What is the Ides of March you may be wondering and the story behind it is somewhat simple and somewhat dark. Initially the middle of the month of March was designated as the day that people would celebrate and take part in festivities but then things went sour when a seer who went by the name of Plutarch confronted Caesar about the ill fate he might encounter if he weren’t watchful of the Ides of March. Sure enough, as any leader would do, he kept on walking towards the Theatre of Pompey without paying much heed to the words of the seer, rather jesting that his prophecy hadn’t come true.
The words of the leader went to the tune that the Ides of March had come and nothing had happened to which Plutarch replied that indeed they have come but they have not passed as yet either. It was at the Theatre of Pompey that Caesar fell to his death and not by his arch enemies, nay, it was by the hands of his twelve most trusted followers including his best friend Brutus, to whom he asked: et tu Brute? In other words, “you too Brutus?”
Then the reference of the day was then used by the playwright and poet William Shakespeare who in his play Julius Caesar used the lines “beware the Ides of March.” Like all other plays by Shakespeare, nothing is ever said without a greater meaning behind it and though it was not ever clarified what Caesar might have said while dying, this episode in his life was one that survived the passage of time to make it to the ears and hearts of historians till this day.
Ides of March
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