Last week students all round the country took part in the Certamen In Concordiam Europae Regonmque Orbis (CICERO) classics competition
The CICERO concordia competition is an annual competition in Latin and Classical Cultural for sixth form (or equivalent) students. The London event was hosted by Harrow Boys School and 13 students took part from three different schools. Pastries and coffee were generously provided by Harrow.
The competition was divided into three parts. The first part was an incredibly challenging Latin translation (dictionaries were allowed). The candidates had no prior knowledge of what would be on the paper and one candidate said that she ‘was just happy to finish the paper’.
The Latin translation was followed by an extremely difficult team challenge. The questions on the paper covered all aspects of the classical world with esoteric questions, again teams weren’t expected to get every single question right!
The final part of the competition was the cultural paper. This was the only part of the competition candidates were expected to prepare for. The theme for the 2019 competition was mythological animals. The paper covered 20 key mythological animals, some famous (like the Nemean Lion) and some less famous (the Hippalectryon). The paper tested candidates on their knowledge of the myths of each of the 20 animals and then asked an open ended essay question that invited candidates to think outside the box and to argue and justify their viewpoint.
The day was incredibly rewarding, one candidate described the day as ‘incredibly difficult but incredibly fun’ and said the best part of the day was ‘meeting other students who like classics as much as I do’.
The CICERO concordia competition is a global competition and more rounds are going to take place in different countries during the year!
