For my actum, I watched the movie Gladiator on Amazon Prime. Gladiator is a 2000 epic historical drama film that revolves around the story of Hispano-Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius, whose goal is to return home after leading the Roman army to victory in an intense battle. However, when Commodus, the son of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, learns that his father plans to make Maximum emperor instead of him, he murders his father and Maximus’ family and attempts to execute Maximus as well. Maximus escapes, and is captured and enslaved as a gladiator. The movie is essentially the story of his journey to avenge his family.

Overall, I found this movie riveting. From the very beginning, I could tell that this movie was attempting to give a very accurate and vivid depiction of Roman warfare. Just by watching the first five minutes of the film, one could discern that the Roman legion shown was a battle-hardened, heavily fortified entity that reigned supreme over its enemies. The realistic shields, armor, and weaponry were fascinating to see.

Aside from the warfare, I also enjoyed seeing several elements of life in Rome that we covered in class. For example, right before Commodus kills his father, he goes on a monologue about virtus, which we covered in class. He says that his father believes he does not possess enough virtus, which is why he wants Maximus to succeed him as emperor instead, but Commodus claims that he has another important trait: ambition. He then kills his father, proving both himself and his father correct.

Another element I saw that we covered in class was tension between the senate and the emperor. In the film, Senator Gracchus and Senator Gaius want to kill Emperor Commodus and name Maximus emperor because he will give more power to the senate, whereas Senator Falco is allied with Commodus and wants him to stay in power. 

Finally, this film was also a good demonstration of the mob mentality of Rome. Several times throughout the film Maximus was encouraged to not only win, but also appease the crowd in order to gain his freedom, which showed how important the appeasement of Roman citizens was. Also, several times Senators Gracchus and Gaius discussed how despite his many faults, Emperor Commodus was clever at controlling the mob, which further shows how the appeasement of Roman citizens was used as a weapon by politicians.

Zeus to Jupiter flies through the air,

With electric sparks in his hair.

True and sure he is the king,

With the rest of the gods under his wing.

Hera to Juno, sits to the left his carriage, 

The beloved goddess to protect your marriage.

Poseidon to Neptunes, ruler of the seas,

You have him to thank for the nice ocean breeze.

Janus, purely Roman is whom you must implore,

When your path ahead has a hidden door. 

Tyche to Fortuna ensures a bang for your buck,

Whenever you feel like you have run out of luck.

These are only the name a few,

Of the gods we took and made new.

The Romans prepare to fight the Germanic tribes under the leadership of their general, Maximus. They are able to defeat them and are seen victorious by emperor Marcus Aurelius. The general and the emperor talk, and Maximum is told by the emperor that when he dies, he would like Maximum to become Rome’s next emperor, because the emperor’s current son, Commodus, would not be a good ruler. When Commodus finds out about what his father thinks, he smothers him with a pillow and feigns innocence. He then arrests Maximus and prepares for him to be executed; but Maximus kills the executioners. When he gets home, Maximus finds that the new emperor has killed his family. He buries them, then passes out, only to wake up as a slave. He is bought by Proximo and trained with the other slaves to fight. However, he refuses to fight, wanting death to end his suffering. When he is put in the arena, he finally fights, showing off his prowess. In Rome, Commodus decides to create a series of gladiatorial games in order to honor the death of his father. Proximo tells Maximus that he was once a slave too, and won his freedom as a gladiator. He takes Maximus to Rome for the gladiatorial games. In the early matches Maximus shows that he is a very capable fighter. Commodus goes down to meet the gladiator and recognizes that it is Maximus; but due to the popularity of Maximus with the crowd, Commodus cannot kill him. Lucilla, the sister of Commodus, speaks with Maximus, but he does not trust her. Maximus continues to win, and Commodus continues to be unable to find a way to kill him. Maximus, on the other hand, creates a plan to kill Commodus by buying his freedom, but he is rejected by Proximo. Lucilla begins to work with Maximus, but she is caught by her brother and reveals everything to him. Proximo then decides that he will let Maximus buy his freedom, and Maximus moves forward with his plan, but is captured. Commodus tells Maximus that they will fight, but stabs him in the back and covers the wound up when he and the crowd cannot see. Eventually they have a real fight, where Maximus kills Commodus but dies afterward due to his wound. This leads to Rome returning to a republic again. While the film was very entertaining and included some realistic elements, it was clear that it was not very closely based on real events.

