‘Tis the Ides of March, and there is more to it than the day that Brutus and the other conspirators reclaimed the Senatus Populusque Romanus from the dictatorship of Julius Caesar. The Senate and People of Rome did not fare too well after that famous assassination, as it plunged them into yet another civil war. Fortunately, there are other special days in mid-March to celebrate, and not just for lovers of liberty.
First, there is pie – or, more appropriately, Pi – as March 14 is Pi Day. Even before Sheldon and company made science cool with CBS’ The Big Bang Theory mathematicians have marked the day with puzzles and contests related to 3.14, the number that denotes the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.
As the number is an irrational and transcending number with non-repeating digits that reach “to infinity, and beyond” as a famous Disney spaceman is wont to say, it is most often represented by the simple Greek letter known as Pi. Hence, March 14 (or 3/14) is “Pi” Day. It is most often marked by eating pie, which usually comes in a circle.
March 14 is pie day, and all over Connecticut bakeries and restaurants offer pie deals at special prices. Quite appropriately, The Big Bang Theory airs on Pi Day at 8 p.m. on Connecticut’s CBS affiliate, WFSB Channel 3 Hartford.
Those pies help make the next day, March 15, a little sweeter, as that is the Ides of March. Ides is from the old Roman calendar and meant the middle day of the month. It was a day of prayer and portents, best known especially since Shakespeare’s time as the day of Caesar’s assassination in the Senate in 44 B.C. “Beware the Ides of March,” as Shakespeare’s soothsayer warned Julius Caesar in the play of the same name.
After Pi and Populsque, however, comes March 17 – St. Patrick’s Day, the day for the wearing of the green and the drinking of the green beer. Half of the towns and cities in Connecticut marked it with parades on March 9th and 10th , but there are still plenty of celebrations scheduled for the 16th and 17th – among them the big parade in New London on Sunday, the theme of which is “Every One is Irish for a Day.”
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