As part of our continued exploration into Roman culture and life, Ben Meyers and I decided that cooking a Roman style dish would be an excellent way to further understand the lives of the Romans. We found an article from the University of Chicago that detailed a variety of Roman recipes mostly from Apicius first in their original Latin and then also adjusted for the modern age. We decided on a Recipe for a Roman Nut Tart from Apiciuc,136 due to the fact that we thought it might be difficult to find a wild boar or ostrich.

We were succesful in finding the ingredients for our dish with the exception of the full fat sheep’s milk which we substituted with full fat cow’s milk.

Following the recipe we started by roasting a large quantity of nuts and then combining with a mixture of desert wine and honey

We then allowed this mixture to cool and added the eggs, milk, salt and pepper.

This combination was put into a glass oven dish and put in an water bath in the oven at 400 degrees for 24 minutes.

We then removed it from the oven and allowed it to cool before chilling it in the fridge.

After letting the tart sit in the refrigerator overnight, we decided to try our creation. The first issue we encountered was how to remove the tart from the oven dish. While we thoroughly oiled the dish before baking, the tart would not simply fall out as the recipe had claimed. Thus, we attempted to loosen the tart around the edges to aid. This too failed. Finally, we cut out a section of the tart and removed it with two forks; however, it immediately crumbled and lost its shape. We then scooped out the section that had crumbled and it was finally time to taste it. As you can see in some of the pictures, the majority of the tart is comprised of the nut mixture. Our first reaction when tasting the dish was the overwhelming amount of nuts. The consistency reminded us of chewing on a handful of assorted nuts from a trail mix; however, they were moist and crushed nuts. The nut part of the dish was actually quite good and tasted like roasted nuts you might find on a street corner. The next notable aspect of this dish was the fact that the eggs and milk batter that we added to the nut mixture completely settled and separated on the bottom of the dish. This led to the bottom portion of the nut tart tasting like undercooked eggs (would have been the top if it had come out of the tin correctly. We believe that the original intention was for the milk and eggs batter to mix more with the nut mixture. 

While the final product was not one that we would recommend, we believe that a true Roman chef could have prepared this dish in an entirely different way that may have led to a more edible tart. For any future chef who might attempt to make this dish we would recommend trying to find sheep’s milk along with halving the recipe or using a much larger baking tin.

Build Your Own Acta: 

• Find a piece of media/pop culture that references or is inspired by Rome
• Write A 300-500 word reflection/summary on it and how well it represents Rome 

After completing my first two Acta I was at a loss for what to do next and I was looking around my room I realized I had just the thing. The first thing people tend to notice when they walk into my room is my absolutely ridiculous collection of Percy Jackson books. With the TV starting production and being a self-proclaimed expert myself, I decided to create my own Acta. 

So unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 20 or so years, you’re likely familiar with the premise of the series but basically, they are about greek and roman demigod children set in the modern-day who save the world from various power-hungry gods/titans. (Fun fact that really has nothing to do with Rome but I wanted to include: these books started as a way for Rick to make his children feel better about having learning disabilities and it created a whole generation of mythology obsessed, reading loving, burnt-out gifted children)

Now that you’re caught up, the second series Rick writes adds in Roman gods and practices.   It’s clear that these books were made for children and focus more on Roman mythology rather than Roman history. This being said, one of the things I enjoy most about these books is how they set up just how different Rome and Greece were. While the greeks were not as care-free pure summer camp as camp-half blood was, they still made sure to emphasize Roman values in their comparison. The Roman camp, Camp Jupiter, was very strict. Everyone had to be very loyal and dutiful in comparison to the Greek camp. Additionally, I enjoyed the conversations about the differences in fighting styles. They made it clear that when it came to using swords Greeks sliced and Roman stabbed their opponets. Rick also educates the reader on common formations that were used in battle in Rome, which largely contributed to their success. 

