Will Griffiths picked up the post on Lorna Robinson and the way she gets children to write Latin postcards, and he sent me this link:   more »

Google can't really compete with a scholarly reference book like this. The new edition is out in paperback at £12.99   more »

Latin, the ancient language which has long been in decline in state schools, is being taught in the area for the first time that anyone can remember.   more »

Archaeologists have discovered the place where Aeneas is believed to have first set foot in Italy. Peter Popham reports.   more »

To someone used to the centralised elective dictatorship of UK education, this glimpse of democracy in action in New York State comes like a breath of air from another planet.   more »

In AD 19, the Roman prince Germanicus paid a royal visit to Alexandria in Egypt. According to a surviving papyrus record, he was given a rapturous reception by the crowds. He had hardly got through the first sentence of his speech (“I was sent by my father, gentlemen of Alexandria . . .”) when they broke into applause.   more »

The aptly named 'The History Channel: Great Battles of Rome', is a battle strategy simulation video game from Black Bean Games and the History channel. The latter has jumped on board to add its name to the title, like a stamp of approval, which suggests that the game will stick faithfully to the historical facts.   more »

The marriage of Latin and laptops at the new Gilbert Classical Academy is one made in heaven for the school's principal, Brian Rosta.   more »

Hold even the staunchest republican upside down, and an image of the Queen will probably fall from his pockets.   more »

The PhDiva blog ranges widely, and amid posts on modern fashions in shoes and on ballet are two that Classics teachers may find useful.   more »

Philosophers such as Socrates, Aristotle and Plato taught that it was essential to take care of the body by eating right and getting exercise to show self-control and discipline.   more »

Author Robert Harris talks to Elizabeth Grice about his passion for Pompeii, his partnership with Roman Polanksi, and living in 'the house that Hitler built'   more »

On the A level front, there has been a lot of activity, including a parliamentary debate. The story so far is that the only exam board to offer Ancient History at A level is proposing to abolish it, and put a wee bit of history into some other A level.   more »

AS YOU entered the Whitley Bay Playhouse you could feel the excitement as children of all ages took there seats. Everyone jumped as loud music rattled around the room, entrancing you to wonder what would happen next on the stage.   more »

But Corbridge’s Roman bridge escaped the recyclers, ironically, because of a disaster. Some time after the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Romans’ mighty bridge at Corbridge also fell, a victim of the even more powerful River Tyne. Tons of carved masonry, bound together with metal clamps in a construction style borrowed from the ancient Greeks, ended up buried in river silt.   more »

If anyone is interested in the German radio Latin birthday tribute to the Pope and has not managed to locate or download it, it is now available in the resource collection (ref BA313).   more »

I've just come across a French search engine called KartOO visual meta search.

I put in 'arlt' and got this page. It gives a visual presentation of 12 sites (or web pages) with 'arlt' in their names, including our main ARLT site and this blog.    more »

Not quite sure what to make of this, from American Daily. It reminds me of the Latin proses we used to be set in the Sixth Form, perhaps a bit of a speech by Burke, or even a Times leader; we were expected to find a parallel situation in Roman or Greek history, and change the names accordingly. For me at least, the situations never quite tallied, so the prose did not carry conviction.   more »

A German radio station will pay tribute to Pope Benedict on his 80th birthday on Monday by broadcasting in Latin for an hour.   more »

The third edition of iris magazine will be out next month and is available to order now by replying to this email or subscribing through the website at www.irismagazine.org . The contents of this issue centre loosely around the theme of ancient healing, and include:   more »

Archaeologists unearthing parts of an underground Roman aqueduct in Lincoln have found the first evidence that it was actually used, contrary to previous thinking.   more »

With a Roman lead big coming up for auction at the Bonhams auction of Antiquities and Tribal Art on April 26, I immediately thought of Lindsey Davis, whose Falco novel series started with Silver Pigs - which were actually lead, with (or as it turned out without) silver in them. I'm sure she would like to have the real thing to keep on her (reinforced) mantlepiece.   more »

Yesterday I received a copy of the l--o--n--g-awaited disc for Book 2 of the Cambridge Latin Course.   more »

Now on the ArLT website, a list of Latin words and phrases for use in the classroom.   more »

Will Griffiths tells me that three stories from Stage 13 now have audio files.   more »

This lad never ceases to amaze me! I post a piece arising from the JCT article on ICT in the Classical classroom, pointing out the need for more electronic material for teachers and students, and a couple of days later Will Griffiths informs me that they've already done it. Here's his email:   more »

"This is a link to my website for learning Latin - I am using an excellent out of copyright text book, by Ahn and Seidenstucker (1855) for the basic stuff. I also have vocabularies on the site, and a variety of materials from a selection of other out of copyright textbooks - all the material on the site is read aloud."   more »

The Master of the Queen's Music has had the temerity to suggest that pop music is not as valuable as classical music, no matter what the government says.   more »

Jonathan Jones basks in the neon glow of Ian Hamilton Finlay's cool, classical, provocative artworks   more »

The latest Journal of Classics Teaching thudded on the mat this morning, three helmets on the cover to arm us for the fight for Classics. An extraordinary interview that the editor, Simon Carr, conducted with Boris Johnson in March takes pride of place.   more »

This is the petition on the Downing Street website against dropping Ancient History A level.

To add your name, visit ...   more »

The Rev. Paul Schloeder will celebrate a Latin Mass at 2 p.m. today at the church, 435 Chestnut St.
After that, he'll lead Latin Masses at 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and at 2 p.m. every Sunday.   more »

Online blogs and forums, as well as my discussions with gaming groups, reveal that amongst these wargaming enthusiasts there are those who deepen their enjoyment of the game by learning Latin, reading the Iliad and consulting academic works (the more scholarly the better) in order to calculate the range of Roman projectile weapons and the toughness of Hunnic armour.   more »

Edith Hall, Research Professor in Classics and in Drama & Theatre, Royal Holloway, was a guest on The Verb this evening. She talked about the Chorus in Greek drama.   more »

Mary Beard has been to see the Louvre exhibition and recommends that we do the same, even though the one and only undoubted original isn't there. (Come to think of it,   more »

If this were a tabloid newspaper I'd use a screamer about the Classics graduate who died with the script unfinished. But quite apart from this tragedy, Clouds sounds as if it will be worth going to see.   more »

Greek archaeologists discovered a Roman tomb filled with glass   more »

Hordes of youngsters were given a magical history tour of the way we were when Roman's ruled and Norfolk's warrior queen Boudica urged her people to rise up against the ruthless empire.   more »

An ancient Etruscan city, where iron was produced thousands of years ago, has been restored and is open to visitors on the Italian coast.   more »

A level students might like to know of a freely downloadable translation of Amores   more »

But by the time I went on to do my A-levels, there were only three of us doing Latin and we had a new teacher. She was very young, not long down from Cambridge, and she was great. Her lessons had a very different feel. Sometimes we would even be invited to her house. Imagine that! She was rather glamorous and wore very heavy black eye make-up, and in the holidays would travel to places like Italy and Greece and when she got back would hint at unhappy love affairs. Well, to me, nearer to the gods you could not get. I just thought she was fantastic.   more »

A secret document sent to Government officials by the Dearing Languages Review, an influential inquiry into language teaching, reveals that Latin and Greek were excluded from the list of languages that schools will be encouraged to study because they are "dead languages" that contribute nothing to "intercultural understanding".   more »

Peter Jones in the Spectator applies the hatchet to the film 300.   more »