Soon: Cleopatra

The big news was the civil war raging between Pompey and Caesar. There was a sharp cartoon about Cicero, whose indecision in the crisis was lampooned in a caption, "Otium Cum Dignitate" (inaction with dignity). There had been strange doings at the Circus Maximus: two gladiators got tangled up with the umpires and decapitated one of them. The weather forecast: "Frigidus." Such was the state of the world last week as reported in Britain's only Latin newspaper, Acta Diurna (Daily Register).

For four years and eleven issues, in lively and generally flawless Latin, the Acta has been reporting the news of ancient Rome for teachers and pupils in schools all over Britain. With a slim capital of -L-100, two Latin masters--George Maxwell Lyne, 44, of the Blackpool Grammar School and Robert Douglas Wormald, 49, of the Worcester Royal Grammar School--had started it to persuade Britons that there was really nothing very dead about Latin. Their readers seemed to agree: teachers began ordering as many as 50 and 100 copies at a time (price: sixpence apiece). Circulation hit 9,000 with the first issue.

"Britain Conquered!" Acta began by reporting the year 55 B.C. because there was plenty going on then. CLASSIS ROMANA INGENS PARATUR (BIG ROMAN ARMADA GETTING READY), Screamed its headlines. "Quando Caesar ad Britanniam navigaturus est?" (When will Caesar sail for Britain?) Three issues later, Acta bannered BRITANNIA VICTA! (BRITAIN CONQUERED'). By last week, the editors were up to 49 B.C. Gaul had been subdued. Caesar had crossed the Rubicon.

Acta's lead articles usually retell the stories of such noble correspondents as Caesar and Cicero. But like any enterprising newspaper, Acta prints a good deal more than spot news. There are such circulation boosters as Poppaedius the Sailorman, an Acrostichis Duplex (double acrostic), an Aenigma Verbale (crossword puzzle), and occasionally something that looks like an ad. ("Putabat to gam suam candidam esse!" snorts one Senator about another, in apparent anticipation of the 20th Century catch line of Britain's Persil soap powder, "I thought my shirt was white . . .")

No Solution? Last week, with circulation past the 20,000 mark, Latin letters were pouring in to Acta's office at the rate of 200 an issue. Readers from six-year-olds to greybeards had the usual complaints. Poppaedius, said one, was "sordidum, plebeium . . . indecorum," and some fretted because a puzzle solution was omitted ("Quid? Nulla solutio?").

The editors were looking ahead to fresh problems. Soon to be reported was Caesar's affair with Cleopatra. ("We'll have to handle it delicately," says Wormald.) And in five years or so there would be a corking good story about the assassination of a dictator on the ides of March, 44 B.C.

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