salve Reader! Did you know the Roman year used to start in March? Yep! It does actually make quite a lot of sense: the land starts being alive again, sailing and long-distance trading can resume... not to speak about warfare! In fact, the month of March is dedicated to Mars, partly because that is when military campaigns resumed. Anyway, we are not going to war (at least not literally, hopefully), but I also enjoy the renewal that comes with the first signs of spring. A bit more on that...

salve Reader, What a week! Languages are very much like Schrödinger's cat: scroll through social media and one minute they are a useless subject superseded by AI, the next they are all people want to talk about. A couple of days ago, I wrote on social media (see below) about the relationship between Welsh and Latin (both are Indo-European languages), and since then, I've been dealing with a barrage of irate comments. People get very angry when they think their linguistic beliefs are being...

salve Reader! Many students get a surprise result in January. Perhaps your mocks didn't go as expected, or perhaps your efforts have paid off with an Oxford offer (sorry if you applied to Cambridge: there are still 8 days to go!). Janus, god of transitions, doorways and January I see both sides of this January coin. One day, I receive an email from a student with an offer to read Classics at Jesus College (btw, well done if you are reading!), the next I get a call from a parent who did not...