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The Ides of March ~ Just one of a
dozen Ides that occur every month of the year...
by Borgna Brunner
As far as Caesar knew, the Ides were just another day.
The soothsayer's warning to Julius Caesar, "Beware the Ides of
March," has forever imbued that date with a sense of foreboding. But
in Roman times the expression "Ides of March" did not necessarily
evoke a dark mood simply the standard way of saying
"March 15." This fanciful expression merely signified another day of
the year. Even in Shakespeare's time, sixteen centuries later,
audiences attending his play Julius Caesar wouldn't have blinked
twice upon hearing the date called the Ides. The term Ides comes
from the earliest Roman calendar, which is said to have been devised
by Romulus, the mythical founder of Rome. Whether it was Romulus or
not, the inventor of this calendar had a penchant for complexity.
The Roman calendar organized its months around three days, each of
which served as a reference point for counting the other days:
l
Kalends (1st day of the month)
l
Nones (the 7th day in March, May, July, and October; the 5th in the
other months) l
Ides (the 15th day in March, May, July, and October; the 13th in the
other months)
The remaining, unnamed days of the month were identified by counting
backwards from the Kalends, Nones, or the Ides. For example, March 3
would be V Nones < 5 days before the Nones (the Roman method of
counting days was inclusive; in other words, the Nones would be
counted as one of the 5 days).
Days in March March 1: Kalends; March 2: VI Nones; March 3: V Nones;
March 4: IV Nones; March 5: III Nones; March 6: Pridie Nones (Latin
for "on the day before"); March 7: Nones; March 15: Ides. Used in
the first Roman calendar as well as in the Julian calendar
(established by Julius Caesar in 45 B.C.E.) the confusing system of
Kalends, Nones, and Ides continued to be used to varying degrees
throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance.
So, the Ides of March is just one of a
dozen Ides that occur every month of the year. Kalends, the word
from which calendar is derived, is another exotic-sounding term with
a mundane meaning.
Kalendrium means account book in Latin: Kalend, the first of the
month, was in Roman times as it is now, the date on which bills are
due.
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