Cord Byrd: “this is a most felicitous time. The ides of March, so dark with shadows of Caesar's doom some 2,041 years ago, is safely…”

“this is a most felicitous time. The ides of March, so dark with shadows of Caesar's doom some 2,041 years ago, is safely past, and that welcome harbinger of the season's turn, the vernal equinox, is close at hand. On March 15, 44 B.C., Julius Caesar was slain in the Senate of Rome by a group of conspirators led by Marcus Junius Brutus. On the following day, March 16, 2,041 years ago, Brutus went to the Forum to speak to the people of Rome, but he was forced to retire to the Capitol after threats were made against the conspirators. On March 17, today, 2,041 years ago, Antony, after negotiating with the conspirators, convened the Senate in the temple of Tellus. In that meeting, a decree was passed that no inquiry would be made into the murder of Caesar, and that all of his enactments and dispositions should remain valid for the welfare of the Republic. And that is what the Senate of Rome was occupied with on this day. But today in 1997, the daffodils are blooming, the grass is greening, the crocuses are peeping from the soil, and it is a time to celebrate the birth of a new season.”