Beware the ides of March!

Forget Friday the 13th. Ignore ladders, black cats, broken mirrors, and spilled salt. But remember the ides of March (also known as March 15) and beware!

As superstitions go, being wary of March 15 is somewhat unusual. Yet the day does have its staying power. Its legend is partly a result of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. In Scene 2, Act 1, the soothsayer cautions Caesar to “Beware the ides of March!” Caesar, of course, ignores the warning and is murdered.

Note that in their calendar, the ides fell on the 15th in March, May, July, and October. In other months, it fell on the 13th. If that seems odd, just remember that the Julian calendar, established by Julius Caesar, gave us the basis of our system of 365 days a year and 366 in a leap year.

The ides of March continue to be remembered as unlucky, so marked because of Julius Caesar’s assassination in 44 B.C. But there is another reason all dreaded it. On March 15 of the Roman calendar, all debts from the previous year were supposed to be settled.

Caesar was assassinated in Pompey’s Theater, where the senate happened to be meeting that day. The theater was in the temple of Venus, part of the theater complex.

The foundations of that building survive to this day. It is the site of the modern Roman restaurant Da Pamcrazio, which invites passersby to dine where Caesar was slain.

The restaurant is located in what is now a wonderful part of the old city.