The ides of March are come again. Presumably because of Julius Caesar's unfortunate experience under Pompey's statue on the floor of the Roman Senate in 44 BC, the ides of March, or the 15th day of that month, are regarded by some as a day of great ill-omen.
Its fame derives from Shakespeare's tragedy, which is in turn based on Plutarch's version of the story. It was some weeks before, on the feast of Lupercal, which corresponds roughly to St Valentine's Day, that Caesar, still in his nolo episcopari frame of mind, was told by a soothsayer: "Beware the ides of March." Then, according to Plutarch, "when the day was come, as Caesar was going to the Senate House he called out to the soothsayer and said laughing `The Ides of March are come'; to which the soothsayer answered softly, `Yes, Caesar, but they are not gone' ". Shortly afterwards, as we know, poor Caesar met his grisly end, but with the interesting result that the ides of March are the only date of the old Roman calendar still commonly remembered.
The Romans had a complex way of reckoning dates. Instead of distinguishing the days of the month by the ordinal numbers - the first, second, third, and so on - they counted backwards from three fixed points in each month. The three important days were the kalends, the nones and the ides, and it required some mental effort to decide on which day each was to fall in any month.
The kalends were the easiest: they invariably fell on the first day of the new month. The ides - from the Latin word iduare , to "divide" - were in the middle of the month; they could fall on either the 13th or the 15th day, depending on which month it was. The nones (from the Latin word for "nine") were always eight days before the ides, or nine days if you count inclusively, as the Romans always did.
With these three anchors, the Romans could number all their days. To make things even more complicated, however, they did so by counting backwards. March 13th, for example, was described as the third day before the ides (counting inclusively); March 4th was the fourth day before the nones; and St Patrick's Day, had the Romans cared about it, would have been known as the 16th day before the kalends of April.
Moreover, since this is the 2,753 rd year since the founding of the city of Rome, or as the Romans used to say, ab urbe condita , this St Patrick's Day would be ante diem XVI Kalendas Apriles, anno MMDCCLIII ab urbe condita.