The spring 2026 semester was very enriching and exciting for our new “JHU Classics Club.” This semester, the club was run by department funding, and the student leadership team hopes to apply for Registered Student Organization (RSO) status in the fall 2026 semester. Classics Club’s founder, undergraduate junior Amanda Butler, organized a leadership application form, and club elections to establish the leadership team consisting of herself, John Alice, Virakha Peter, and Arjun Rao. The leadership team met weekly to discuss event ideas, planning, and budgeting, starting on February 10th. The leadership team began by outlining a set of events that the club would pursue for the semester, based on responses to an interest form sent out to all majors/minors in the department. As treasurer, Arjun established a budget proposal, which we submitted to the Classics department as a request for funding. We also established a protocol for communicating with club members via GroupMe, instagram and emails from an external Gmail account.
Our first event of the spring 2026 semester was a Lupercalia celebration, on February 28th. Lupercalia is an ancient Roman pastoral festival, which functioned largely as a fertility ritual. The Classics Department’s own Dr. Roller gave a guest lecture about the history of Lupercalia as a Roman holiday to ground our celebration in real classical traditions, connect to our academic work as classicists, and help position JHU Classics Club as academically engaged. Our ten (10) attendees at this event were able to learn about the ancient Roman calendar and the quirky rites of Lupercalia. In order to appropriately pseudo-celebrate Lupercalia for ourselves, we organized a few activities meant to mimic some of the ancient rites, including a relay race around Keyser Quadrangle–to feign the “race” that the Lupercalii would run around the Palatine hill, a goat pinata to mimic a “sacrifice,” and we served mini sheet cakes meant to symbolize the cakes offered to the Vestal virgins. Additionally, at this event, we organized a “Latin Conversation Table,” in which students learned how to introduce themselves and a partner in spoken Latin.
In March, Classics Club hosted a movie screening of “Frogs” by Aristophanes. “Iuvenalis Pictures” recorded the play entirely in Ancient Greek, making it the world’s first film in Ancient Greek. We watched it with English subtitles. Our nine (9) event attendees agreed that this was a fun and silly film and that it was intellectually engaging to listen to spoken Ancient Greek and see this ancient comedy play out on a modern screen. We served popcorn, soda, and sparkling water.
Unfortunately, the true Ides of March (March 15th), was during JHU’s spring break this year, so we celebrated the Ides of March after spring break, on March 29th. A JHU Classics Alumna, Madeline Grabarczyk, who spoke about History of Ides of March and the cultural significance of Julius Caesar and his assasination. We then played ancient Roman-themed Jeopardy–Team Brutus against Team Antony–curated by Virankha. Virankha and Amanda also each recited monologues from William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Our eleven (11) event attendees also competed in “pin the knife on Caesar.” Students designed their own “knife” (or, in one case, a ninja star) using shiny paper and tried to pin it blindfolded and dizzy on a cardboard cutout of Caesar. Seoyeong was awarded a laurel crown for being the closest to Caesar–she managed to get a thumbtack through his knee!
Moving ahead to April, Classics Club hosted an ancient Roman cooking night on April 11th. This event was a great success! We pulled ancient recipes, mostly written by Cato, from “Ancient Roman Cooking” by Marco Gavio De Rubeis in order to curate a meal. Our ten (10) attendees were divided into teams to work together preparing a meal. Because we needed to ensure that there would be enough food for everyone, we limited our sign ups for this event to 10 people. Students agreed that ancient Roman food was much yummier than expected. We prepared and enjoyed spiced beef, polenta with barley, cucumber dressed with honey and garum, and a traditional Roman layered honey and ricotta cake. We were able to host this event in the kitchen in Wolman Hall, one of the freshman dormitory buildings.
A week later, Classics Club hosted our second book club event (we also had a book club in the fall 2025 semester for The Secret History by Donna Tartt) for The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. Virankha Peter spoke about Miller’s story in writing the book, how the story is grounded in true classics research, and how the novel was received both by society and the classical academic world. Our five (5) event attendees engaged in discussion about classical reception and enjoyed some pizzas catered by Jay’s.
To round out the semester, Classics Club hosted a Floralia celebration on May 2nd. Floralia is an ancient Roman holiday in honor of the goddess Flora. Our six (6) event attendees walked from Gilman Hall to Sherwood gardens to celebrate amidst the spring flowers there. In Roman times, games were instituted for the founding day of the temple, and hares and goats (animals considered salacious and fertile) were ceremonially released as part of the festivities. In order to mimic these in our celebration, we hosted a scavenger hunt to find three stuffed bunnies hidden around Sherwood gardens. Students were encouraged to wear bright colors for the event to foster a lively, springtime atmosphere. Classics Department’s Dr. Pandey joined us for the event and presented a passage from a Vergil poem and Ovid’s Fasti. Led by Arjun, we also folded origami flowers, adding to the floral theme of the celebration.
All of Classics Club’s events this semester have been successful both in fostering fellowship and community among Classics department students and students interested in Classics, and in informally educating students about ancient holidays, history, and cultural significance. The student leadership team worked closely with department faculty to coordinate ordering materials for events, requesting to reserve Gilman 108 as a space for events, and club funding and budget, as well as vision for the club in future years. The club leadership team remains immensely grateful for all department support.
Authored by Amanda Butler, Founder and President, JHU Classics Club (Spring 2026)
Johns Hopkins University, Class of 2027: Electrical Engineering & Classics Majors