The Ides of March

中文中Caesar我见到“凯撒”“恺撒”都不匹配，这章中我也会都使用。

恺撒被暗杀前44年3月15日。在英文这个月日又叫"ides of March"，模仿那时拉丁语的月日说法。一个祭司警告恺撒要小心the ides of March，这个警告还在戏剧中，尤其在莎士比亚的“凯撒大帝”。（这位祭司肯定有什么关于阴谋的消息。阴谋人很多了，所以暗杀成功异常。）

代替说1日，2日等等，古罗马人说直道下一个叫做nones，ides，calends有哪天。取决于月份，nones指示7日或者5日，相似地，ides关于三月和一些其他月份指示15日，而关于月份指示13日。calends是下一个1日。

看起来像古罗马人把3月14日叫“ides of March前两天”等等，代替“前一天”。毫无奇怪，故欧洲中以数学进步著名不是罗马人，是希腊人。

曹操的死亡日期也记为3月15日。我觉得这是很奇怪的，因为东汉末和三国时代事情的月日记得不太多。

（推荐视频: https://youtu.be/9XBxMk_plhA)

Caesar's name in Mandarin seems to be transliterated inconsistently as both 凯撒 and 恺撒, and in this post I'll probably switch between them.

Caesar was assasinated in 44 BCE on March 15th. In English, March 15th is also called the ides of March, after the way Romans counted their days. A priest warned Caesar to beware the ides of March, and this warning has been dramatized in literature, perhaps most notably in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar". (The priest must have had some inside info of the conspiracy. There were many conspirators, so it's surprising they were actually able to pull it off.)

Instead of counting days of the month like 1st, 2nd ,etc., the Romans counted how many days there are before the next "nones", "ides" or "calends". Depending on the month, nones would be the 7th or the 5th day of the month, and likewise ides would be the 15th of some months including March, and the 13th in others. The calends were the next 1st.

It appears that the Romans called March 14th "two days before the ides of March" and so on, instead of "one day before". It's no wonder that despite hearing so much about Ancient Greek advancements in mathematics, you don't hear anything about the Romans.

Cao Cao's date of death is also given as March 15th. I thought that's weird, because not many exact dates of Late Han-Three Kingdoms are even recorded.