We were in our monthly computer group, where sometimes we discuss anything that is not related to computers, when somebody exclaimed “today is the ides of March”. His next question asked what was the ides of March.
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Somebody said the ides could refer to any month. Then somebody else said “that can’t be right”. Then he gave his version on the ides of March.
The discussion lasted for a big slice of the computer class, but that was normal anyway.
The ides can refer to any month. Ides refers to the eighth day after the nones (this column is about ides, not nones).
But March is in our heads because it had a more significant reason for being there. This was the date when Julius Caesar was killed.
Before 45 BC, many considered the Roman calendar was in a mess. The year started on March 1 and consisted of only 304 days or 10 months -- Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December.
Then some months were added. Quintilis was renamed July, in honour of Julius Caesar and Sextilis was renamed August Then they added January and February to keep the calendar in line with the seasons.
(The Ides of April was a novel by Lindsey Davis).
Some have asked the meaning of “beware”. Caesar, the Roman dictator, appears before the “press” (crowd). A soothsayer in the crowd issues his famous warning “beware the ides of March”. In a book I bought somewhere called Brush Up Your Shakespeare, the ides is the 15th, but not always. The ides of January, for instance, is the 13th, and so on for the other months.
Caesar ignored the soothsayer’s warning (a soothsayer is somebody supposedly able to tell the future) and he went on to meet his doom.
Let’s just say the ides is the middle. Ides simply refers to the first full moon of a given month, which usually falls between the 13th and the 15th or so they tell me.
Webster says “to divide”. Who am I to question dictionaries?
Ides is rarely seen without the s on the end. But in 1483 Richard Arnolde talked about the “ide of August”. Then in 1834 Sir Edward Lytton said it “stands fixed for the ninth ide of August”.
The first use of ides that I could find came in 1330.
Ides found several uses. It was in the title of a film directed by George Clooney, and in the titles of several books. It was even in the name of government department in the USA. But ides can be the name of a restaurant, the name of people (Saint Ides was an Irish saint), music, even a brand of liquor.
It can even be an acronym (Intrusion Detection Expert System).
