Et Tu. N.Y.U.?

As a warning to the overeager, Classicist Jotham Johnson of New York University posted a special memo in the classics department last week. "The sordid rumor has been promulgated," he wrote, "that March 15, 1956 is the 2,000th anniversary of those Ides of March on which CJ. Caesar was assassinated. This results from an inaccurate or hasty computation, for March 15, 44 B.C. to March 15, 1 B.C. equals only 43 years; March 15, 1 B.C. to March 15, 1 A.D. equals one year. (There was no zero year.) March 15, 1 A.D. to March 15, 1956 makes a total, then, of only 1,999 years."

Though it was not his intention, Johnson's calculations struck directly at N.Y.U.'s great rival, Columbia University. There, library officials had already set up a lively exhibition commemorating the 2,000th year of Julius Caesar's death. Now, it seemed, Columbia was commemorating a year too soon. University classicists promptly split on what to do. Scottish Gilbert Highet ("I'm a classicist, not a mathematician") was for calling the whole thing off, but bearded Classicist Moses Hadas favored the exhibition. Meanwhile the university news office, citing the Columbia Encyclopedia, informed reporters that "because of poor time calculation in earlier times," even the birth of Christ "must be dated a little earlier, probably 4 B.C." Therefore, the news office implied, one year in Caesar's case hardly seemed significant.

Nevertheless Columbia changed the two signs over its exhibition to read:

THE IDES 2,000TH*

OF MARCH

ANNIVERSARY 44 B.C. *Or, if you wish, 1,999th.

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