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Beware the Ides of March!

Abuse of power has its pitfalls, with a day of reckoning just up ahead. Beware...

The warning was first given to the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar, whose empire stretched throughout the known world. As Caesar's power grew, so did the number of his enemies who secretly plotted the emperor's fatal comeuppance.

The date they chose was March 15th, the Ides of March 44 BC.

Why the "Ides"?

The word ides comes from a Latin word that means "to divide" and marked the halfway point in Roman months. "The ides", then, is simply the middle of the month. It was only in 44 BC that dark clouds began to form around the middle of March as the famous plot to assasinate Caesar drew near ...

Caesar gets a warning

Today, historians think the plot had already begun to buzz around Rome when soothsayer Titus Vestricius Spurinna famously warned Caesar ...“beware the Ides of March.” The terrible forecast, therefore, may have been based more on Rome's worst kept secret than any special physic powers on the part of the seer.

Alas, at the end of the day it didn't matter.

A swaggering, over-confident Julius Caesar met his terrible fate when he ignored the advice.

A famous line from Shakespeare

Besides the "ides", warnings against pride and arrogance were given before and since in countless literary works. ("pride goeth before a fall" first sounded the general alarm in that ancient book of wisdom, the Bible.)

However, the lesson of Julius Caesar may have been lost to history had it not been for William Shakespeare, who wrote the very popular play Julius Caesar, where the famous line is quoted for generations to come in in Act I, Scene II.

Today, theater-goers worldwide know that Caesar will die a horrible death because he is too proud to see the signs of impending doom. And, as always, audience reaction remains the same : "Caesar, don't go inside the Senate! "Listen up! You're about to get whacked!" — but, again, always too late.

The moral of the story? Abuse of power has its pitfalls, with a day of reckoning just up ahead. Beware...

also see in Society & Superstitions -> Friday the 13th