by Sarah Michelson

Created on: March 08, 2009

"Who was the father of-" Buzz. Twelve students press their buzzers instantly at the word father. The first one is called. "Zeus," He says triumphantly.

Certamen is a latin quiz bowl game, and an essential part of the high school Latin experience. The name comes from the Latin word meaning "struggle". The game originated in Virginia, and is now featured in most high schools with Latin programs, as well as almost all Junior Classical League, or Latin club, conventions, including the annual national convention.

Certamen itself is a fairly simple game. Some teachers have buzzer systems, but those can be expensive. The most tried and true method is desk slapping, in which the student knowing the answer slaps their desk and raises their hand. Students divide into teams of three to four, with up to four teams. Each round consists of twenty toss up questions, which can be answered by any player, and forty bonuses, which can be answered by the team that gets their asssociated toss up. Each toss up question has two bonuses associated with it. Toss ups are worth ten points, and must be answered individually, or the team is disqualified, and bonuses are worth five each, but the teams can discuss them. Each team can only answer once per toss up question in official rounds, but in in-class rounds the rules are much more relaxed.

In state and national rounds, the Aurelia passage is read prior to the round, in order to give the players a feel for their proctor's pronounciation. The Aurelia passage is a short tale of a woman named Aurelia who goes to visit her family in Egypt, and then her horse runs away. While the passage is fairly inane, proper interpretation of pronunciation is key to understanding the proctor's reading of Latin questions.

The associated knowledge, however, can range to the fairly commonplace to the ridiculously obscure. Successful competitive certamen teams learn ridiculous amounts of facts about the Latin language, Roman history and culture, Greek and Roman myths, Latin and Greek state and university mottoes, and even the occassional pop culture reference. Questions can vary immensely, from the silly "Roman Cinema" questions, in which the titles of popular movies are translated into Latin, to immensely technical questions based off of long passages. Students sometimes will be told to walk around desks, rub their stomachs and pat their heads, or croak like a "rhenus", or frog. Certamen players rely on their ability to predict what the question will be in order to be the first one to answer. Generally, if the question involves fatherhood, Zeus is the dad.

Though Certamen is a fairly academic activity, it is insanely fun, and you never know when knowledge of random Roman facts may come in handy. Just think, in a few years, one of the nerds you met at convention may invent a time machine!

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