#desirancientrome

[desirfictional]

hi idk if this desirdae term exists yet but tips for a desir-ancient-roman-citizen?

lucky for you i know a LOT about ancient rome because i took several years of latin (and because of the autism), so here you go:

♡ learn at least a bit of latin- if you dont want to spend a really long time learning the entire language, at least learn a couple important words/phrases. "hello" is "salve" (plural is "salvete"), "goodbye" is "vale" (plural is "valete"), "how are you" is "quid agis", "my name is (name)" is "mihi nomen est (name)". those are just a couple of basic phrases that you can learn pretty easily, and if you want to learn more, there are plenty of guides online!

♡ for more about learning latin: what i do when im trying to figure out a specific word is i translate the word into latin using google translate and then i put the word into whitaker's words (you can find the site by just googling "whitaker's words") to see what the actual definition is (since google translate is often very inaccurate). for declensions, you just google "latin declensions" and go to images or you can go to the youtube channel "hi paws" to watch his songs of all of the different declensions and verb forms and such. you can practice translations on the site magistrula.com - this is a good way to learn and memorize new words, translate sentences, memorize endings, etc.

♡ romans would often have altars to the specific gods they worshiped- the gods they worshiped would depend on family history, their profession, etc. for example, someone who was a soldier would worship ares, someone who made wine would worship dionysus, someone who hunted a lot would worship artemis, etc. pick one or two gods it would make sense to worship and make some sort of altar to them (even if its just a picture of them with a bowl in front of it). for my gay and trans people, ganymede was often a symbol of being gay, and iris and dionysus were both often symbols of gender nonconformity/being transgender.

♡ on the topic of roman religion, be sure to know a lot of roman history and mythology. you can pretty easily find translations of books like the iliad, the odyssey, and the aeneid online or on amazon, if you want to read those, or you can also just do research yourself. for roman history, i recommend madeline waehner's weekly roman history videos where she explains all of rome's history- there are 22 videos and each are around 15 minutes long, you can probably finish them in a week or two if you have the time.

♡ common roman meals included fried dormice- if you dont want to eat real dormice, you can make dormice out of jumbo marshmallows, stick pretzels, and fake edible eyes! romans also ate a LOT at dinner, and they ate while lying on their sides- you could eat in bed or on a couch (although i suggest not throwing up to make room for more food, just eat until youre full lmao)

♡ some other common foods included wine (if youre underage, just drink some sort of juice or milk), fresh fruits (such as apples, pomegranates, strawberries, pears, melons, grapes, blackberries, and dates), white bread (often with cheese), and meat (especially fish and pork). for desserts, romans often ate fresh fruits, sponge cakes, ice cream, and cheesecakes.

♡ for clothes, romans usually wore tunics- for men, tunics were traditionally short-sleeved or sleeveless and went down to their knees, and for women, tunics traditionally had sleeves and went past the knees (however, this wasnt always the case, and either gender was known to wear sleeveless or sleeved tunics that were long or short). for formal occasions, men wore togas over their tunics, and women wore a sort of cloak over a stola (which is similar to a tunic but longer and more fancy). you can pretty easily buy tunics, togas, or stolas online or make your own (since they were usually pretty simple to make). for shoes, romans were usually barefoot, or wore sandals.