Romani quidem artem amatoriam invenerunt
Long before Deadwood, before Foyle’s War, Battlestar Galactica, Veronica Mars, Jeeves and Wooster and Firefly, the Mickey and Maya household was fully immersed in the HBO series Rome. When we left off, Caesar had been cut down in the Senate, Lucius lost his wife, and the various members of the Junii family were jockeying for position. Season 2 starts this weekend, and we can’t wait to see how the whole thing turns out. Will Brutus rise to power? Mark Antony and Cleopatra, what’s up with that? And this child, Octavian, smart boy but maybe not tough enough - I wonder what the future holds in store for him?
In preparation for this bacchanalia of violence, sex and intrigue, Grumpus and I have picked up a little Latin.
Re vera, cara mea, mea nil refert
Ita vero, esne comoedus?
Materiem habeo - habesne nummos?
Mater tua criceta fuit, et pater tuo redoluit bacarum sambucus
Look them up in these handy Latin guides: Silly Latin and Tons of Latin sayings.
“Can’t wait to see how the whole thing turns out”?
Hey, history major, all this happened 2000 years ago. Read Suetonius’s “Lives of the Twelve Caesars” (Robert Graves’s excellent translation is in Penguin) or Colleen McCullough’s novel sequence “Masters of Rome” (ends with Julius’s death, but very detailed accounts of the period, good for background — including, for example, how a toga was cut — it wasn’t just a simple blanket but had some complicated curves). Or just Wikipedia Roman history!
Dad! Do you really think we’re that stupid? It’s like you don’t know us at all.
Of course not! Was just assigning a reading list from force of academic habit.
Hahahaha! Okay dad, you get a pass.