The 'Ides of March'... In January?

It's one of Shakespeare's most memorable phrases...

Julius Caesar is told by a soothsayer that he should ‘Beware the ides of March'. The play wastes little time delivering the danger and soon we find the dictator murdered by his colleagues - perforated with knives. But what does this have to do with January or the new year?

Friends, Romans and Calendars

There are, of course, other calendar systems in the world other than those which originated in Europe. While some of these are still used, the Gregorian calendar is the common calendar which most people use daily.

The earliest origins our common calendar in Europe are from Ancient Rome. The history is a bit faded, but it's relatively clear that the Romans used a system loosely based on a ‘lunar calendar'. They didn't have numbered days of the month, instead, a month was divided by the various ways in which the moon appeared during it's cycle. The word ‘calendar' itself comes from the first day of the month, the ‘Kalends', on which there was a new moon, one which is completely dark. ‘Nones' marked the appearance of a half moon. And ‘ides', the middle of the month, on which there was a full shining moon.

Many of us have heard that 'the ides of March' refers roughly to March 15th - but why would a soothsayer predict this date fatal for Julius Caesar in 44 BC?

The answer lies in a change to the Roman Calendar over 100 years earlier - during the Roman year we know as 153 BC. At this time, Rome was a Republic with elected officials. The highest officials in the Roman Republic were called Consuls - of which two were chosen each year and who began their term of service at the beginning of the Roman year - on the ides of March.

In 153 BC, Rome was having enormous problems in maintaining order and keeping down rebellions in Lusitania, a province in the West which today is geographically part of Spain and Portugal. The situation was so desperate that instead of waiting to elect new Consuls who would start their term of service on the Ides of March, the Consuls that year were elected early and started their service on the Kalends of January - or roughly, January 1st. From this year onwards, Rome measured the beginning of the year from January 1st.

The warning Caesar received from the soothsayer was the date on which the Roman Republic historically voted in new leaders - and the last day of the year for old leaders.

Why did the Romans have March 15th as the beginning of their year?

Using our modern calendar, we could pick almost any day as being the beginning of a new year. However, if we look back to see how ancient people measured time, we'll see that the ides of March, or roughly March 15th made some sense.

Unless we spend all of our time indoors and never look to see where the sun is in the sky, we know that there are seasons on earth. More correctly, we can see that the path which the sun takes across our sky changes from day to day over the course of the year. As well, we can observe that from year to year, that there is a regular pattern, or cycle to this change in daily position of the sun.

Read on to learn how the path of the sun influenced the calendar...