To complete my Acta, I decided to recreate a roman dish known as Ova Spongia ex Lacte, a simple dessert dish that includes eggs, milk, and honey. While it seems simple, the cooking process proved difficult due to the delicate nature of the ingredients. Basically, this is a light, fluffy egg omelet that is seasoned with pepper and drizzled with hot honey. The secret to the fluffiness is the milk, however, the milk also makes it challenging to cook as it is extremely delicate with the milk. I started by beating together 4 eggs, olive oil, and about a cup of milk. I then used a large frying pan to cook the mixture into an omelet. While the dish is not supposed to be folded until cooking is completed, I had to improvise as my omelet flipping skills are not up to par, especially with an omelet of this size and softness. Once cooking is completed, it is then supposed to be folded in half twice to form a sort of triangle. It is then served as a dessert. I was surprised by how long the omelet took to finish cooking. It was cooking for about 10 minutes until it was completed. I believe that the amount of milk used to make the omelet fluffy added to the cooking time. However, once the treat was done, it was delicious. The texture was unlike any eggs I have had in the past. They were light, fluffy, and some of the best eggs I had ever had. I then lightly seasoned it with crushed black pepper and drizzled hot honey over the top. It was very interesting to see that something so simple could prove so difficult to make and still be very delicious. I strived to put myself in a Roman’s shoes and think as a Roman while creating this dish. When I was finished, I was lucky enough to have both my roommates try the dish. They too were surprised by the delightful treat that consists of only milk, eggs, and honey. I will definitely be making this again as it was fun, light, and very good. Below I have attached a picture of one of my roommates eating the dish as well as the recipe. While they were not pretty, they tasted good!

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoon honey
• 4 eggs
• 275ml milk
• 25g butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Good pinch of black pepper

Instructions

1. Beat together the eggs, milk, and oil.
2. Pour a little olive oil into a frying pan and heat. When this is sizzling, add the omelette mixture.
3. Whisk with a fork until the mix starts to solidify (this will make for a lighter omelette).
4. When thoroughly cooked on one side, turn the omelette over and cook on the other side. Fold in half and turn out onto a plate.
5. Warm the honey and pour over the omelette. Fold this over once more and cut into thick slices.
6. Sprinkle with black pepper and serve.

In honor of all the suburban mothers and their live love laugh cooking blogs, it would almost be blasphemous for me to not give you my life story before I give you the recipe. As a cooking enthusiast ( more so anything but dining hall food enthusiast) and a relatively common presence at the VCAM kitchen, I have decided to cook Roman dishes the minute I learned about the existence of ACTA. Such an experiment is after all, something that I enjoy to do, something that produces a product which I actually can utilize, and something that takes me on a tour down memory lane. 

My culinary experience consisted of a bizarre collage of ancient dishes lost some 2000 years ago and homely Shanghai-nese dishes my parents grew up eating. “Food to us is as important as the sky,” as the Chinese saying goes, and even now as my identity grows more and more diverse, food is something that grounds me. Long as I have my family and the food I am used to, I am at home. If food is to me an important part of my roots, it is also a pathway into understanding the distant past which I am so interested in. To put a pot of pigs trotters onto the stove and to watch it boil, repeatedly straining for hours until you finally get jelly explains better than any text the Tudor elite’s fascination with it. Similarly, a quick analysis of Victorian cuisine proves to be a better conceptualization of what the average Englishman perceived in that age of colonization than many dry words on a text. Food is one of the most intimate parts of our living experience, and to cook what they did is as much as I can do to experience their time. 

