Beware the Ides of March
According to the Greek biographer Plutarch, a few days before the assignation of Caesar, the soothsayer Titus Vestricius Spurinna apparently warned him, "Beware the Ides of March." Caesar disregarded the warning:
"The following story, too, is told by many. A certain seer warned Caesar to be on his guard against a great peril on the day of the month of March which the Romans call the Ides; and when the day had come and Caesar was on his way to the senate-house, he greeted the seer with a jest and said: "Well, the Ides of March are come," and the seer said to him softly: "Ay, they are come, but they are not gone."
Calpurnia, who was terrified by a dream that night clung to Caesar and said that she would not let him go out on that day. But Brutus, one of the conspirators, though he was at that time thought to be one of his most intimate friends, came up to him and said, 'What do you say, Caesar? Are you going to pay any attention to a woman's dreams and foolish men's omens, a man such as you? Caesar then went with Brutus to the senate-house.
As the Senate convened, Caesar was attacked and stabbed to death by a group of senators who called themselves the Liberatores ("Liberators"); they justified their action on the grounds that they committed tyrannicide, not murder, and were preserving the Republic from Caesar's alleged monarchical ambitions. Caesar sustained 23 (as many as 35 by some accounts) stab wounds, which ranged from superficial to mortal
The last words he uttered as he fell to the statue of his friend turned rival, Pompey The Great:
Και σύ, τέκνον Βρούτε
or
Et tu, Brute?
It is believed by some that Caesar knew of the plot to take his life and allowed it to be carried out. He suffered from Epilepsy and had frequent seizures and wanted to be spared the indignity of aging. He also wanted to insure his legacy by having his heir Octavian take power under favorable conditions.
The Ides of March are celebrated every year by the Rome Hash House Harriers with a toga run in the streets of Rome, in the same place where Julius Caesar was killed.
"The following story, too, is told by many. A certain seer warned Caesar to be on his guard against a great peril on the day of the month of March which the Romans call the Ides; and when the day had come and Caesar was on his way to the senate-house, he greeted the seer with a jest and said: "Well, the Ides of March are come," and the seer said to him softly: "Ay, they are come, but they are not gone."
Calpurnia, who was terrified by a dream that night clung to Caesar and said that she would not let him go out on that day. But Brutus, one of the conspirators, though he was at that time thought to be one of his most intimate friends, came up to him and said, 'What do you say, Caesar? Are you going to pay any attention to a woman's dreams and foolish men's omens, a man such as you? Caesar then went with Brutus to the senate-house.
As the Senate convened, Caesar was attacked and stabbed to death by a group of senators who called themselves the Liberatores ("Liberators"); they justified their action on the grounds that they committed tyrannicide, not murder, and were preserving the Republic from Caesar's alleged monarchical ambitions. Caesar sustained 23 (as many as 35 by some accounts) stab wounds, which ranged from superficial to mortal
The last words he uttered as he fell to the statue of his friend turned rival, Pompey The Great:
Και σύ, τέκνον Βρούτε
or
Et tu, Brute?
It is believed by some that Caesar knew of the plot to take his life and allowed it to be carried out. He suffered from Epilepsy and had frequent seizures and wanted to be spared the indignity of aging. He also wanted to insure his legacy by having his heir Octavian take power under favorable conditions.
The Ides of March are celebrated every year by the Rome Hash House Harriers with a toga run in the streets of Rome, in the same place where Julius Caesar was killed.
posted by Wigwam at 9:04 AM
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