Ides of March
When I saw the article in the New York Times1 describing the opening to the public of the site where Caesar was assassinated—the Curia of Pompey—I was pulled back to memories of my mother, and my loss of her.
March 15 was my mother’s birthday. So many times, when I was growing up, I would hear her say, I was born on the Ides of March, the day Caesar was killed. For me, the day of her birth became a haunting link to the death of Julius Caesar.2
In Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar, first performed in 1599, Caesar hears a soothsayer’s prediction three times warning him to beware the Ides of March:
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 turned 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.
CAESAR: 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.3
In Roman history, this event was imprinted on a denarius. This Roman coin was struck to commemorate the assassination of Julius Caesar on March 15, the Ides of March. The coin depicts Brutus, one of the assassins, on one side and a pair of daggers and a pileus, a Roman freedom cap, on the other. The coin was minted and issued 43-42 B.C.4
My mother’s birthday and the way she died of blood-loss during a medical procedure ironically corresponded with the day of Caesar’s death, the Ides of March.
Please use the link below to read the full, and very interesting article, from the New York Times.
Curia of Pompey Article (NYT) >
1Site Where Julius Caesar Was Killed Is Opened For Tourism – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
2Holinger, Dorothy P. The Anatomy of Grief (New Haven & London, Yale University Press: 2020, 2022), p. 148
3William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine (New York: Simon and Shuster, 2011), pp. 13, 15.
