40 Fun Facts About Ides of March

The Ides of March, the day Julius Caesar was assassinated, falls on which date of the month?

The 15th was the Ides only in March, May, July and October; in every other Roman month the Ides came two days sooner.

The Rome ruins where Julius Caesar was killed now host a sanctuary for which animals?

Cats have had a no-kill shelter among the temple ruins of Largo di Torre Argentina since 1993, despite archaeologists' calls to move it.

In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, who calls from the crowd to warn Caesar about the Ides of March?

A soothsayer gives the warning on stage, and ancient writers tell a similar story: Suetonius names the seer as Spurinna, a reader of animal entrails.

Which assassin of Julius Caesar was the son of Servilia, Caesar's long-time mistress?

Brutus inspired ancient gossip that Caesar was his real father, though Caesar was only a teenager when he was born.

Which foreign queen was staying at Julius Caesar's villa in Rome when he was killed on the Ides of March?

Cleopatra stayed on in Rome for about a month after the murder, hoping in vain that her young son Caesarion would be recognised as Caesar's heir.

From 1918 until 1955, Americans faced which yearly federal deadline on the Ides of March?

Filing income taxes moved to mid-April in 1955; before 1918 the deadline had come even sooner, on the first of March.

Long before the murder of Julius Caesar, Romans knew the Ides as each month's deadline for what?

Settling debts and paying rent fell on the Ides of every month, so for most Romans the date meant bills long before it meant betrayal.

Weeks before the Ides of March, Julius Caesar took which new title that alarmed many Roman senators?

Dictator for life is the usual rendering of dictator perpetuo, granted early in 44 BC; to the plotters it ended any hope that he would ever step down.

Set upon by dozens of senators, Julius Caesar was stabbed about how many times on the Ides of March?

Caesar took 23 wounds, yet the physician who examined his body judged that only one of them, a stab to the chest, had been fatal.

Julius Caesar was killed on the Ides of March at a Senate meeting held inside which Roman complex?

The Theatre of Pompey complex held the hall where the Senate met that day, and Caesar fell beside a statue of the rival he had beaten in civil war.

Which wife of Julius Caesar begged him to stay home on the Ides of March after dreaming of his death?

Calpurnia dreamed he lay dying in her arms and talked him into staying home, until a plotter he trusted scoffed at heeding a woman's dreams.

Which ally of Julius Caesar was deliberately detained outside the Senate meeting while the assassins struck?

Mark Antony was waylaid at the door, in most accounts by Trebonius, so that the consul and seasoned general could not come to Caesar's aid.

Which teenage great-nephew did Julius Caesar's will, opened after the Ides of March, name as his main heir?

Octavian was across the Adriatic at Apollonia when the news came; he sailed home, took Caesar's name and in time became Rome's first emperor.

The month whose Ides proved fatal to Julius Caesar takes its name from which Roman god?

Mars gave his name to Martius, the opening month of the earliest Roman year and the start of the season for warfare.

The Ides of every Roman month, March included, were sacred to which god, honoured with a sheep sacrifice?

Jupiter received the so-called Ides sheep each month, led along the Sacred Way by his own high priest and sacrificed on the citadel.

The Ides of each Roman month were originally meant to coincide with which lunar phase?

Full moon fell at mid-month in a lunar calendar, so in Rome's earliest calendar the Ides of March brought the first one of the new year.

Which Roman term named the first day of every month, a fixed point like the Ides?

Kalends opened each month and gave English the word calendar; Romans dated a day by counting down to it, to the Nones or to the Ides.

Ancient writers who gave the dying Julius Caesar final words quoted them not in Latin but in which language?

Greek was the language of the three words some Romans claimed he spoke, meaning 'you too, child'; Suetonius himself believed he died without speaking.

Which conspirator struck the first blow against Julius Caesar, attacking from behind at his shoulder?

Casca attacked while another plotter tugged at Caesar's toga as a distraction, then shouted for his own brother to come and help him.

Which senator, brother-in-law to the most famous of Julius Caesar's assassins, was a leading instigator of the murder?

Cassius had married a half-sister of his fellow ringleader, and took offence when Caesar handed that younger man the more senior post.

