Julius Caesar awoke that morning and sat up on his modest bed. He was satisfied with his past few weeks’ doings, after taking down Pompey and conquering Rome promptly after he came and saw what poor condition it lay in. Now, as leader of Rome, he could not have felt any better about his life. He lifted himself off the bed and strolled into his kitchen where his wife, Calpurnia, greeted him with a warm smile and a steaming plate of breakfast.
“I hope you finally got a good night of rest Julius, after your little conquest of those silly Romans,” she said. “Now eat up, I have leftovers in the fridge if you want some more, you need to fatten up that skinny build of yours!”
“Fine, fine, thanks Calpurnia. I’ll finish up my breakfast and head down to the Senate,” Julius replied with a smile as he devoured his meaty breakfast. He was scraping up the last of his eggs when he heard his wife exclaim something from the bedroom.
“Oh Julius! What a strange horoscope you have today. You are a Leo, right?” she questioned, and Julius grunted a yes back. He never did enjoy the foolishness involved with horoscopes.
“So, what’s so special about it today, honey?” Julius politely questioned.
“It says, ‘Beware the ides of March’, pretty cryptic, huh?”
“Definitely honey, but it’s just a horoscope, I doubt I need to beware of any March ides.”
“Oh but wait! It’s a date, March 15th, I just Googled it.”
“It’s just a date, don’t worry. That’s in such a long while anyways, who cares?!” Julius replied, and put his dish in a basin as he put on his cloak and walked out towards the Senate for another brutal Monday at work.
Meanwhile, two Senators, Brutus and Cassius, met in the corner of a town square and greeted each other with handshakes.
Cassius flashed a smile and emphatically said, “My man Brutus! What’s going on brother? Did you catch the horse race yesterday? Man, they knocked this guy off his horse so hard, he lost an ear and an eye! Blood was pooling up all around him an-”
“That’s…that’s just disgusting Cassius. No, I wasn’t there. Please stop.”
“But it was so crazy man! Wish you could’ve been there to seen it,” but when Brutus didn’t seem to lighten up, Cassius questioned, “Is everything alright bro?”
“Just a few things on my mind, don’t think you’re offending me or anything…”
“Sorry to hear that man. Go vent to that cute girl of yours at home, Portia’s the name, right?”
“Yes.”
“OK, look. I got an idea that’ll spice up your life a bit, you know, break up that boring routine.”
“It being?”
“So you know that new Julius Caesar guy? Our new leader?”
“Of course, Cassius. He’s one of my closest friends.”
“Well, I say we kill him. You know, stab him to death. Then dip our hands in his blood and show the Roman citizens what we’re made of.”
“Wait, what?! What?! Cassius what are you thinking of this as? Some sport?”
“Oh no, sorry, I forgot to mention why. Sorry. I think Julius is going to just start soaking up the power. You know, destroy our republic and create some crazy empire.”
“That makes sense I guess…Hm. I’ll think about it Cassius.” Brutus responded as he waved goodbye and went on his way.
Later that day, after Brutus finished his afternoon cup of tea, he began to ponder his fellow Senator Cassius’ assassination plan. He decided that, despite how much he loved his Saturday fishing expeditions with Julius in the Tiber, assassinating him was for the good of Rome. He went home and posted on Cassius’ Facebook wall: “I’m in, my man! Let’s take this bad boy down! (P.S. How did you get such a high score on Bejeweled?! Jeez…get a life).”
Months came and months went, and Julius slowly gained power as Brutus and Cassius’ assassination plan grew concurrently as well. Then, March 14th came. That night, Calpurnia dreamt an odd series of dreams. First, she was prancing through a field of flowers with her husband Julius, singing a cheerful song as they were skipping along until Julius got his foot stuck in a hole and face-planted into the ground, breaking his nose. Later, she was standing on a balcony looking down at Julius while he eloquently admitted his powerful love to her for the first time, until her brothers found him in the bushes and promptly beat him up. The final dream concerned her most however, when a magnificent marble statue of her lovely husband began spewing blood out of his mouth, an endless grotesque torrent. She woke up in her dark bedroom, wide-eyed and heavy breathing, as she stared at the glow of her desk clock reading: 4:44 AM. Still shaking from the nightmare, she climbed out of bed and sat herself at her desk, opened her laptop and began to write a detailed blog post about her dream to calm herself down. After she tweeted about it though, of course.
That morning, the fifteenth of March, Calpurnia explained the dream to her drowsy husband.
“Honey, it was just a bad dream. I’m not going to suddenly explode in some gory mess,” Julius reassured.
“Fine…but maybe you should stay home today? You’ve been awfully overworked recently and honestly…maybe my dream was an omen or something. I don’t want anything bad happening to you today Julius.”
“Don’t be silly, it was just a dream! And anyways, I feel fine, I’ll come home a little early today just for you, ok? We can have a nice dinner and go out to watch a drama, I hear there’s a good one playing just around the corner. Something about these two guys murdering an arrogant fellow.”
“Alright honey,” Calpurnia said with a sigh, “just be careful today. Here’s your lunch, I packed your favorite fish stew. Have a good day at the Senate!”
“I’ll try,” Julius mumbled, as he hurried out the front door.
On his way out, Julius peeked into his mailbox. Just a few ads and a letter from Artemidorus—Julius always thought of him as a little annoying and never much of a help, so he left it in the box for his wife to pick up later in the day. He rounded the corner and waited under a hulking tree for his chariot to arrive when his pocket buzzed. He pulled out his Blackberry and saw a text message from Artemidorus. Julius promptly ignored it and went to check his email. Three more emails from Artemidorus. Julius began to get severely irked by him, and decided to confront him later in the day. He then went to check his Facebook to see how many people liked his status that he posted last night regarding the “chariot race that was so boring that I planned to execute the losers for being so terrible”. He saw a post on his wall from Artemidorus again, but deleted it before ever reading it, his frustration boiling over. As his chariot pulled up on the side of the road however, Julius saw a new status update pop into his feed, from his good friend Brutus: “Gonna be a big day today! Big boy Caesar’s gonna go down with 23 big shiny, bloody daggers in him! Take that, dictator!”
Appalled, Julius waved off his chariot and rushed home to his equally shocked wife. He then spent the rest of the day home with his wife, playing music and chatting about how ridiculous Brutus was.
The next day, news spread that Brutus and Cassius committed suicide, apparently out of the misery that their months spent planning Julius’ assassination were crushed due to their decision on carrying it out on the Ides of March. Rumor spread that the date was disputed between the Ides of March and the Ides of May between the two, and a coin toss decided it.
