Each year about this time, I have most often tried to fit “The Ides of March” into this column. Don’t know why; the term has a fateful, ominous tone to it, no doubt since Shakespeare’s writing about the assassination of Julius Caesar made famous the term: “Beware the Ides of March.”

And each year I’ve been curious as to where the term came from and exactly what it means. So this year, thought I’d do something about the curiosity.

Turns out that the word “ides” has meaning only in the Roman calendar, a calendar that has an interesting evolution.

The original Roman calendar had only ten months, Maritus (or March) being the first. The ten months only accounted for 304 days, with the 61 days of winter not being a part of the “calendar year.” That’s one way to deal with winter: ignore it; it doesn’t exist.

Well, some smart-aleck named Numa Pompilius ruined that for us, creating January and February, which at that time were added to the end of the calendar year. At this point the days totaled up to 355 , which the astronomers soon noted wasn’t working. Hence, some months were reduced to as little as 23 days and an additional month was added every other year to try to get things right.

The Romans were trying to base their calendar on the moon. The “Ides” were always meant to fall on a full moon. No wonder it has ominous overtones. Ides fell on the 15th in just four months — March, May, July and October, the 13th during the other months. The day of a new moon was called a “Nones,” which fell on either the 7th or the 5th.

By the way, the Latin term for the first day of every month was “Kalends.” Interest on debt was due each Kalends. This word is, of course, the root for “calendar.” But I digress.

The Romans even had a little poem to keep track of their calendar’s rules:

In March, July, October, May

The Ides fall on the 15th day.

The Nones the seventh; all besides

Have two days less for Nones and Ides.

To make matters worse, the Romans didn’t refer to dates as we do. Their method was based on the Nones and Ides so that September 2 was called “a.d. IV Non. Sept.” which translates to “4 days before the Nones of September.”

Confused? So were they. They kept tweaking and changing it.

Reading just a little bit of history of the Roman calendar — its ongoing debate, adjustments and changes — reminds me of how we deal with this Daylight Savings Time issue.

The Romans, or someone, eventually got it figured out.

Maybe we will, too.