ibides?
Column 8 has been involved in a furious workplace argument about the plural form of the word ''ibis''(the bird that tears garbage bags to shreds with apparent impunity all over the CBD). We favour...
View ArticleMezentius
impastus stabula alta leo ceu saepe peragrans(suadet enim vesana fames), si forte fugacemconspexit capream aut surgentem in cornua cervum,gaudet hians immane comasque arrexit et haeretvisceribus super...
View ArticleLatin for tweet?
I'm not on twitter myself, and haven't really contemplated what the Latin for to tweet might be. The editorial in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald suggested frigere, in this short post script:THE...
View ArticleRome wasn't built in a day
I don't watch a lot of TV, but I did catch the opening episode of Rome wasn't built in a day, a BBC documentary following a group of London builders as they attempt to build a Roman-style villa using...
View ArticleLatin in the news
Latin's been in the paper a bit this week, firstly with an article on Monday hailing the revival of Classical Languages in NSW schools:In schools, the classics are steadily increasing their enrolment...
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Lessons from Greek mythology
[Orestes, middle, attacks Clytemnestra, right]I spotted this in the sports section of the paper last year, but what with one thing and another didn't get around to posting it. It just goes to show how...
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Romae ningit
[more photos]ningit or ninguit, ebat, nxit, 3, v. n. [Gr. nifei; cf. nix…], it snows. I Lit. ningit… cum ninxerit caelestium molem mihi… – (b) in the pass. form: torum istud spatium, qua pluitur et...
View Article(Belated) Ides of March
To celebrate missing the Ides of March yesterday, why not read the Top Five Random References to Julius Caesar over on the Pop Classics blog.I've often wondered who is the most famous Roman of them all...
View ArticleThe most multi-lingual student in Britain
Here's an article about Britain's most multi-lingual student, who at the age of 20 is fluent in 11 languages.Alex, who was brought up in London and went to Latymer School – one of the country's leading...
View ArticleFun
One of my students asked me yesterday if the Romans had a word for fun. I didn't know. I still don't. The concept of fun is a... well, a funny one I suppose. Easy to recognise, but hard to define....
View Articletranslation
I have to give a talk in a week (actually less than that - *panic*) to year 12 Latin students on how to prepare for and do the 'unseen translations' in their final examination. I have some idea of what...
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lego, legere
The Nicholson Museum at Sydney Uni have a lego colosseum on display. It's amazing, and I will be taking my daughter to see it these school holidays for sure.
View ArticleMartin Amis and Satire
I read a Martin Amis novel for the first time this year, and so this interview with him caught my eye. It's super long, and interesting only in sections, but there were numerous times when I was...
View ArticleRoman Sites in Northern Italy
View Larger MapI think I'm going to be in Munich towards the end of October for a friend's wedding (the wedding is confirmed, it's my attendance which is still a bit uncertain). If I go, I'd also like...
View ArticleLivy's engaging style of history
In case anyone is interested, here is a sample extended response answer I wrote for the Livy extended response from my trial HSC paper this year. I welcome all comments, corrections or criticisms!Sed...
View Article...it helps to know the language.
Apart from English, classical languages are the only subjects which focus on the study of great literature. The books you get to read by the last year of high school are the best of their kind. (Over...
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Athos
[Mt Athos] I notice that one of the horses racing in today's Melbourne Cup is called Mt Athos. It just so happens I was translating this passage from Aeneid XII with my year 12 class today:quantus...
View Article15/25
Trawling through the web, looking for something else, I came across an old (2005) statistic from England, pointing out that out 93 of their top 100 schools (ranked by Times according to GCSE results)...
View ArticleDido and Anna, Turnus and Juturna
Some notes from R.D. Williams on Aeneid XII.843f., interspersed with the relevant passages and translations. For more on the links between Dido and Turnus, I quite like this essay: Chaotic Passions;...
View ArticleCentre for Latin Studies, Beijing
I sometimes half-jokingly tell people who ask me about being a Latin teacher that it's a growth industry. While Latin teaching is a small field, and student numbers are not likely to explode overnight,...
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The Ambiguity of the Death of Turnus
My year 12 class have recently done an exam on Aeneid XII; to help them learn from the experience I wrote a sample answer to the extended response question I posed them. Any comments are, as always,...
View ArticleComprehensive Compounds
In putting together a bit of a vocab list for Livy V, I noticed that Livy uses each of the following compounds of fero, ferre, tuli, latus in various forms at some point in the book:affero: to bring...
View ArticleAn Interview with a Classics Lecturer
My friend James recently did a short interview for a website about being a Latin Lecturer; here are some of his answers:What is it about your field that is fascinating to you?Reading ancient Roman...
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