Don't classicists have anything better to do? According to the Wall Street Journal, the six hundred members of the Vergilian Society, publishers of the scholarly journal Vergilius and dedicated followers of a certain epic poet, are embroiled in a messy dispute over internal governance, cronyism, the payment of dues, and the upkeep of the society's villa in Naples, complete with mass resignations and e-mailed invective. The terms of the dispute aren't important, but some of the details are delicious:

In a Nov. 19 e-mail to officers and board members, [the society's president-elect] said that "those of us" opposed to Prof. Fears [the society's president] "had all the independence of the Senate under Tiberius" -- a Roman emperor notorious for executing senators for defamation.

Prof. Fears responded by threatening her with a libel suit, arguing that her barb suggested he was a child molester because Tiberius was described by an early biographer as having been one.

Well, maybe. I don't ever remember hearing about this particular allegation against Tiberius, even though I've probably read I, Claudius more recently than you. This Professor Fears, of the University of Oklahoma, is apparently quite a character. According to the Journal, Professor Fears "went on to assert that his supporters embody pietas, Latin for piety," and he noted that a petition calling for his resignation was "remarkable testimony to the workings of impius furor." Right. This sort of thing would be embarrassing in any context, but these days, there's no excuse. There's a war on, and the only classicist who seems to be saying a damned thing about it is Victor Davis Hanson.