009. Assassination

Mar 15, 2009 15:15

[text]

CAESAR
Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music,
Cry 'Caesar!' Speak; Caesar is turn'd to hear.

Soothsayer
Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR
What man is that?

BRUTUS
A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.

CAESAR
Set him before me; let me see his face.

CASSIUS
Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.

CAESAR
What say'st thou to me now? speak once again.

Soothsayer
Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR
He is a dreamer; let us leave him: pass.

--William Shakespeare, Julius Ceasar, Act I Scene II

[audio // English]

No one ever listens to the soothsayer, at least in Western drama.

[Chuckle.]

March 15th, the "Ides of March," was a Roman feast day for Mars, the god of war, and a day devoted to military parades and celebrations.

On the Ides of March in 44 BCE, about 2000 years ago from my perspective, Julius Caesar, victorious general and dictator of what had once been the Roman Republic, was assassinated by conspirators who had hoped to restore the power of the Senate. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work--Caesar was a symptom, not a cause--and in fact hastened the decline and fall of Rome.

Of course, sociological risk modeling wouldn't be invented for two millennia, so one can't blame Cassius and Brutus for working with what they had.

i'm a cop, relevant to my interests, batou, not actually implying anything for once, remy, the major explains it all, i'm a soldier, ed, those two really are bad people, erol, niamh, kevas

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