“Beware the Ides of March!” cries the old soothsayer in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. But what are the Ides of March? Moreover, why should anybody be wary of them?

Ides are the 15th of certain months on the Roman calendar. March, May, July and October have their ides on the 15th of the month, while all the other months celebrate their ides on the 13th. The ides were always eight days after the nones.

Gaius Julius Caesar was born around 100 B.C. to a well-to-do family in Rome. When he was 17, he married Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, a man who led the followers of Gaius Marius, a popular leader. Lucius Sulla, who was the Roman dictator at the time, ordered Caesar to divorce Cornelia but he refused. Exiled, he went to Greece where he studied oratory and philosophy. Eventually Sulla pardoned Caesar and he returned to Rome.

From there on Caesar became more and more interested and involved in Roman government and politics. In 65 B.C. he was elected director of public games and works. In 62 B.C. he became praetor, the office just below that of consul.

In 60 B.C., Caesar allied himself with Pompey and Crassus. They became the First Triumvirate and ruled Rome together. Caesar was elected a consul, under very fraught circumstances, in 59 B.C. He named himself proconsul of provinces north of Italy. Because of these circumstances and because he used force to push through reforms, the conservatives despised him.

Though Caesar was more of a politician than a soldier, he knew he needed military bona fides to accrue more power to himself. So he invaded France, which was then known as Gaul. He battled with his men in Gaul for nine years and lost only two battles. Eventually, he conquered all the land east of the Rhine, expelled the Germans from Gaul and invaded Britain twice, once in 55 B.C. and again in 54 B.C.

Despite Caesar’s victories, not everyone was happy. Pompey found Caesar’s power grab troubling. Since Crassus died in 53 B.C., only Pompey was left to form an alliance with the Caesar-hating conservatives. They gave Caesar an ultimatum to give up his army. Caesar refused and led 5000 of his men across a stream called the Rubicon in 49 B.C. and moved on to Rome. There, he anointed himself dictator and consul and tribune for life. Pompey had raised his own army to oppose Caesar, but this came to nought. Pompey himself was murdered in Egypt, where Caesar fell in love with Cleopatra, but that’s another story.

Pompey’s followers regrouped and challenged Caesar again, but they were defeated. Caesar pardoned them and was made dictator for life. But he refused to wear the crown of a king, for the Romans hated kings. Despite this, the conservatives still distrusted Caesar and felt he would name himself king one day.

Because of this distrust, Brutus and Cassius, two men Caesar had pardoned, sought for his life. On March 15, 44 B.C., the two men and a group of aristocrats stabbed Caesar to death as he arrived for a meeting of the senate.

To this day tourists, continue to visit the spot where Caesar was murdered. Despite his lust for power, he did much for his people, including standardizing the confusing Roman calendar, instituting good government where there had once been corruption, helping the poor and granting Roman citizenship to the inhabitants of the provinces.