Many people now use BCE in dates to indicate a number of years or centuries before AD 1 or before the year in which Jesus is believed to have been born. Compare CE.
Aristophanes' ancient comedy Lysistrata was performed first in Athens in 411 BCE.
The first Jewish community settled in Rome in the second century BCE.
BCE in British English
abbreviation for
Before Common Era (used, esp by non-Christians, in numbering years bc)