At which battle, two years after the Ides of March, were the leaders of Julius Caesar's assassins defeated?

Philippi ended the assassins' cause: one of their two leaders killed himself after a false report that his partner had also been beaten.

Which sight in the sky, seen during games honouring the murdered Julius Caesar, was hailed as his soul?

A comet shone for seven days in a row during the games, and Romans took it as proof that the murdered Caesar had become a god.

After the Ides of March, Julius Caesar's body was cremated in which public space, later the site of his temple?

The Forum saw the body carried in from the Regia and cremated, and two years later a temple to the deified Caesar was decreed for the same spot.

At which Roman festival, a month before the Ides of March, did Julius Caesar publicly refuse a royal diadem?

Lupercalia saw his fellow consul press the diadem on him before a crowd, and ancient accounts disagree on who planned the scene and why.

Julius Caesar was due to leave Rome three days after the Ides of March for a war against which foreign power?

Parthia had crushed a Roman army under Crassus at Carrhae nine years before, and Caesar's departure date left the plotters only days to act.

The men who killed Julius Caesar on the Ides of March are known to history by which collective name?

The Liberators marched through the city after the killing proclaiming Rome free again, but the war named for them ended in the Republic's collapse.

A Roman coin stamped EID MAR to celebrate the Ides of March shows a freedman's cap between two of which objects?

Daggers stand for the weapons used on Caesar, and the plot leader who issued the coin put his own portrait on the other side.

Handed a note exposing the plot on his way into the Senate, what did Julius Caesar do with it?

Caesar kept it unread and went into the meeting, a near miss that Shakespeare later staged with Artemidorus as the man holding out the note.

At Julius Caesar's funeral, a mob killed a man named Cinna in mistake for a plotter; what was his real trade?

Poet Helvius Cinna shared a name with a Cornelius Cinna who had spoken up for the assassins, so the grieving crowd lynched the wrong man.

Which orator, left out of the plot against Julius Caesar, later wrote that he wished he had been invited?

Cicero was judged too cautious to be let in on the secret, yet afterwards he complained that the plotters had not gone far enough.

Which medieval Italian writer put Julius Caesar's two leading assassins in Satan's mouths at the bottom of hell?

Dante gave Satan three mouths: two hold Caesar's killers and the third holds Judas, because the poem treats the murder as treason against a divinely chosen ruler.

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar moves the Ides of March killing from its true site to which of Rome's seven hills?

The Capitol, Rome's Capitoline Hill, was chosen for dramatic effect, and later in the play Caesar's ghost appears to one of his killers to warn of defeat.

Which ancient biographer's Lives, translated by Thomas North, was Shakespeare's main source for Julius Caesar?

Plutarch gives Caesar no dying words, only a toga pulled over his head; the play's famous Latin line came from Elizabethan stage tradition.

Which Hollywood star directed the 2011 political drama The Ides of March and played its presidential candidate?

George Clooney also co-wrote the script, adapted from a stage play called Farragut North, and it earned an Academy Award nomination.

Which English heavy metal band opened its 1981 album Killers with a short instrumental called The Ides of March?

Iron Maiden's bassist Steve Harris took sole credit for the piece, although another British band recorded a nearly identical tune under a different title.

Jim Peterik, singer of the 1970 hit band The Ides of March, later founded which group behind the Rocky III theme?

Survivor gave Peterik a second act: he co-wrote the Rocky III anthem a dozen years after his first band's biggest hit reached number two in the US.

Which Russian ruler gave up his throne on the Ides of March 1917, ending three centuries of Romanov rule?

Nicholas II signed at Pskov in the middle of a world war, and by Russia's own old-style calendar the date was only the second of March.

On the Ides of March 1939, German troops marched into which capital in defiance of the Munich Agreement?

Prague was entered almost without a fight, and the next day Hitler proclaimed a German protectorate from the city's castle.

Which former district of Massachusetts became a US state on the Ides of March 1820 under the Missouri Compromise?

Maine came in as a free state so that Missouri could come in as a slave state, a pairing the Senate insisted on.

Which European country keeps the Ides of March as a national holiday, honouring the revolution it began in 1848?

Hungary remembers the day in 1848 when its first uncensored printing appeared: a list of twelve demands and a national song.