Beware the Ides of March

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.

In 44 BCE the fifteenth of March gained notoriety and became one of the turning points of Roman history when rivals assassinated Caesar on the steps of the senate. Shakespeare immortalized Ceasar’s demise in his work Julius Caesar and coined the phrase “Beware the Ides of March”, a warning that has remained in the vernacular since.

While there’s probably a chance of figuratively being stabbed in the senate in modern American politics, there hasn’t been a violent play for power in the Senate or House since Preston Brooks beat Charles Sumner. We prefer assassination by a thousand sound bites, its cleaner and everyone can watch from the comfort of their living room.