Brutus Day

What the day is

Brutus Day is observed on March 15, the date Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. It is generally treated as a day about betrayal, particularly the office kind.

Origin and background

The Ides were not ominous. In the Roman calendar the Ides simply marked the midpoint of the month, falling on the fifteenth in March, May, July and October and the thirteenth in the others, and they were an ordinary reference point used for settling debts. The date acquired its reputation entirely from one event.

The warning everyone quotes is literary. Beware the Ides of March is Shakespeare's line, written around 1599, and while ancient sources do record a seer warning Caesar of danger by that date, the memorable phrasing is a Renaissance playwright's. A great deal of what people know about the assassination comes from the play rather than from the historians, including the arrangement of the final scene.

Marcus Junius Brutus is the reason the day carries his name rather than Caesar's, because the betrayal is the part that stuck. He had fought against Caesar in the civil war, been pardoned by him and promoted, which is what made his involvement resonate. Roughly sixty conspirators took part; he is remembered because of the relationship.

The most famous line of all, the Latin reproach to Brutus, is also Shakespeare. Ancient accounts differ, with one reporting Caesar said nothing and another that he spoke in Greek.

The outcome is the part usually forgotten. The conspirators believed they were restoring the Republic, and the assassination produced fourteen further years of civil war ending in a permanent emperor, which is close to the opposite of what they intended.

How to take part

• Read the play, which is short and mostly about persuasion rather than murder.
• Check which famous lines are Shakespeare and which are history. Most are the former.
• Look up what the Ides actually were in the Roman calendar.
• Notice what the conspirators achieved compared with what they intended.