Happy (Pagan) Birthday to Me!

“Until 44 BC, the Ides of March were best known as a springtime frolic, an occasion for serious drinking. A celebration of the ancient goddess of ends and beginnings, the Ides amounted to a sort of raucous, reeling New Year’s. Bands of revelers picnicked into the night along the banks of the Tiber, where they camped in makeshift huts under a full moon. It was a festival often indelibly recalled nine months later.”