Here We Go Again: Pipiatio Latina, #LTNL the sequel

On February 29th, we are hosting our second Latin Tweet Up– i.e. a bunch of us Latin lovers getting together on Twitter to talk . . .  wait for it. . . in Latin!  The amazing Nancy Llewellyn will be our special guest tweeter once again, along with a special co-host Latinist Rachel Ash.  We are very excited to have both Nancy and Rachel stir up the twitter feed!

We hosted the first-ever Latin Tweet Up on February 8 and it was a huge success. So we’re going at it again:

When:  Wednesday, February 29 at 6 pm EST

Host:  American Institute for Roman Culture,  Dr. Nancy Llewellyn

Where:   Twitter – Search for hashtag #LTNL (primary) and #LatinTweetUp

How:   Check out our customized TweetGrid  to send tweets (You will need to bookmark LTNL tweet grid page and login with your twitter account when ready to tweet.)  Follow the aforementioned hashtags and @AIRomanculture.  Or load your Twitter page and search for #TweetLatin and #LatinTweetup for the 60 minutes of the event.

Participate:  Send us questions/comments in advance so we can feature them in the #LatinTweetup.  During the tweet up, get chatty and make sure to use hashtags #LatinTweetup or #tweetlatin within your Tweet so everyone can see your question, answer, contribution, etc.

Not on Twitter?: You can still use the TweetGrid  to follow the conversation.  Though you will not be able to contribute to the discussion, you can follow all commentary.

Contact:  @AIRomanculture, email:  info@romanculture.org

Follow us on Twitter also at @SaveRome and join us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/airc.rome and http://www.facebook.com/romanculture

What’s Wrong with the Colosseum?

The Colosseum, the quintessential symbol of Rome and Roman culture, has been a fixture in the international news for the past several months, mostly because of a series of incidents involving small pieces of stone, cement, and plaster that have detached and fallen, usually without causing injury. Is the Colosseum falling down? Yes and no.

In its 1930 years the Flavian Amphitheater (to use its formal name) has endured every conceivable form of structural stress and degradation: floods, fires, lightning strikes, earthquakes, invasive occupation by animals and humans (for settlement, commerce, and burial), deliberate attack (to remove the metal clamps holding together the blocks, creating the current Swiss-cheese appearance), and the slow, steady decay that every structure experiences due to seasonal changes in temperature and atmospheric moisture and pressure.

The most spectacular event in its history was undoubtedly the collapse of the southern section of the outer ring in the mid-14^th century after a particularly violent earthquake shook the loose sediments underpinning the south side, where the lake of Nero’s Golden House had been (and, before that, a swampy basin fed by a small stream). The Colosseum was left in a particularly vulnerable state until the early 19^th century, when an enlightened papal government sealed the exposed and buckling edges of the outer ring with the enormous brick buttresses visible today.

Fast-forward 200 years. What has changed in the Colosseum’s condition since then? Very little, if anything: fragments small and large have continued to detach, mostly because of the weather and age, and the general wear has accelerated due to tourist activity. But there is more awareness of the problems, mostly because of their economic effects. The Colosseum alone rakes in 35 million euros in ticket sales per year. Closing it to the public, as happened twice this month because of the extraordinary snow events in Rome, costs Italy hundreds of thousands of euros.

What is being done to conserve the Colosseum?

Please return for Part 2 of What is Wrong with the Colosseum?

– by Albert Prieto, AIRC  Associate Director of Archaeology

albert[at]romanculture.org

Dangerous Cocktail – snow, freezing pigeons, excited crowds don’t mix

Reblogged from D a r i u s A r y a D i g s:

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Still cold here in Rome, but the snow will fade soon into the background of everyone’s memory.  So just a follow up from the lovely walks around the centro the past 2 weekends.  For a refresher, check out these images from February 3 and February 10th (in collaboration with Erica Firpo). Rome regularly dips down to low temperatures, even freezing, each winter period, but it’s the snow that’s novel-  picturesque and pleasant to see, however fleeting.   I was glad I could go around on my bike to take it …

Execellent piece by Darius Arya!

Veni Vidi Vici*: Pipiatio Latina #LTNL

We did it.  Last Wednesday, AIRC and the amazing Nancy Llewellyn hosted our very first Latin Tweet-Up, with its very own hashtag. Perhaps not quite as catchy at GTL, #LTNL tweet up received a great response of at least twenty Twitter accounts conversing, ahem, tweeting in Latin.  Nancy fielded questions about her Latin background, upcoming projects, grammar and even sports vocabulary.

In addition,  #LTNL tag was buzzing with Latin conversations and we were later told it was followed by classrooms in San Francisco and Austin, Texas, both in live-stream and in a Tweet grid recap.  We’d love to know who else enjoyed the tweet up and we’d like to organize another #LTNL.  Spread the word about #LTNL and let us know if you are interested in co-hosting the next tweet up.

Thanks for all of your support in helping to spread the word: Latin rules!

-please send emails to info@romanculture.org

*of course we were going to use this title….

Satagere Tamquam Mūs In Matellā

Q & A with Nancy Llewellyn, host of our February 8 Latin Tweet Up

1. What made you want to learn to speak Latin?

I started Latin when I was a senior in high school.  Going into my first Latin class, I had already had three years of German and two years of French with a wonderful teacher who taught by immersion.  The disjunct between the way we treated French in French class and the way we treated Latin in Latin class was really very noticeable.  I couldn’t understand why it had to be that way, since Latin and French are both, in the end, simply languages.  When I asked my Latin teacher about it, he smiled and told me “nobody speaks Latin.”