Beware the Ides of March

Vincenzo Camuccini,  Mort de César, 1798

Well, given that it's March 15 today, this painting just feels right.  If you're puzzling over the meaning of "ides" it really just means "middle."  And why beware the ides of March and not the ides of May or June or January?  Because this is the day (way back in 44 BC) that Julius Caesar heard the seer's fateful warning ("Beware the Ides of March!"), laughed about it, and then didn't live to tell.  No, he was stabbed (23 times) to death in the Roman Senate by Brutus with the help of about 60 other conspirators.  Not a good day. 

What I love about the story (ala Shakespeare's telling) is that when the seer foretold that harm would come to Caesar not later than the Ides of March, Caesar joked, "Well, the Ides of March have come" (so there!), to which the seer replied:  "Ay, they have come, but they are not gone." 

Some days are like that.  They can't be over fast enough.