Good Morning...March 15th

[Okla-homey]

Mar 15, 0045: Julius Caesar is stabbed

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/9481/caesar.jpg

"Beware the Ides of March," the soothsayer urges Julius Caesar in Shakespeare's Tragedy of Julius Caesar (act I, scene ii). The Ides of March (Latin: Idus Martias) is the name of March 15 in the Roman calendar. The term "ides" was used for the 15th day of the months of March, May, July, and October.

Despite the forewarning, 1,965 years ago today, Caesar is stabbed in the back by his friend Marcus Brutus. Caesar falls and utters his famous last words, "Et tu, Brute?" (And you, Brutus?)

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/363/ca3caesar.jpg
Julius Caesar

Shakespeare's source for the play was Thomas North's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, which detailed the murder of Caesar in 44 B.C.

Caesar's friends and associates feared his growing power and his recent self-comparison to Alexander the Great and felt he must die for the good of Rome. North's work translated a French version of Plutarch, which itself had been translated from Latin. Shakespeare's version was written about 1599 and performed at the newly built Globe Theater.

The Temple Hill Association in New Windsor, NY holds an annual dinner in honor of the Ides of March because it is also the day that General George Washington quelled a mutiny of his Officers in 1783 at his headquarters at Newburgh, NY.

The "Newburgh Conspiracy" involved Continental Army officers who were exasperated and disgusted with Congress for its apparent inability to pass promised appropriations bills to pay them. There had been talk of a coup d'etat and setting-up Washington as king of America.

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/6047/caus25296766249cdab72b0.jpg

Washington, in a poignant speech, convinced them not to sully their honor or historical legacy by taking any direct action against Congress, which, would surely eventually do the right thing by them.

[Sooner04]

44 BC means this happened 2,054 years ago.

[Okla-homey]

44 BC means this happened 2,054 years ago.

sorry.

[Viking Kitten]

Homey, what do you think of the theory that Brutus was Caesar's illegitimate son by Servilia?

[yermom]

also, happy anniversary Steelpanz :D

[SoonerProphet]

sic semper tyrannis

[Mjcpr]

I didn't know they had photography back then.

[Okla-homey]

Homey, what do you think of the theory that Brutus was Caesar's illegitimate son by Servilia?

I think he defintely sired Cleopatra's boy, but I doubt he messed around on Calpurnia back home in Italy. She would have waited until he had a seizure and cut off his kineekies. Old School Roman patrician wimmen were like that.

[Viking Kitten]

Fair enough, but didn't Cleopatra live openly as his mistress in Rome for a few years? Myself, I dunno about the Brutus paternity thing, I just read that for the first time recently and thought it was interesting. Certainly would explain why he showed him so much favoritism.

[Okla-homey]

Fair enough, but didn't Cleopatra live openly as his mistress in Rome for a few years? Myself, I dunno about the Brutus paternity thing, I just read that for the first time recently and thought it was interesting. Certainly would explain why he showed him so much favoritism.

I gotta tell you, in the military, you tend to acquire proteges, unless you are a total weiner. Those proteges are generally intensely loyal. And it generally runs both ways. That's what I always ascribed to JC's patronage of Brutus, and JC's shock at Brutus' stabbage.

[85Sooner]

and washington is rolling over in his grave today after seeing what we have.

[Okla-homey]

and washington is rolling over in his grave today after seeing what we have.

Oh, I'm not so sure. We never set a president up as king, except maybe for FDR, and we're still generally a free people.

I also happen to believe GW subscribed to federalist notions, as espoused by his former hand-picked aide-de-camp Lt. Col. Alex Hamilton, fellow wealthy Virginian James Madison (probably the most brilliant of our Founding White Men) and the scion of a wealthy NYC business family named John Jay.

Therefore, I think his false teeth would have chattered at Jacksonian "populist" notions, as currently espoused by the Tea Party gang, and all that 19th c. "states rights" stuff that was code for "the Federal government better keeps its mitts off my slaves."

Remember, the Newburgh Conspiracy we commemorate today, was quashed by GW by the sheer power of his example and the reverance his offices held him in, was over the fact the Congress, under the Articles of Confederation, was too weak to do anything efficiently and frankly, couldn't do much of anything without the consent of a majority of state legislatures. Instead, they had to cajole the 13 state capitals for the money to pay the nation's troops that had fought for several years to win their independence.

Imagine if the Congress couldn't appropriate money without the consent of a majority of state legislatures. Two words. Night. Mare.

And, for the record, this is not the most devisive, partisan period in our history. Not by a long shot.

[TUSooner]

Remember, the Newburgh Conspiracy we commemorate today, was quashed by GW by the sheer power of his example and the reverance his offices held him in....

It's a shame that Washington is so familiar a figure as to be almost universally underrated. He was great for what he did: He truly was the father of his country. But he was even greater for what he did not do. He probably could have been the most powerful despot in America, but he believed in things greater than himself. Pretty old fashioned by the standards of today's leaders.