Caesar Cleopatra and the Ides of March

The Ides of March, or March 15 on our current calendar, is famous for being the day Caesar was killed in 44 BCE, although the prominence of the calendar day tends to hide the genuine history of what occurred at the time. Few people can remember more than a few lines from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, in which the soothsayer tells the emperor about the date.

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Caesar Cleopatra and the Ides of March

Overview

You've probably heard the phrase "beware the Ides of March," but what exactly is an Ides and what should you be afraid of? According to the ancient Roman calendar, the Ides of March occurs every month, not only in March. Months were divided into groups of days counted before particular specified days: the Kalends at the beginning of the month, the Ides in the middle, and the Nones in the middle.

The Kalends were day 1 in a 31-day month like March, with days 2–6 being simply "before the Nones." The Nones were on day 7, "before the Ides" were on days 8–14, and the Ides were on the 15th. Then, the days were completely counted as "before the Kalends" of the next month. These days were shifted accordingly throughout the shorter months.

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The immortal lines "Beware the Ides of March" are said by a fortune-teller to Julius Caesar in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Without a doubt, horrible things have happened on March 15, but the Ides of March are no more terrifying than any other month's Ides.

But How Did Julius Caesar Actually Die?

What was happening in Rome at that particular time? The empire had been challenged and fought for a century. Caesar's power of Rome was only strengthened by fighting (and finally winning) the most recent civil war. He was only supposed to be the absolute ruler for a year at the start. Then there was a ten-year period. He was soon appointed dictator for life. "Rome has never had a dictator for life, much less for ten years," says Barry Strauss, a Cornell University history and classics professor and author of The Death of Caesar.

The king attempted, but failed, to persuade the Roman people, particularly the elite, to join him. According to Strauss, Rome's elite came to the conclusion that Caesar's true objective was to be "an uncrowned ruler of Rome," leaving the traditional nobility with "empty titles with no real power." On the other side, a few interpreted his affair with Egypt's Queen Cleopatra, as well as the recent adoption of a calendar modelled after Egypt's, which has taken as a piece of proof or evidence that he desired a monarchy similar to Egypt's.

A group of roughly 60 men began planning how to remove Caesar from power in Rome. Several of the conspirators were trained military men who spent weeks, if not months, plotting Caesar's demise, which was told, according to Strauss. They were led by a group of three men, including Marcus Brutus of "Et tu, Brute" renown, whose individual motives, according to Strauss, went beyond a desire for liberty. In contrast to Shakespeare's idealistic hero or Dante's betrayer, "the real Brutus was a complex guy who, certainly, cared about liberty, but he also cared about the power and reputation of his own family."

And, indeed, the crime was committed on March Ides.

The Reason: Conspirators had a Deadline

On March 18, Caesar planned to leave Rome and settle some of his veterans in southern Italy before starting a long battle in the east. If it didn't happen before then, it wouldn't happen again anytime soon, and their plan couldn't be kept a secret forever. That's why, despite the fact that Caesar was about to stay home due to adverse omens and a bout of dizziness, one of his assassins—Decimus, a close friend of his—convinced him that refusing to attend would be an insult to the Senate.

He was attacked once he came, without security and with his buddy Marc Antony taken by conspirators. Caesar was stabbed 23 times in total. The assassins and a troop of gladiators marched to the Capitoline hill, a half mile away, after he died. The gladiators had been arranged “to protect the conspirators in case there was any resistance to their effort,” according to Strauss.

“The future of Rome is up for grabs,” Strauss says at this point.

In the days that followed, the people of Rome came to hear speeches from both sides: those who regarded the conspirators as liberators and those who saw them as criminals. The murderers would be granted amnesty, but the laws Caesar had established as dictator would not be invalidated by this admission of his conduct as a misuse of power. The decision was "calm but not particularly stable," according to Strauss, and it was already obsolete by Caesar's funeral on March 20. A riot broke out after Marc Antony's stirring pro-Caesar funeral address, and Caesar's body was burned in the forum, as depicted in Shakespeare's play.

According to Strauss, the image of the conspirators as "misguided liberators, somehow representing everything that was good about the Roman spirit" has persisted over time, but the reality is more complicated.

He believes the riot was not even the true turning point. Brutus' failure to ingratiate himself with Caesar's forces, on the other hand, would echo throughout the empire's history. Following the assassination, the fighting and kaleidoscope of shifting alliances led in decades of conflict. The Roman emperor had more power than ever when the dust cleared.

"It's historically hilarious because the assassins assume they're safeguarding the Roman republic, but it turns out to be exactly the opposite," Strauss explains. "They set in motion a 15-year series of events that permanently transformed Rome into a monarchy and consolidated the Roman empire."