Saturday, March 14, 2009

The Ides of March

In the Roman calendar, the Ides were the 15th day of March, May, July, and October; and the 13th day of all other months.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar

On the Ides of March in 44 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of senators, called the Liberatores, led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. Among the senators were Servius Sulpicius Galba, Quintus Ligarius, Lucius Minucius Basilus, Publius Servilius Casca, Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, Lucius Tullius Cimber, and Gaius Trebonius.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ides_of_March


Suetonius

Quotes from De Vita Caesarum, Divus Iulius (The Lives of the Caesars, The Divine Julius) by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
http://www.fordham.edu/HALSALL/ancient/suetonius-julius.html

Then, after several victims had been slain, and he [Caesar] could not get favorable omens, he entered the Senate in defiance of portents, laughing at Spurinna and calling him a false prophet, because the Ides of March were come without bringing him harm; though Spurinna replied that they had of a truth come, but they had not gone.
--- LXXXI

And in this wise he [Caesar] was stabbed with three and twenty wounds, uttering not a word, but merely a groan at the first stroke, though some have written that when Marcus Brutus rushed at him, he said in Greek, 'You too, my child?"
--- LXXXII

He [Caesar] died in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and was numbered among the gods, not only by a formal decree, but also in the conviction of the common people. For at the first of the games which his heir Augustus gave in honor of his apotheosis, a comet shone for seven successive days, rising about the eleventh hour [about an hour before sunset] and was believed to be the soul of Caesar, who had been taken to heaven; and this is why a star is set upon the crown of his head in his statue. It was voted that the curia in which he was slain be walled up, that the Ides of March be called the Day of Parricide, and that a meeting of the senate should never be called on that day.
--- LXXXVIII


Shakespeare

Quotes from Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.
http://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/julius_caesar/

Soothsayer: Caesar!

Caesar: Ha! who calls?

Casca: Bid every noise be still: peace yet again!

Caesar: Who is it in the press that calls on me? I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music, Cry 'Caesar!' Speak; Caesar is turn'd to hear.

Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.

Caesar: What man is that?

Brutus: A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.

Caesar: Set him before me; let me see his face.

Cassius: Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.

Casar: What say'st thou to me now? speak once again.

Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.

Caesar: He is a dreamer; let us leave him: pass.
--- Act 1. Scene II


Last words

The last words of Julius Caesar depends on the source.

και συ τεκνον; (Kai su, teknon?) (Gr., "Even you, my child?" – from Suetonius)
Tu quoque, Brute, fili mi! (Lat., "You too, Brutus, my son!" – a modern Latin translation of the Greek quotation from Suetonius)
Et tu, Brute? (Lat., "And (even) you, Brutus?" – from Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ides_of_March

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