Welcome back to another essay, folks! I hope y’all are doing fantastic and none of y’all are dying or anything terrible like that. Anyway, let’s get this party started by asking our weekly questions: Who are these people, why did their parents give them such terrible names, and how do you pronounce their names? Well, Catiline was born to one of the oldest patrician families in Rome. His parents were Lucius Sergius Silus and Belliena. We’ll just call them Silas and Bell. Sound reasonable enough. I guess we’ll let those names be for now. So our next question is why did his parents give him such a horrific name? I guess they just couldn’t help if. I mean, c’mon man! Look at their names! They had to spell that IN ANCIENT GREEK!!! Here’s the Greek Alphabet:
Imagine learning that. I actually have a friend who learned the whole thing just for fun. Shoutout to her! Sammie, you’re a wonderful person and an awesome friend! Anyway, back to the essay. Our next question is how do you pronounce his name? It’s like Madeline, as in the little books about Madeline in Paris. But instead of Madeline, it’s Catiline. Make sense? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Don’t feel bad, I barely understand it myself and I wrote it.
Look at that! We’re done with Catiline BUT we still have his buddy, Cicero. The three questions we must ask ourselves are who is he, why did his parents give him the name they did and how do you pronounce his name? Okay, he was was a Roman statesman, lawyer, and scholar. His parent’s names were Marcus and Helvia. That’s not bad at all. I actually kind of like the look of Helvia. It looks like Hestia, who is among my top three Greek goddesses. Hestia is actually really cool. She’s like that peacemaker of the Olympian family, not that most families try to kill each other every other century and I’m pretty sure that the dads of most most families don’t hang the moms upside down over Tartarus. But I might be missing something. Anyway, Hestia is the keeper of the hearth which means she takes care of the fire. The Olympians didn’t have heating so instead they made this big firepit in the middle of their living room and that was were Hestia spent most of her time. It was kind of like the Time Out in Tag. The gods could go there if they wanted to dry their socks, roast marshmellows or just stopped getting chased by their family. So there’s a little bit of Greek History for you. Learn it well, my children. Okay, dearie. Back to the essay. You know what? I guess his parents were okay. I like his mom’s name, as I said before. But I still don’t know why they named him Cicero. I’m sure the poor kid was called Sissy all his life. His name is pronounced exactly like it sounds.
Anyway, what happened between Catiline and Cicero is this. ” The two men clashed after Cicero uncovered a plot, a plot conceived by Catiline, that called for the assassination of several elected officials and the burning of the city itself. The purpose of this supposed assault on the city, or so it was later revealed, would be the elimination of debt for all — the poor as well as the wealthy (Catiline included).” So there you go.
Have a great day and God bless you. Bye.
Reflections of a Fern 