Prophecies

The Ides of March Warning to Julius Caesar

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "The Ides of March Warning to Julius Caesar." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/prophecies/the-ides-of-march-warning-to-julius-caesar.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). The Ides of March Warning to Julius Caesar. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/prophecies/the-ides-of-march-warning-to-julius-caesar

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-the-ides-of-march-warning-to-julius-caes,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {The Ides of March Warning to Julius Caesar},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/prophecies/the-ides-of-march-warning-to-julius-caesar},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

In February 44 BCE the haruspex Spurinna, reading the entrails of a sacrifice offered for Julius Caesar and finding them unfavourable, warned Caesar that danger to his life would not extend beyond the Ides of March, 15 March. Caesar was assassinated by a group of senators in a meeting of the Senate held at the Theatre of Pompey on that exact day.

Facts

Disputed

Documented Response

Whether the warning was reported to this degree of precision at the time, or shaped into its precise form by a biographer writing generations later, is not settled. Suetonius wrote the Divus Iulius roughly a hundred and seventy years after Caesar's death. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill's study of Suetonius identifies a consistent structural convention across the Twelve Caesars of closing each life with a cluster of omens foretelling the subject's death, which does not show that no warning was given, but does mean a haruspex naming the exact fatal day a month in advance cannot be confirmed as contemporaneous reporting rather than a shape the story acquired in the telling. This record states the ancient claim as the tradition's own sources report it, not as confirmed literal foreknowledge. 2

Fulfillment

Claimed Fulfillment

That Caesar's life was in danger and that the danger would not extend past 15 March 44 BCE. 1

Documented Response

Caesar was stabbed to death by a group of senators including Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius in a Senate meeting at the Theatre of Pompey on 15 March 44 BCE. Suetonius records that on his way there that morning Caesar met Spurinna and remarked that the Ides of March had come without harm to him; Spurinna answered that they had come but had not yet gone. Caesar was dead within hours. 1

Attributions

Tradition

Roman state religion's disciplina Etrusca, entrail divination practised by a body of Etruscan-trained haruspices retained by Roman magistrates. 1

Dating

Predicted Date

The Ides of March, 15 March 44 BCE, named as the outer limit of the danger roughly a month in advance, following a sacrifice in February of that year. 1

Date Attributed

February 44 BCE, following the sacrifice whose omens Spurinna read as unfavourable. 1

Origins

Attributed Author / Compiler

Spurinna, an Etruscan-trained haruspex consulted before the sacrifice. 1

Sources

Primary Source

Suetonius, Divus Iulius, chapter 81, in The Twelve Caesars (c.121 CE); the episode is also recorded independently in Plutarch's Life of Caesar, chapter 63, not separately minted in this atlas. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Julius Caesar

The warning was given to and concerned Julius Caesar; this record makes the claim a comparable, cited fact in its own right rather than leaving it unrecorded on his own page.

Source Suetonius, The Deified Julius (Divus Iulius)Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus