The story of the assassination of Julius Caesar is familiar worldwide as it has been featured in art and plays and popular culture in the ensuing two millennia since it happened. It is part of the collective history most of us know. But I have a question I have never seen answered.

Roman historian Suetonius claims that a seer named Spurinna warned Caesar that harm would befall him by the Ides of March. Caesar taunted her on his way to the Senate meeting that he was fine and it was the Ides of March, to which Spurinna replied “the day is not yet over.” Oops. We all know what happened next.

So my question is did Spurinna use this prediction as a marketing point? Seems to me that such an on point prediction would make her much in demand. She should have definitely set up in a larger shop and a bigger ad in whatever the equivalent of the Roman Yellow Pages was (Yellow Scrolls?). But I never heard of that. Maybe she didn’t have a very good agent. Oh well.

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