Beware the Ides of March! 

This advice was given to Julius Caesar in William Shakespeare’s telling of the Roman emperor’s life. In the play, and in real life, Caesar didn’t listen to the wise words and ended up getting ventilated by 23 different daggers. Needless to say, it wasn’t an experience he walked away from. 

But what the hell is the “Ides of March” anyway? Simply put, the Romans used to mark their months with indicators of what position the moon was in. The Ides referred to the first new moon of the month and it tended to take place between the 13-15 of March. These days we recognize the Ides of March as March 15th. So here’s a tattoo of, in the words of Bill and Ted, “that salad dressing dude.”

Unfortunately, while there are a ton of Julius Caesar tattoos out there, they all pretty much look the same. Despite there being tons of different artistic depictions of the most famous Roman emperor it appears as if tattooers have based every single Caesar tattoo off of the same exact reference. It’s boring. 

But you know what’s not boring? Daggers. Pointy, dangerous, lethal daggers. So let’s spend some time looking at tattoos of those! 

Is a dagger a knife? A big knife? A little sword? According to Wikipedia, the end-all-be-all of settling arguments, a dagger has to have a sharp point and two sharpened sides. I guess it all comes down to semantics, but the one thing we can’t argue about is how badass they look. And the best thing about a dagger tattoo? You’re not going to accidentally cut yourself with one. Although I guess a drawback is that you won’t be able to stab a tyrannical leader and save the Roman Republic with a tattoo… you’re going to need a real dagger for that. 

Also, Inked Magazine does not condone assassinations, so let’s just look at some awesome dagger tattoos instead, sound good?