The Ides of March, The Rest of the Story

March 15 is the Ides of March. The infamous date of Julius Caesar's assassination is locked into time in the year 44 B.C. There were a number of events that occurred years earlier that would converge and on 3/15/-44 to make Julius famous forever. It was much, much later that his fame would ascend to a higher plane.


The Roman government of the time was quite refined, long established and stable. The lawmaking process was likewise an evolved practice, with an involved citizenry being a vital part of the process. This process had evolved over the 450 years since the Romans had last endured the rule of a king. Seems that old Julius Caesar wasn't monitoring the trends very closely. His countrymen didn't really go for royalty.


So, Julie was an opportunist and self promoter and it was working for him. At 22, he won an award for saving a life in battle. A couple of years later,he was kidnapped and held for ransom. He joked with his captors that they weren't asking a high enough ransom, and they treated him well, big buddies and pals, sure. After he was released, he tracked down his captors and killed them all.


At age 30-31, when he aunt and then his wife croaked, he used the eulogies to make a point of informing everyone that he was descended from royalty on his mother's side and from the gods on his father's side. A year or two later he won a Senate seat and parlayed that into an appointment as a general.


Over the next few years he won higher offices, largely on the strength of promoting his candidacy with promotional games for the electorate. He financed his campaigns borrowing from relatives. At around age 41 he headed off and spent nine years conquering most of central Europe, fighting during the summer only, very cool. He wintered in northern Italy and dabbled in politics.


By the end of the wars, Caesar's political alliances crumbled and he ended up at odds with his former partner, Pompey. He and Pompey met in battle, and Pompey had him outmanned, 40,000 to 21,000, but Caesar kicked Pompey's butt.



At age 54, he returned to Rome and brought back Cleopatra as his main squeeze., Julie had nailed Cleo a couple years earlier and now they had a son. He rocked on for a couple of years and ruled the Roman empire, and at age 56 had himself named Emperor for Life, a title that sounds like a runaround way of being king.

Well, you go kicking people's arses all over the world and putting down internal rebellions and wiping out a lot of people and climbing over their carcasses to elevate yourself and you're bound to make a few enemies, even before the Emperor for Life thing. On March 15, 44 B.C. a group of conspirator senators attacked him and stabbed him to death. This is where his dying gasp included "et tu, Brutus", sort of stating the obvious.


Mark Antony took Caesar's job and took Cleopatra, too.


1600 years later, Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar and had the soothsayer utter the fateful warning "Beware the Ides of March". Bam! A cliche was born.


In 1964, the bass player for the Shon-dels, a garage band from Berwyn, suggested that the band be renamed the Ides of March. He got the idea from reading Julius Caesar in high school.

And now you know...the rest of the story.