Happy Birthday Rome!

Today is the traditional observed 2763rd anniversary of the founding of Rome!

2763 AUC!

For more on the fellow who worked out the date, see this.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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12 Comments

  1. Random Friar says:

    Ad multos annos! (Wait… did they speak Etruscan or Italic or Latin or what then…)

  2. eulogos says:

    ab urbe condita ..is that right?

    Remembered from Latin class, which I was last in in the 1967-68 school year!

    Last time I proudly remembered something in Latin, in Oratory summer school, my contribution was rejected, with the comment ” Well, can anyone say it in Church Latin?” Hey, I can’t help it, I went to a public school, where we said Weni Widi Wiki instead of Veni Vidi Vichi .

    Another time, the big shot head of our part of Social Security Disability, sent out an email memo saying that no copies of a new form were available yet. The second part of the memo was a line in Latin. (which I no longer remember exactly) but I worked it out and it said “What he does not have he cannot give.” I sent it back and this got me past his secretary to an exchange of several emails, which certainly made me feel important. He wrote that it is something from Aquinas. This also made me feel better about being a bureaucrat, if we had people who read Aquinas in the upper ranks.

    Now I will go read about the founding of the city.
    Susan Peterson

  3. Tom in NY says:

    Estne anno MMDCCLXIII AUC?

    Salutationes urbi Romae.

  4. Roland de Chanson says:

    Elogos — you are quite correct — it is weni, widi, wiki. Also, if the Good Lord had spoken Latin to the masses of assembled Jews (so, vot’s the point?) he would have said, Pater noster, qui es in kigh-lees, sanctifi-kaytur nomen tuum. Adweniat reg-num tuum, fiat woluntas tua, sicut in kigh-lo et in terra.

    We used to conjugate the verb facio as fa-kio, fa-kis fa-kit, with a scurrilously short a, nearly a schwa in the first syllable. The jebby high school used to conjugate the verb scio as sheeo, shees, skeet. Not only is this barbaric in the first two persons but it does violence to the vowel quantity. Not to mention the jesuitical hypocrisy the ineluctably scatological third person.

    I have never trusted the Jesuits. Pater Arrupe. te obsecro. noli orare pro me. Nec nunc nec in saecula saeculorum.

    Roma aeterna, diem natalem fictum felicissimum tibi exopto. Vivas in perpetuum. Scilicet adhuc ades. Quidni iam in posterum?

  5. Mariana says:

    As a Lutheran I was taught, and insisted on, Cicero beeing Keekero, but since my conversion I have relaxed into Cheechero : ) !

  6. Ed the Roman says:

    An old friend of mine told me of being at the Maryknoll seminary. At a dinner at the end of an academic year or something, they decided to needle the master of the refectory (which food was appalling) so they gave a speech lauding his theological sophistication and predicting a bishops hat for him someday, re-emphasizing that “he knows the faith.” They had prepared a mock-up of his arms for him, with motto: Fidem Scit.

    He didn’t care for the joke much.

  7. Ed the Roman says:

    And Roland, you should take prayers from ANYONE. It’s not like God would give a defective answer.

  8. Tom in NY says:

    Ad Orlandum cantus: Litteras latinas (et graecas) in schola et universitate (nomine collegio) cum patribus SI studivi. Magistri laici et cleri locutione eiusdemmodi cum RP Moderatore locuti sunt.

    Cogitandum ante scribendum est.

    Salutationes omnibus.

  9. irishgirl says:

    Happy ‘Birthday’, Eternal Roma!

    [sorry, I don’t know how to say it in Latin : ) ]

  10. patrick_f says:

    I watched “Quo Vadis” in anticipatory honor

    (though in fairness, there are many things historically WRONG with the story :P )

  11. Dr. Eric says:

    Roland, soon you’ll be telling the Greeks that they are pronouncing tau wrong by pronouncing it “tauf.”

  12. Roland de Chanson says:

    Dr. Eric: soon you’ll be telling the Greeks that they are pronouncing tau wrong by pronouncing it “tauf.”

    If they pronounce Attic or Ionic Greek like that, they are wrong. My Greek Greek prof would have told them so even if I would courteously forbear to.

    Tom in NY,

    The jebbies today do (I am told) use the reconstructed pronunciation. In my day they did not. Hence my comment.

    Cogito semper antequam scribo; ego tamen tibi de tuo consilio sequendo gratulor

    Ed the Roman,

    It’s not the defective answer I fear, but the defective prayer. I’ll take Igatius’ prayer, Arrupe’s not so much.

    Mariana, … I have relaxed into Cheechero

    Romae fiat Romane! And there is no better companion to relax the mind than Cicero – especially his letters.

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