Beware the Ides of March!

Slice of Life March 15, 2013

Can it really be 30 years ago since I was first introduced to the Ides of March?  I guess so since I was a freshman in high school taking Latin I from Magistra McNair (for more about her see this previous post).  I did not know much about world history before I began taking Latin in 9th grade. I learned lots of great stuff about the Romans from Magistra.  She taught us about Roman architecture and how it was still evident all around us especially on the University of Alabama campus.  She taught us how to make Roman togas and what it meant to wear a yellow one! (Think red light district and you'll understand what a yellow toga meant.) She told us all the titillating stories of the gods and goddesses and their various love affairs with each other and humans.  Great stuff if you are a 14 year old nerd!

Here are my colleagues posing on the Ides of March when I was a Latin teacher.

But she also took great pleasure in teaching us about Julius Caesar and why we were to Beware the Ides of March since Caesar met his untimely end on this particular date.  She often dressed in a white toga on this day and put fake blotches of blood with knives sticking out all over it. She was definitely a character.  And so even thirty years later, I know to Beware the Ides of March and that it is on the 15th, but the Ides is on the 13th in some other months.  Thank you Magistra for making sure I knew the significance of this day.