• Date of Birth: August 17, 1879
  • Born City: San Francisco
  • Born State/Country: CA
  • Parents: Michael & Ida Lilienfield D.
  • Date of Death: October 21, 1955
  • Death City: Berkeley
  • Death State/Country: CA
  • Married: Alice Lois Feder, 30 Aug. 1906.
  • Education:

    B.A. U. California, 1902; M.A. 1903; Ph.D., 1911; LL.D., 1948; St. Mary's Coll., 1933; U. Santa Clara, 1935; Occidental Coll. 1936; Mills Coll. 1937; study in Europe, 1912-3; 1926-7.

  • Dissertation:

    “Notes on the Text of the Corpus Tibullianum” (California, 1911); printed UCPCP 2 (1912) 173-226.

  • Professional Experience:

    Tchr., Mission HS (San Francisco), 1903-4; head class, dept. Berkeley HS, 1904-7; asst. Gk. U. California, 1907-8; asst. Lat., 1908-9; instr. to prof. Lat., 1909-47; dean coll. letters & sci., 1922-30; vice pres. & dean, 1930-1; vice president & provost, 1931-47; arm. prof. AAR, 1931-2; pres. Western Coll. Assn.; pres. PAPC, 1921-2; CAPS, 1921-2; Wheeler award, U. California, 1939; Chevalier of Legion of Honor (France); King Christian X Medal of Liberation (Denmark).

  • Publications:

    “The Year of Caesar's Birth,” TAPA 45 (1914) 17-23; “Suetonius and Caesar's German Campaigns,” TAPA 47 (1916) 23-33; “The Plot to Murder Caesar on the Bridge,” UCPCP 2,14 (1916); “Caesar's First Wife,” CP 12 (1917) 93-6; “The Death of Lepidus, Leader of the Revolution of 78 B.C.,” UCPCP 5,3 (1918) ; “Caesar and the Ambrones (Suetonius lulius ix.3),” CP 16 (1921) 256-9; “A Prophecy of Caesar's Murder (Suetonius lulius 81.1),” CP 17 (1922) 119-27; “Pompey's Three Triumphs,” CP 19 (1924) 177-8; Benjamin Ide Wheeler, The Abundant Life (ed.) (Berkeley, 1926); “Antony's Funeral Speech,” UCPCP 7,5 (1928); “Caesar's Son and Heir,” UCPCP 9 (1928) 149-200; “Scholarly Standing of the University” in The Golden Book of California (Berkeley, 1937), 171-224; “Our Legacy of Religious Freedom,” The National Conference of Christians and Jews (New York, 1941); The Letter and the Spirit: A Selection from Addresses (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1943); The College from Within (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1952).

  • Notes:

    Monroe Deutsch was one of the first Jewish classicists to acquire tenure in an American university. His chief scholarly interest was in the life of Julius Caesar and he is credited with determining the true date of the birth of Julius Caesar (100 B.C.). After four years of high-school teaching, he became a member of the University of California faculty, regularly teaching a graduate seminar in Suetonius' Life of Julius Caesar until his responsibilities as provost under new president Robert Gordon Sproul made it impossible for him to teach for the remainder of his career. He was active in the World Affairs Council, the Institute of Pacific Relations, the National Congress of Christians and Jews, the World Student Service Fund, and the American Association for the United Nations. At the end of his career, the university was much threatened by McCarthyism, and Deutsch fought on the one hand against the imposition of loyalty oaths and on the other against the hiring of anyone with Communist affiliations.

  • Sources:

    Fontenrose, 37, 84-5; U. California In Memoriam (1958) 34-6; NYTimes (22 Oct. 1955) 19; WhAm 3:225.

  • Author: Ward W. Briggs, Jr.