Today is the Ides of March.

“Beware the Ides of March,” the fortune-teller warned in Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar, forever marking that day with a sense of ill will and feeling of dread. And for those who know the fate of Julius Caesar on that particularly day, it’s no wonder. (More about that later!)

At that time, the Romans wouldn’t have thought twice about the Ides of March. Even Shakespeare’s audience wouldn’t have blinked at the mention of that date. To the Romans, the Ides of March was simply the standard way of saying March 15^th. In the Roman calendar, every month had an Ides, usually on the 15^th day, sometimes on the 13^th. The Ides was one of three days that the Romans used as reference points for counting other days.

It was the events that occurred on that day, later immortalized in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, that have forever associated the Ides of March with betrayal and evil. On that day, Julius Caesar’s so-called friends and followers assassinated him while he sat on his gilded throne in the Roman Senate. As he lay dying from the many stab wounds he received, historians reported that Caesar looked up at his friend Brutus, and said, “You, too, my child?”

Years later, another leader would be betrayed by another so-called friend. This time the leader would be betrayed by a kiss—a signal that led to the Jesus’ arrest and death on a cross. The “friend”? Judas Iscariot.

Let this day serve as a reminder of the true, real friends in your life. Friends that stick close to you, listen to you, and care about you are valuable. They are worth much more than the dozens of superficial, fair-weather friends, who vanish when life gets tough.

There are “friends” who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24).

To Do

Tell a friend that today is the Ides of March, and then explain what it means. Then tell your friend what he or she means to you.

Also on this day . . .

1767—Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, was born.

1820—Maine was admitted as the 23rd state of the Union.

1907—Finland is the first European country to give women the right to vote.

1962—Wilt Chamberlain is the first to score 4,000 points in a NBA season.

From Betsy Schmitt and Dave Veerman, 365 Trivia Twist Devotions: An Almanac of Fun Facts and Spiritual Truth for Every Day of the Year (Cincinnati: Standard, 2005). Scripture quotations are from the New Living Translation unless otherwise noted.