Ides of March Marked Murder of Julius Caesar

[Valin]

Jennifer Vernon

March 12, 2004

 

Julius Caesar's bloody assassination on March 15, 44 B.C., forever marked March 15, or the Ides of March, as a day of infamy. It has fascinated scholars and writers ever since.

 

For ancient Romans living before that event, however, an ides was merely one of several common calendar terms used to mark monthly lunar events. The ides simply marked the appearance of the full moon.

 

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.'"

 

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Top Ten Reasons to Beware the Ides of March

March 15 will live in infamy beyond the murder of Julius Caesar. Here are 10 events that occurred on that date

By T.A. Frail

March 4, 2010