The Ides of March is a day on the Roman calendar that corresponds to 15 March.
It was marked by several religious observances, and became notorious as the date of the assassination
of Julius Caesar in 44 BC.
The death of Caesar made the Ides of March a turning point in Roman history, as one of
the events that marked the transition from the historical period known as the Roman Republic
to the Roman Empire.
Although March was the third month of the Julian calendar, in the oldest Roman calendar
it was the first month of the year.
The holidays observed by the Romans from the first through the Ides often reflect their
origin as new year celebrations.
Ides 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, the Ides,
and the Kalends 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.
The Ides were supposed to be determined by the full moon, reflecting the lunar origin
of the Roman calendar.
On the earliest calendar, the Ides of March would have been the first full moon of the
new year.
Religious observances
The Ides of each month was sacred to Jupiter, the supreme deity of the Romans.
The Flamen Dialis, Jupiter's high priest, led the "Ides sheep" in procession along the
Via Sacra to the arx, where it was sacrificed.
In addition to the monthly sacrifice, the Ides of March was also the occasion of the
Feast of Anna Perenna, a goddess of the year whose festival originally concluded the ceremonies
of the new year.
The day was enthusiastically celebrated among the common people with picnics, drinking,
and revelry.
One source from late antiquity also places the Mamuralia on the Ides of March.
This observance, which has aspects of scapegoat or ancient Greek pharmakos ritual, involved
beating an old man dressed in animal skins and perhaps driving him from the city.
The ritual may have been a new year festival representing the expulsion of the old year.
In the later Imperial period, the Ides began a "holy week" of festivals for Cybele and
Attis.
The Ides was the day of Canna intrat, when Attis was born and exposed as an infant among
the reeds of a Phrygian river.
He was discovered—depending on the version of the myth—by either shepherds or the goddess
Cybele, who was also known as the Magna Mater, "Great Mother".
A week later, on 22 March, the day of Arbor intrat commemorated the death of Attis under
a pine tree.
A college of priests called "tree bearers" cut down a tree, suspended from it an image
of Attis, and carried it to the temple of the Magna Mater with lamentations.
The day was formalized as part of the official Roman calendar under Claudius.
A three-day period of mourning followed, culminating with the rebirth of Attis on 25 March, the
date of the vernal equinox on the Julian calendar.
Assassination of Caesar
In modern times, the Ides of March is best known as the date on which Julius Caesar was
assassinated in 44 BC.
Caesar was 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 dramatised in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, when Caesar
is warned by the soothsayer to "beware the Ides of March."
The Roman biographer Suetonius identifies the "seer" as a haruspex named Spurinna.
Caesar's death was a closing event in the crisis of the Roman Republic, and triggered
the civil war that would result in the rise to sole power of his adopted heir Octavian.
Writing under Augustus, Ovid portrays the murder as a sacrilege, since Caesar was also
the Pontifex Maximus of Rome and a priest of Vesta.
On the anniversary of Caesar's death in 40 BC, after achieving a victory at the siege
of Perugia, Octavian executed 300 senators and knights who had fought against him under
Lucius Antonius, the brother of Mark Antony.
The executions were one of a series of actions taken by Octavian to avenge Caesar's death.
Suetonius and the historian Cassius Dio characterised the slaughter as a religious sacrifice, noting
that it occurred on the Ides of March at the new altar to the deified Julius.
See also Julius Caesar, a play by William Shakespeare
References
External links Plutarch, The Parallel Lives, The Life of
Julius Caesar Nicolaus of Damascus, Life of Augustus