Friday 4/15--the ides of April?

Thanks to Shakespeare, even most children know that Julius Caeser was not attentive to the warning he got regarding his predicted demise, "Beware the ides of March!". And we all know that the ides of March is the 15th!

Since today is the 15th of April, for some reason I wondered why no one ever calls the 15th of other months "The Ides" So I asked "Jeeves".

And of course, In Julius's world the Roman Calendar ruled the days and years, which was different that the Julian Calendar now used to mark the date.

In the Roman Calendar there were three dates which had names each month by which the calender was calculated:

1. The Kalends: always fell on the 1st of the month.

2. The Nones: always fell on the 5th of the month except--March, July, October, May
The Nones are on the 7th day.

3. The Ides: always fell 8 days after the Nones.

So since the Ides fall 8 days after the Nones and the Nones in March fall on the 7th day after the Kalends, then the 15th of March is the Ides. Simple, huh!

In April, the Nones is on the 5th day after the Kalends and the Ides is 8 days later or on the 13th.

The Romans expressed the date in accordance with its relationship before one of these three named days, e.g., April 15 is 16 days before the Kalends of May. March 14 is 1 day before the Ides of March. April 2nd is 3 days before the Nones of April.

No wonder the Roman Empire fell. They got confused and tangled up in their calendar, and ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm sure that is also why Latin is no longer the dominent language of the world.

So, happy 16 days before the Kalends of May!