Don’t turn your back on your friends today, because it’s the 2066th anniversary of the infamous Ides of March, when Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C.
Caesar, Who conquered Gaul and was Dictator of the Roman Empire from 48 B.C. to 44 B.C., was assassinated by a conspiracy of 60 senators who had become wary of his growing power. The term Ides, from the Latin Idus or “half division” comes from the most famous depiction of the story, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, when Caesar is warned unsuccessfully by a soothsayer to “Beware the Ides of March.”
Also made famous by Shakespeare’s play are Caesar’s supposed last words to his back-stabbing former friend Brutus. The saying “Et tu Brute?” Or “You too, Brutus?” was apparently a popular one in Shakespeare’s day, leaving us to wonder what the equivalent would be in 2012
