110833841
To the Editor:
Tom Cardella seems bored and confused by the phrase “The Ides of March” (March 13) and knows only that it has something to do with Julius Caesar.
Well, if he had lived in Rome n 44 B.C., he would have known exactly what the phrase means. In those days, the Romans measured their year based on the moon (lunar) and not the sun (solar) as we do today. Our word month actually comes from “moon.”
The old Roman calendar had only 10 lunar months with the months September, October, November and December coming from the Latin words for 7, 8, 9, and 10. They ignored the two wintertime months and began their new year March 1.
The Romans divided their months into three sections depending on a particular observed phase of the moon. The Kalends (hence the word calendar) fell on the first day of the month. The Nones were usually the 5th but sometimes the 7th, and the Ides were the 15th but sometimes the 13th. The Ides always fell on the day of the full moon. All the days after the Ides were numbered by counting down towards the next month’s Kalends.
Thanks to William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” we have the soothsayer’s warning to Caesar: “Beware the Ides of March!” We know he did not listen and the rest is history.
Gloria C. Endres
South Philadelphia
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