Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke
Today is March 4th, which means it is also Exelauno Day.
What is Exelauno Day?
It is a wonderfully nerdy holiday for classicists based on a pun involving the Greek verb exelaunein, which means “to march forth” or “to drive out.” Since “March 4th” sounds like “march forth,” someone, somewhere, decided this was too good of a joke to waste.
The phrase comes from Anabasis by Xenophon, which makes the joke even more gloriously academic.
When I was an undergraduate student studying ancient Greek, one of my professors casually asked the class if anyone knew when Exelauno Day was.
None of us knew.
We guessed a few possible dates, but he never told us the answer. Somehow, that random question stayed in my mind for more than twenty years.
Finally, after all this time, I decided to look it up.
And there it was: the answer was simply March 4th.
Honestly, it is the kind of joke that only classicists could create—part language lesson, part historical reference, and part terrible dad joke preserved for eternity.
To celebrate, I tracked down my old professor’s email address and sent him a short message telling him this story and how much his classes still stayed with me after all these years.
I am looking forward to hearing back from him.
Sometimes the smallest things teachers say end up staying with us far longer than they ever realize.