Ultimately the best things these books do is get kids interested in the classics. I took two Latin courses because of these books and I was by no means the only one. While I did not stick with Latin, I learned more in those classes about language and culture than i did in the five years I have taken French. These books are a wonderful way to get children into history as a whole. Once they read one of these books, the more outside knowledge they will want to acquire. I also know that I felt significantly more prepared in my Latin courses because of the things I learned from these books. Also I felt like what I learned in class only made me enjoy the books more. They may not be the most accurate, but I believe that they do what they are meant to do, and that is to expose kids to the classics in a fun way, and maybe even get children who are not into reading to enjoy it.

For this Acta, I decided to watch a History channel documentary on the Colosseum and other amphitheaters in Rome. While these amphitheaters were referenced in class, we never took an in depth look at how these amphitheaters were made and what went into them. These are some of the most well thought out structures in Rome and hosted many public events including gladiator fights. One of the characteristics that really stood out to me regarding these amphitheaters, and more specifically the Colosseum, is their versatility. For example, the Colosseum used to be flooded with water in order to reenact naval fights. Not only is this incredibly difficult to do given the technological limitations of the Republic, but it is an almost unheard practice in today’s day in age. It was very surprising to me to learn about this as it seems to be a practice that is unique to the Roman empire and their traditions relating to public events.

It was also interesting to learn about the Lunas Magnus, a school-like structure that served as a training ground and holding area for gladiators awaiting fighting. While most gladiators were unfree slaves, this school was often compared to that of a prison with a focus on training. Gladiators carried out all their daily activities in the Lunas Magnus and often lived in subpar living quarters which were often small, poorly kept, and tightly packed together. When gladiators were called upon to fight in the Colosseum for the city to watch, they would use an underground tunnel that provided a passageway for gladiators to access the arena directly from the Lunas Magnus. Something interesting I found about these fights is that they often used to be advertised as Cena Missione which meant “without release”. This was often used as a nice way to say fight to death to be advertised across the city. However, these fights to the death did not come without serious consequence to the gladiator’s owner. Often, if a gladiator was killed participating in gladiatorial games, the owner was to be compensated one thousand times the gladiator’s value. This often prohibited these fights to the death. 

Finally, I found it very interesting that there have been many structures similar to the colosseum found across the ancient Roman territory. There are many amphitheaters that were used for similar purposes. Many of these structures found originally buried are in much better condition than the colosseum and their layouts and history can still be experienced today. 

For this Acta, I decided to watch the movie Gladiator. I thought this was fitting to watch as my previous acta focused on the Colosseum, Roman amphitheaters, and gladiatorial fights as a whole. I believe that watching this movie helped me have a better understanding of how gladiatorial fights in Rome worked, even though the movie glamorized much of what ancient Rome was like.

The movie follows Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius and his experience as Commodus, the son of emperor Marcus Aurelius, betrays his trust and kills his father in order to gain political power. The movie follows the story of Meridius as he is sent into gladiatorial practice in order to avenge the death of his family.

Given my past acta on the colosseum and gladiatorial fights in Rome, I wanted to compare and contrast what I saw and learned in the documentary and how well it is portrayed in the movie. At the beginning of the scene the movie depicts many gladiators tightly packed with their weapons in the areas below the arena. In the documentary, they mentioned that gladiators were often kept down here until their time to fight, and stage workers and staff also stayed down here during the “show”. In the movie, I believe they did a good job accurately portraying what these under passages looked like. The scene looked very similar to what you would see at the real colosseum given the building structure and architecture. When the gladiators walked out into the arena, the shape of the colosseum seemed off to me. While the scene did a good job portraying how many people the arena can actually fit, I feel like the shape of the colosseum itself was lacking. The movie depicted a very steep seating area for people that made the arena seem taller than it actually was. Furthermore, there seemed to be some sort of covering or shade towards that top of the arena that seemed unrealistic to me. However, I do believe the movie did a good job accurately portraying the decoration which included heavy marble and a lavish design. When showing the actual fight, I question the realisticness of who was fighting. It seemed as if the gladiators were fighting more important individuals as they were dressed in gold armor and had chariots. From what I understand, these gladiators usually fought each other or fought wild beasts. Finally, the movie does a good job accurately portraying the armor worn by gladiators as it often was not nevey effective and different based on where the fighting gladiator was captured from. The movie did a good job of demonstrating this through the costumes in the scene.