Reggie almost got choked up today when talking about the assassination of Cicero. We spent about twenty minutes on exactly two sentences of his letters to Atticus: Erat enim ars difficilis recte rem publicam regere. Sed iam iamque omnia sciemus et scribemus ad te statim. [Ruling a republic rightly is a difficult skill. But already now we shall know everything and we shall write to you immediately.] “Can you hear him talking?” Reggie whines. “He’s talking to us. Talking on the phone. Do you see what day this is? 11 February 49. Civil War. Caesar is taking over. He’s in Formia – we’ll go there, oh yessss… We’ll swim right where he was killed, on the beach… eeeeggghhh?!
Momentarily put at ease by this thought of beaches, I let my guard down and was promptly called on – “You, you – if we would have known, we would have written. You know your forms? Pluperfect subjunctive.” I freeze like a duck in headlights. I start to mutter what I think are paradigm forms but are actually pleas to the Latin God to send me the answer quickly… no answer. Finally Reggie throws me a bone – “third principle part of sciooooo?!” Scivi! Yes! There it is! “And the perfect infinitive?” Scivisse. “And…?” Scivissemus. Si scivissemus, scripsissemus.
Reggie did a lot of muttering about Germans in the Vatican today. He said he would bring in a papal bull, too. And we learned some choice phrases – the Vatican Press is full of latrones et filii latronum and nothes.
I think it is hard to tell whether Reggie is plenus stercoris.
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In other news, I visited the Basilica of San Clemente this morning. WOW! A 12th century basilica built on top of a 4th century church built on a 1st century Roman house and mithraeum. You can go down all three levels. It is something else!
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