Happy Saturnalia: Curse like a Roman But Be Kind to Strangers on the Internet!

Amid the Covid pandemic shutdowns of 2020, a Twitter (X) friend of mine posted an article on her blog about an ancient Roman bread recipe she had recreated. A brilliant experimental archaeologist, Dr. Farrell Monaco recreates ancient Roman food recipes from Cato the Elder and Apicius, and to the benefit of everyone, writes extensively about her work and shares it freely.

In the article, she misused a Latin phrase or two. She's not a linguist, and I could tell what she meant. When a mutual friend posted her article in a Facebook group for classical reenactors, a Latin teacher commented on the article, "I couldn't get past the horrible Latin." That was it. That was the comment. Never mind the amazing work that had gone into the experiment, the beautiful photos in the article, or on-point references to ancient texts. The comment incensed me. A generous and knowledgeable professional was being chewed up and spit out by a person who should have been thankful for her sharing. Instead, haters were nitpicking for no good reason.

Feeling bad for her, I decided to reach out to my friend and offer help with her Latin. She was so grateful. The task she asked me to complete was fascinating - a Latin curse! I enjoyed researching it and helping my fellow classics enthusiast. I thought nothing else of it. I got to help someone whose work I admired.

But a month later, I was surprised to find a mysterious delivery at my front door. The curse I translated was turned into a rolling pin for gingerbread!! With it, I could now make my own curse tablet gingerbread - how cool is that!!!

Can we all just be a bit kinder in our interactions with strangers? The internet brings out the worst in us all sometimes, but it doesn't have to be that way. OK, I'm done with my kindness rant. I find it ironic that I'm advocating for kindness to strangers in the context of writing a curse tablet script. But hey, the internet is a strange place.

And by the way, you can buy this amazing thing here. And you should read her blog too! She explains curse tablets (or DEFIXIONES) really well right here.