It wasn't a lucky prediction but rather a calculated assessment of Rome's political climate. After that, Spurinna told Caesar to beware for the next 30 days, not just on the Ides of March. On February 15, Spurinna said he found a bad omen: a bull without a heart (it's unclear if the bull was a genetic abnormality, a shocking sign, or a soothsayer's poetic license). Soothsayers could poll the elites, and the elites did not like Caesar. "They have a lot of contacts," Strauss says, "and they're people who know what's going on." That would have made Spurinna's prophecy a more frightening bellwether of the anti-Caesar sentiment in Rome. As notably, Spurinna's warning to Caesar was more complex - and more accurate - than the type of prophecy most modern skeptics would dismiss. Cicero's letters, Plutarch, and Suetonius all confirm his high status. That's important, because Etruscans were known to specialize in divination. The Ides of March feels special for a couple of reasons: it's the day Caesar was murdered, and it's the subject of a soothsayer's spooky prophecy in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.įor one, we know who the soothsayer was and what he really said: he was named Spurinna, and he was from Etruria. Every month has an ides around the middle (as well as a calends at the beginning of the month and nones eight days before the ides). The Ides of March comes from the ides, a term the Romans used to note the middle of a month. Myth 1: A soothsayer told Caesar, "Beware the Ides of March"Īn illustration of the soothsayer from an edition of Shakespeare's play. Weighed against one another, together they form a more complete picture of Rome at the time - and one that happens to bust a lot of myths. But Strauss uses Plutarch in concert with other ancient sources like Nicolaus of Damascus, Suetonius, Appian, and Cassius Dio, as well as the work of other scholars. He's the author of The Death of Caesar, a book that chronicles one of history's most infamous assassinations and dispels a lot of half-remembered myths.Ī lot of those myths come from Shakespeare, who relied exclusively on Plutarch to paint his picture of Rome. That's why I talked to Barry Strauss, a Cornell classics and history professor. In major and minor ways, a lot of us misunderstand the death of Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 BC. Caesar got stabbed by Brutus with a big sword, said "Et tu, Brute?" and died nobly.A few idealistic Romans decided to win back Rome for the people.Some soothsayer said, "Beware the Ides of March.".This is what most of us know about the death of Julius Caesar, half-remembered from movies and plays:
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