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[CigarBanter]

It's Tuesday again! In between insults we'll occasionally discuss cigars.  Join in and perhaps learn something along the way. Warning: don't proceed if you have thin skin but don't be afraid to post either...  And welcome aboard!

[Travellin Dave]

Good morning Banter world, lets be jammin'!

[Travellin Dave]

  2  Diesel Uncut Connecticut  Toro  (6.5 x 52)
       Mazo of 10/29.99
  1  Drew Estate Undercrown Shade  Gran Toro  (6.0 x 52)
       5/27.50

[Travellin Dave]

The Ides of each month was sacred to Jupiter, the Romans' supreme deity. The Flamen Dialis, Jupiter's high priest, led the "Ides sheep" (ovis Idulius) in procession along the Via Sacra to the arx, where it was sacrificed.[4]

In addition to the monthly sacrifice, the Ides of March was also the occasion of the Feast of Anna Perenna, a goddess of the year (Latin annus) whose festival originally concluded the ceremonies of the new year. The day was enthusiastically celebrated among the common people with picnics, drinking, and revelry.[5] One source from late antiquity also places the Mamuralia on the Ides of March.[6] This observance, which has aspects of scapegoat or ancient Greek pharmakos ritual, involved beating an old man dressed in animal skins and perhaps driving him from the city. The ritual may have been a new year festival representing the expulsion of the old year.[7][8]

In the later Imperial period, the Ides began a "holy week" of festivals[9][10][11] for Cybele and Attis. The Ides was the day of Canna intrat ("The Reed enters"), when Attis was born and exposed as an infant among the reeds of a Phrygian river.[12] He was discovered—depending on the version of the myth—by either shepherds or the goddess Cybele, who was also known as the Magna Mater, "Great Mother".[13] A week later, on 22 March, the day of Arbor intrat ("The Tree enters") commemorated the death of Attis under a pine tree. A college of priests called "tree bearers" (dendrophoroi) cut down a tree,[14] suspended from it an image of Attis,[15] and carried it to the temple of the Magna Mater with lamentations. The day was formalized as part of the official Roman calendar under Claudius.[16] A three-day period of mourning followed,[17] culminating with the rebirth of Attis on 25 March, the date of the vernal equinox on the Julian calendar.[18]

Hence the significance of:
In modern times, the Ides of March is best known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. Caesar was stabbed to death at a meeting of the senate. As many as 60 conspirators, led by Brutus and Cassius, were involved. According to Plutarch,[19] a seer had warned that harm would come to Caesar no later than the Ides of March. On his way to the Theatre of Pompey, where he would be assassinated, Caesar passed the seer and joked, "The ides of March have come," meaning to say that the prophecy had not been fulfilled, to which the seer replied "Aye, Caesar; but not gone."[19] This meeting is famously dramatised in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, when Caesar is warned by the soothsayer to "beware the Ides of March."[20][21] The Roman biographer Suetonius[22] identifies the "seer" as a haruspex named Spurinna.

[Travellin Dave]

And that little bit of light reading brings us to our word for the day:  Haruspex

In the religion of Ancient Rome, a haruspex (plural haruspices) was a person trained to practice a form of divination called haruspicy (haruspicina) the inspection of the entrails (exta), hence also extispicy (extispicium) of sacrificed animals, especially the livers of sacrificed sheep and poultry. The reading of omens specifically from the liver is also known by the Greek term hepatoscopy (also hepatomancy).

The Roman concept is directly derived from Etruscan religion, as one of the three branches of the disciplina Etrusca. Haruspicy as practiced by the Romans and Etruscans has direct precedents in the religions of the Ancient Near East since at least the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000 BC) and apparently reached Italy via Anatolian (Hittite, Luwian) transmission.[citation needed]

The Latin terms haruspex, haruspicina are from an archaic word haru "entrails, intestines" (cognate with hernia "protruding viscera", and hira "empty gut"; PIE *ǵʰer-) and from the root spec- "to watch, observe". The Greek ἡπατοσκοπία hēpatoskōpia is from hēpar "liver" and skop- "to examine".

So enjoy your Foie Gras
...I'll just take mine with onions.

[Travellin Dave]

Don't you wish Chip were here....

[Travellin Dave]

Also the day my son defends his thesis....how did the boy pick this date?

[A Friend of Charlie]

Don't you wish Chip were here....

I do. But I also appreciated the light reading you provided for us today.

Bonjour, mi ami.

[A Friend of Charlie]

Also the day my son defends his thesis....how did the boy pick this date?

Good luck to him today. I'm sure he'll do fine.

[A Friend of Charlie]

Ok, that's it for me this evening.  Adieu.

[Travellin Dave]

Thanks for the interlude Mr. Mayor.

[Travellin Dave]

  3  Romeo y Julieta Reserve  Churchill  (7.0 x 54)
       10/39.50
  2  Diesel Uncut Connecticut  Toro  (6.5 x 52)
       Mazo of 10/29.99
  1  Drew Estate Undercrown Shade  Gran Toro  (6.0 x 52)
       5/27.50

[Travellin Dave]

Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the U.S., is born, in Waxhaw, South Carolina, 1767.

Former astronaut Alan L. Bean is born, in Wheeler, Texas, 1932.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is born, 1933.

Actor Judd Hirsch is born, in New York, New York, 1935.

Beach Boy Mike Love is born, in Los Angeles, California, 1941.

Actor David Cronenberg is born, 1943.

Rhythm n blues star Sylvester "Sly Stone" Stewart is born, in Dallas, Texas, 1944.

Lawyer, author, social activist Mark Green is born, in Brooklyn, New York, 1945.

Rock guitarist Ry Cooder is born, 1947.

Rocker, singer, composer Dee Snider is born, in Massapequa, New York, 1955.

Baseball player Mickey Hatcher (Michael Vaughn Hatcher, Jr.) is born, in Cleveland, Ohio, 1955.

Baseball player Harold Douglas Baines is born, in Easton, Maryland, 1959.

Actor Renny Harlin is born, 1959.

Basketball player Terry Cummings is born, in Chicago, Illinois, 1961.

J.J. Robert's Birthday in Liberia.

[Travellin Dave]

Time to get moving here, the day calls

[Travellin Dave]

But let me at least flip the page.