Latin in Harry Potter

The Harry Potter series of books is one I have read through once or twice, and only recently have I discovered the Latin hidden throughout the book. The Latin can best by looking to the many spells in the book, most influenced by Latin. A good example would be the spell Crucio, a spell used to torture an opponent. The word comes from Latin, meaning literally, "I torture." Crucio isn't the only spell though, as a more complex example would be priori incantatem, a spell used to reverse the effects of other spells. The words come from Latin a priori, from the earlier, and incatare, sing or recite in reference to a spell. For someone fluent in Latin, Harry Potter becomes a much more interesting book.

The roman empire but with light sabers

Alec Rusten
10/28/18

In the extremely popular sci-fi series, star wars, the entire timelines  of all six movies follow and are inspired by the events that occurred in ancient Rome. I'm going to focus on the senate in starwars seen in the sixth movie released, Starwars Episode III, Revenge of the Sith. In the first hour of this movie there is a scene where there are multiple different senators, all from different planets or races that are debating who the next chancellor should be, all the senators were at a power struggle and wanted to be the next chancellor, and the current chancellor had corrupt plans for the future. In Ancient Rome there weren't exactly representatives from different races or planets, but there was a power struggle and the republic was slowly falling apart at the seams. This is when Augustus Caesar deemed himself emperor and turned Rome into an empire, thus fixing many problems that a republic couldn't handle. In starwars the Chancellor did the same thing, being a little more sinister and corrupt while executing this order, but swiftly turned the Republic trade federation into a galactic empire.

Coins in Rome and America

Roman culture is still prevalent in today's society, as can be seen in American coins. In Roman culture, they portrayed people of political importance on their coins. People such as Marcus Aurelius, an emperor of Rome, were portrayed on Roman currency. Having people of political importance on the Roman currency was a reminder to the Roman people of who was in control and those who made their society what it is. In modern society, people such as Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson are shown on American Currency. As much of the economic and political American system is based on the Romans, it is no surprise that our currency is based on the same as the Romans. Considering the greatness of the Roman Empire, it is not surprising that America takes aspects of Roman government, like the coin, and applies them to current society.     

Sophie Kate Guillory