“Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.
Caesar: He is a dreamer. Let us leave him. Pass.”
– William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
In ancient Roman times, the ides marked the full moon of each month. Since their calendar began with March, it was the first full moon of the year. As the ides were sacred to Jupiter, an “Ides Sheep” would be led along the Via Sacra on the ides of March to be sacrificed to the god. It was also the day to celebrate Anna Perenna, a deity of the year whose feast concluded the Roman new year festival. But since the ides of March of 44 BC, it is marked as the day of Julius Caesar’s assassination, the event that changed the course of Western history forever, for the rise and fall of Caesar would signify the end for the Roman Republic and its democratic political system. For the next 1800 years, there would be no formal democratic government until the formation of the United States of America.
In the years leading up to the election of Caesar, intensifying conflicts and hatred between politicians of opposition parties had led to terrifying corruption and unprecedented violence on the streets of Rome, where daily assassinations and massacres became the norm. The senators commanded their own armies to fight against Rome and against each other. Between 87 and 62 BC, there were 5 civil wars, followed by brutal dictatorship and massacres. It was in this context that Caesar was elected in 60 BC and inaugurated for 1-year terms in 59 BC. Within 8 years after his election, his armies had conquered all of Gauls, making him a popular and powerful general and politician. In 49 BC, he crossed the Rubicon river, precipitating Rome’s 6th civil war and triumphant after 4 years. One year after his triumph, he commissioned the silver denarius, claiming himself DICT PERPET Caesar, the dictator in perpetuity.
Caesar’s dictatorship experiment did not go unnoticed. By early 44 BC, graffiti began appearing on statues of Lucius Junius Brutus, who was credited for founding the Roman Republic in the 6th century BCE. Marcus Junius Brutus, claiming himself a descendent of Brutus, had been building his image upon his ancestor’s reputation. Disenchanted by Caesar’s autocracy, the Roman senator Cassius challenged Brutus to take action. Along with other senators, they conspired to assassinate Caesar before his Parthian expedition on March 19th. Thus the last best opportunity to kill Caesar would have to be at the senate meeting on March 15th.
On the ides of March, 44 BC, the senate assembled in the great theater complex built by Caesar’s former rival Pompey. Beneath the statue of Pompey, the senators exposed their daggers and stabbed him 23 times. Unexpectedly, most of them fled in terror after the assassination. As news of Caesar’s death spread across Rome, panic and outrage ensued. Brutus pleaded with the public, rather than madness, to welcome the assassination’s success, for its goal was to return liberty to Rome, his speech so famously composed by Shakespeare: “not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all freemen?”. But it was to no avail; it was seen not as liberating the republic, but the murder of a hero.
Against Brutus’ hope to restore liberty to Rome, Caesar’s assassination opened the final chapter in the crisis of the republic. His death triggered a series of further civil wars. In 27 BC, his adopted heir Octavian became emperor Augustus. His monarchy would degenerate into despotism. It would not be for another 1800 years that another newly built nation would model its political system after the Roman Republic – the United States of America. Not only the American founders were inspired by the Roman Republic’s ideals, they also believed that they were creating on the other side of the Atlantic a new empire with open, expanding frontiers, where power would be distributed effectively in networks. This imperial idea has survived and matured throughout the history of the U.S. constitution and has emerged on a global scale in its fully realized form. Yet, seeing the political landscape today, we must ask ourselves whether we are also following Rome’s footsteps toward another historical crisis for democracy.
In the fall of 42 BC, Brutus commissioned the denarius EID MAR, for Eidibus Martiis – on the Ides of March, with a “cap of freedom” between two daggers on its back. The back of this dress is embroidered with a dagger emblem inspired by the EID MAR coin. Adorned across are starling motifs in the order of the Pisces constellation. The dress is molded from a silk rectangle, which comes from a vintage sari.
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