccini

The soothsayer's warning to Julius Caesar, "Beware the Ides of March," has forever imbued that date with a sense of foreboding.

In the Roman calendar, the term ides was used for the 15th day of the months of March, May, July, and October, and the 13th day of the other eight months.

In modern times, the term Ides of March (Latin: Idus Martiae) is best known as the date that Julius Caesar was assassinated, in 44 BC, and famously retold in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. The term has come to be used as a metaphor for impending doom (Act 1, scene 2, 15-19).

But the Ides of March assumed a whole new identity after the events of 44 B.C. The phrase came to represent a specific day of abrupt change that set off a ripple of repercussions throughout Roman society and beyond.

Josiah Osgood, an assistant professor of classics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., said: "You can read in Cicero's letters from the months after the Ides of March. … He even says, 'The Ides changed everything.'"

Some of my favorite lines from Julius Caesar:

He reads much;
He is a great observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men (Cæsar. ACT I Scene 2).

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come (Cæsar. ACT II Scene 2).

Et tu, Brute! Then fall, Caesar (Caesar. ACT III Scene 1).

Cry “Havoc,” and let slip the dogs of war (Antony. ACT III Scene 1).