Beware the Ides of March

Posted by Smokey Stover on March 16, 2004

In Reply to: Beware the Ides of March posted by ESC on March 15, 2004

: The soothsayer's warning to Julius Caesar, "Beware the Ides of March," has forever imbued that date with a sense of foreboding. But in Roman times the expression "Ides of March" did not necessarily evoke a dark mood-it was simply the standard way of saying "March 15." Surely such a fanciful expression must signify something more than merely another day of the year? Not so. Even in Shakespeare's time, sixteen centuries later, audiences attending his play Julius Caesar wouldn't have blinked twice upon hearing the date called the Ides.

: The term Ides comes from the earliest Roman calendar, which is said to have been devised by Romulus, the mythical founder of Rome. Whether it was Romulus or not, the inventor of this calendar had a penchant for complexity. The Roman calendar organized its months around three days, each of which served as a reference point for counting the other days:

:
: Kalends (1st day of the month)
: Nones (the 7th day in March, May, July, and October; the 5th in the other months)
: Ides (the 15th day in March, May, July, and October; the 13th in the other months)

: The remaining, unnamed days of the month were identified by counting backwards from the Kalends, Nones, or the Ides. For example, March 3 would be V Nones-5 days before the Nones (the Roman method of counting days was inclusive; in other words, the Nones would be counted as one of the 5 days).

What an excellent post! One reason the information is useful is that the Julian Calendar remained in use during most of the Renaissance and even later in some countries. Dating specific days from the Kalends (Kalendae) or the Ides (Idibus), in Latin, was common in official documents and sometimes in other places, as in the colophons of books. In Italy the Gregorian Calendar was adopted in 1582 and the following year (with the loss of eleven days of October of 1582), but replaced the Julian Calendar slowly in the rest of Europe. After the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in a particular city the Julian calendar was not necessarily immediately disused. Venetian printers, for instance, sometimes started the New Year "more veneto," that is, on March 1--but not always. So one has to be cautious in ascribing dates for events that took place in January and February. SS