Ides of March

In 44 BC, it became notorious as the date of the assassination of Julius Caesar, which made the Ides of March a turning point in Roman history.

The Flamen Dialis, Jupiter's high priest, led the "Ides sheep" (ovis Idulis) in procession along the Via Sacra to the arx, where it was sacrificed.

[7] This observance, which has aspects of scapegoat or ancient Greek pharmakos ritual, involved beating an old man dressed in animal skins and perhaps driving him from the city.

[17] A three-day period of mourning followed,[18] culminating with celebrating the rebirth of Attis on 25 March, the date of the vernal equinox on the Julian calendar.

[24] Writing under Augustus, Ovid portrays the murder as a sacrilege, since Caesar was also the pontifex maximus of Rome and a priest of Vesta.

[25] On the fourth anniversary of Caesar's death in 40 BC, after achieving a victory at the siege of Perugia, Octavian executed 300 senators and equites who had fought against him under Lucius Antonius, the brother of Mark Antony.

Suetonius and the historian Cassius Dio characterised the slaughter as a religious sacrifice,[27][28] noting that it occurred on the Ides of March at the new altar to the deified Julius.