This winter, TC Latin Club held a festival celebration that reached out to the middle school students studying Latin currently. Over all, the turnout was good and knowledge was successfully passed onto the younger group through this fun, Saturnalia themed event.
Saturnalia is an ancient Roman festival held in the winter time to honor Saturn. Saturn is the Roman god of the harvest, equivalent of the Greek titan Cronus, but much less evil and murderous. Saturnalia was a time of revelry in the dark cold winters, which at that time generally meant hard times and death. One of the notable traditions of Saturnalia was the temporary freedom of all slaves. During the week long celebration of Saturnalia, everyone wore pillius, or caps of freedom, and one slave was appointed the Prince of Mischief and all slaves got to play pranks on their masters.
In TC Latin Club’s celebration of Saturnalia the goal was not to make mischief, but instead to include the younger grades and ensure an enthusiastic next generation of Latin learners. The activities included cookie decorating, a Latin themed scavenger hunt, and some Roman related board games and puzzles. To imitate the actual traditions of Saturnalia, Latin Club decorated a live holly tree and made pillius.
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Among TC Latin students, many students often joke that Saturnalia is the “reason for the season,” and they are not wrong. Holiday traditions such as gift giving and tree decorating can be connected back to pagan traditions from Saturnalia.
All these facts were packed into fun activities in to order appeal to the younger crowd that was present. “There are many reasons why it is important to include the middle schools,” Julie Cizek, Vice President of TC Latin Club, says. She believes that this activity helps get kids interested in being more active in the classics community, which gives them many academic opportunities in college and high school. TC Latin Club plans to continue including the middle schools in their activities in hopes of strengthening the ACPS Latin community.
