‘Beware the Ides of March’ Means What Exactly?

By Bridget Tyler on March 15th, 2010

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“Beware the Ides of March,” ranks right up there with “To be or not to be, that is the question,” and “Wherefore art thou, Romeo,” as one of the most memorable ever written by William Shakespeare.  This warning, given to the soon to be assassinated Julius Caesar in Shakespeare’s play of the same name by a fortune teller a few days before his death is one of the most stark and chilling that the bard every constructed still, more than five hundred years after it was written.  Which is pretty remarkable considering that most of us have no idea what “the Ides of March” are in the first place.

So what the heck is an “ide” exactly? The months of March, May, July and October have Ides on the 15th of the month, the rest of the calendar year Ides are on the 13th day.  The word Ide’s Latin roots mean “divide” and that’s exactly what these days do – divide the month.  In Roman times, before the execution of Julius Caesar that is, the Ides were most notable for being the day on which debts were settled.  After the assassination how Roman citizens felt about the Ides depended on how they felt about the fall of Caesar.  According to Philip Freeman, a classicist at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa – “How they felt depended on their political position, some were thrilled that Caesar had died, some where horrified.”

Shakespeare contemporaries would have also been fascinated with the Ides, and not just because, as Georgianna Ziegler, head of reference at the Folder Shakespeare library in Washington D.C. points out, “‘Beware the ides of March,’ is a pithy line and people remember it, even if they don’t know why.” In 1599, the year most historian’s agree that the play was likely performed, timekeeping was a big deal.  Ziegler says that, “They were really struck by the differences between their Julian calendar (a revision of the Roman calendar created by Caesar) and the Gregorian calendar kept in Catholic countries on the continent.”  The two calendars had diverged significantly at this point, so it was understandably a topic of note for people of the time.  Imagine New York deciding the year had 370 days instead of 365 – it would get confusing after awhile.

For those of us who are not Julius Caesar, the Ides don’t really offer us much to worry about other than unpaid bills.  So enjoy the Ides, pay your bills and watch out for guys named Brutus.