That being said, most historical recipes are usually written in incredibly general terms, so that complete imitation would be nigh impossible. Though I am sure this have most certainly driven at least one food historian mad, I am actually ok with it. It. When I first learned to cook, dishes were taught to me by my father, grandmother and nanny in similar fashions of vagueness, with wordings such as “some of this, some of that” and “until the pan is hot enough, cook till it’s just right.” There is an intimate understanding between all of us that I will never make the exact same dish as any of them did by taking my own liberties, but by doing so I will truly own the dish, and the experience of making it. So I suppose, is how I see these dishes of Apicius which I am currently making. 

The dishes I chose for this feast are mussels and pea soup, on the basis that both seemed interesting (also I like mussels.) I have recruited fellow classmate Jennifer as well as my other friends as taste testers, on the basis that if I did manage to give any of them food poisoning, we would be trying to claim our third ACTA in the name of “practicing Roman politics.” As far as I know, we have failed to do so. 

Mussels

As Apicius puts it: 

• Mussels, Liquamen, chopped leeks, Passum, savory, wine. 

Dilute the wine with water, and boil the mussels in it. 

How I prepared it: 

• Live Mussels, 1 lb 
• Some leeks, chopped
• A coffee cup of wine and possum combined ( as I was unable to acquire the latter, I used a coffee cup of wine with a bit of grape juice.)
• Fish sauce
• Thyme, to replace savory
• Half a cup of water. Add enough salt to season your twitter timeline for a week.

First, check none of the mussels are dead. Fry some leaks in olive oil in a pan, and add the mussels. Give it a light toss, and add everything else. Turn on medium high heat, and boil and stir everything until roughly half of the water has evaporated, and the mussels are sufficiently seasoned. 

Reactions from the taste testers: 

• Good. They finished it all, and none are poisoned. Might add this to my recipe book.

Pea soup:

As Apicius puts it:

• Peas, brains or small birds, or boned thrushes, Lucanian sausage, chicken livers and giblets

Place in a saucepan, with broth, oil and a bunch of leeks, green coriander finely chopped, cooked with pepper, lovage and broth. 

As I prepared it”

• Peas, boiled
• Chicken stock
• Chicken gizzards and livers
• Bone marrow, to replace brains
• Italian sausage.
• Leeks
• Celery leaf (to replace lovage)
• coriander

Sautee the sausage, giblets, leeks and bone marrow until all is sufficiently fried. Add boiled peas, celery leaf, coriander, and chicken stock. Boil until sufficient.

Reactions from the taste testers: 

• OK. Some had seconds, two refused to touch it. Too strong a celery flavor in my opinion, will not make it again.

For my Actum Delectamentum, I decided to make Libum, otherwise known as an Ancient Roman cheesecake. The recipe comes from Cato’s writings he made for farmers which included these simple dishes that they can make. The ancient recipe doesn’t deviate too much from the modern interpretation of libum I found, with the cheese and cooking method being different. For this modern libum, I collected ricotta, flour, eggs, bay leaves, and honey. I beat the ricotta until it softened, and then added an egg and flour to it to form a dough. From there, I split the dough up into four buns and inserted a bay leaf on top of each one. In ancient Rome, they would have cooked it in a hot fire and covered it with a brick called a tetso. To replicate this, I covered the baking dish with another baking sheet and put it into the oven at 425 degrees for 35 minutes.

I appreciate the simplicity of the dish as it seems like something that could be made by most Romans, especially considering this would normally be a sacrificial cake offered to spirits. To me, this modern version was fairly lacking in flavor, although I can imagine it would be improved with some higher quality ricotta. The bay leaf did add a nice herbal touch, providing some more depth to the cake and the drizzled honey added some flavor as well. I invited some friends over to try it as well and they enjoyed it more than me. They appreciated the different flavor from a New York style cheesecake, viewing it as something a little lighter. If I were to make it again, I think I would add a few extra elements. To get some more flavor into it, I would first add salt, a crucial ingredient in any recipe. A teaspoon or two of vanilla extract and sugar would provide some sweetness that could make it a bit more fitting for a dessert. Also, adding one egg yolk in addition to the egg in the recipe could make it richer and I think would make the ricotta flavor pop out more.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostempires/roman/libum.html