On July 15, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opens in movie theaters. To help all HP fans get in the mood, here's my list of the Latin spells used in it: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Latin Spells and Charms.

You may also wish to see About.com's movie Guide's photos of Harry et al.: "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" Movie Photo Gallery

Update: 07/11/09: I received the following email about one of the spells. What do you think?

I have read your article on the spells in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

And I have a possible origin for you.

Alohomora - Hawaiian "aloha" meaning "goodbye" and Latin "mora" meaning "obstacle".

Hope that helps.

On this day in ancient Rome, in A.D. 138, the third of the 5 so-called good emperors, Hadrian, died. The name of Hadrian is familiar for the wall he built and places named for him, with or without the initial "H". Hadrian was followed by Antoninus Pius, who had Hadrian deified. Just as his deification was pushed, so his accession may have been. It is claimed Trajan, his adoptive father, had not wanted Hadrian to succeed him, but was thwarted by his wife, Plotina, who covered up her husband's death until she could make sure of Hadrian's acceptance by the senate.

More on Hadrian.

Hadrian photo © Clipart.com

Ancient Epic, by Katherine Callen King, is part of Wiley-Blackwell's Introductions to the Classical World, along with Nancy Sorokin Rabinowitz' Greek Tragedy, reviewed here in 2008. The series tackles enormous topics in volumes of only around 200 pages. Both of these writers cover the major issues and then delve deeply into their specific areas of expertise with excitement and insight. The result of reading these is to challenge your base knowledge, if you already have it, or provide you with what you need to know, if you don't.

On to Ancient Epic.... Read more...

The site of Aristotle's Lyceum (and before that, a meeting place for the Athenian Assembly) will be opening to the public late this month, according to an ANA article quoted by the Rogue Classicist in Lyceum Opening Next Month. Also according to the article, the location of the Lyceum (named for a sanctuary of Apollo Lycaeus - the Wolf god Apollo) was only found in 1996, during excavations for a museum. It had been razed by Sulla in 86 B.C.

The Sword of Damocles "Het zwaard van Damocles", 1539 by Francesco Xanto Avelli, at the Museum Boymans van Beuningen, in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
CC Flickr User Artshooter

Wordless Wednesday and About.com's Wordless Wednesday

While the Ludi Apollinares continued, this day in ancient Rome also celebrated the Nonae Caprotinae -- Nonae because July is one of the months when the nones fell on the 7th instead of the 5th and Caprotinae because of some ancient connection to goats. Probably. Read more...

I wrote a very basic article on Differences in Gender Between Latin and English and said: "In English our nouns don't have genders, on the whole.... Exceptionally, when we refer to a ship as a she, we are assigning to it a gender, and, incidentally, the same gender the Romans assigned, feminine."

In response to my request for corrections, a reader sent the following: Read more...

These games were in honor of Apollo. While originally they were held in connection with the Punic Wars, they were later made permanent following a plague outbreak. Apollo was a god of plague, among other things. The Ludi Apollinares included theatrical entertainment and games in the arena.

See This Day in Ancient History.

On this day in ancient history, the Romans celebrated the Poplifugia ("flight of the people"), an obscure festival that may have honored the flight of the Romans following the death of Romulus. Scholars note that the Poplifugia is the only primitive festival assigned to the period between the Kalends and Nones.

As Princeton University Press' press release says, 428 AD: An Ordinary Year at the End of the Roman Empire, by Giusto Traina, is "a sweeping tour of the Mediterranean world from the Atlantic to Persia" in which the reader meets several important figures of the last half-century of the Roman Empire in the West. Read more...