Ides of March
A bad day for empires and emperors.
In 44BCE Julius Caesar was stabbed in the back by Senators. This was the first time, but definitely not the last time this would happen, as the Shrubbery will surely point out when he figures out that the White House staff is all on Capitol Hill talking to Congressional committees.
In 1848 the Emperor of Austro-Hungary discovered he wasn’t the beloved leader of the Magyars, as revolution broke out in the Hungarian side of the Empire.
In 1917 Tsar Nicholas II decided that it was probably a good idea to hand the crown, mace, and scepter to his brother Michael, Prince of Lvov, who promptly turned it down. Unfortunately, Nicky wasn’t bright enough to get out of the country, and received the Julius treatment in the following year.
The 15th of March is a bad day to be Emperor.
6 comments
By contrast, it bad to actually have an emperor all year.
It is amazing how quickly the gene pool of emperors goes stagnant and polluted. I’ve never seen the advantage of empire, it always seems to end badly and a lot of people die early.
Looks like the 17th day before the Kalends of April (March 16, for those of you not up on your Roman calendar applications) may be a bad day to be emperor, too–at least if it’s Emperor Chimpy. The New York Times has Karl Rove’s e-mails on the U.S. attorney firings, and if we weren’t still working to uproot the Shrubbery, Unca Karl would be getting a pink slip first thing tomorrow morning.
I don’t know, Michael, I think the Shrubbery will throw Laura and Barney to the sharks before Unka Karl. He isn’t subject to impeachment that I know of, so impeaching 43 is the only way to dump Rove.
I do think that faithful family retainer Gonzales is on the skids to the door.
Before I forget, the way you stated the date, Michael, reminds me of something I read somewhere that the Romans thought that even numbers were unlucky, and avoided them whenever possible. The way you gave the date makes more sense if that is true.
The Greeks had the opposite prejudice (odd numbers bad, even numbers good). I don’t recall how the Romans felt about it. But the Roman date for today almost certainly has nothing to do with any such feelings. The Roman calendar always counted down, not up. Today’s the 17th day before the Kalends of April; tomorrow will be the 16th, and Poisson d’Avril, April 1, would be recorded as pridie Kal. Aprilis, literally “the day before the Kalends of April.” Only on the day itself (Kalends or Ides, which are typically the first/second and 15th day of the month, respectively) was the countdown not observed.