Ridin', Reinin' and Writin'

"Beware the Ides of March," a soothsayer warned Julius Caesar and so forever changed March 15th from simply a day on the calendar to a statement of doom and gloom.

Most of us familiar with that pre-assassination warning to Caesar in 44 B.C., but how many are aware that the Ides of March is just one of a dozen "Ides" that occured every year (one per month to be exact) on the Roman calendar? But the Ides did not always fall on the same day. In March, May, July and October, the Ides was the 15th, in the other months the 13th.

Confused yet? There's more.

The first of the month was called the "Kalends" and the 7th of the month was called the "Nones" . . . but only in - you guessed it - March, May, July and October. In the other months, the Nones was on the 5th. From these three special days - Kalends, Nones and Ides - the Romans identified all the other days by counting backwards using - what else? - Roman numerals. So dates looked like this: March 1 - Kalends, March 2 - VI Nones, March 3 - V Nones, March 4 - IV Nones, March 5 - III Nones, March 6 - Pridie Nones (Guess it was too simple to stick to that plan so they used "pridie", which means before), March 7 - Nones. If you have been paying attention, you will see that the above identification with roman numerals doesn't quite work out. That's because the Romans counted "Nones" as the first count backwards.

Is anyone still reading this?

So the inventor or the Roman calendar (reputed to be Romulus, but no one knows for sure) organized each month around three days, a simple enough concept fraught with complications! What was he on?

Back to the Ides of March 44 B.C. Later that fateful day in Rome, Julius Caesar saw the soothsayer again and remarked, "The Ides of March have come." to which the soothsayer replied, "Aye, they have come but not gone." And then Brutus and his buddies assassinated Caesar. Guess he should not have been so smug.

What has this got to do with anything? Probably not much - just a bunch of useless information. I can't think of any way it relates to us today, unless it is to remind us that these sort of things still happen . . . and not necessarily on the Ides of March!

Caesar did us one big favour before his untimely death. In 45 B.C. , with the aid of astronomer, Sosigenes of Alexandria, he introduced the Julian calendar we use today. The Roman calendar is forgotten except, thanks to Shakespeare, on this day when many exhort the perils of the Ides of March. Maybe we should adopt another day, a happier one. How about the Kalends of January (New Year's Day)?

Happy mid-March.