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Ludi Romani
The Theme
Emily says... I thought it would be perfect if we had a real Roman festival at the right time of year. After choosing the Roman theme (which would make costuming and food very easy) and once we worked out the best day for the event it turns out that that date (September 12) was the beginning of the Roman Games or Ludi Romani.
Tyler says...
I must admit that when Emily suggested the Roman theme, I was a bit non-plussed. However, as she'd given into my enthusiasm for the 1940's, and allowed me The Swingin' Fourth, I went along with the idea of the Romans. Besides, it's almost de rigeur to hold a betoga'd event at least once.
The Set-up:
This was the least stressful of any event we've held, and the one that probably received the least planning and effort. We finished setting up our decorations with two hours to spare until show-time, which is an unprecedented occurance. Further, this event only recieved three hours total of effort. That's right, three hours. Ordinarily we slave for months, you understand. That said, I think that everything turned out beautifully, and that the lack of effort was not a problem.
It was kind of ridiculous how low-maintenance this theme turned out to be. The fella who normally serves as our chef had another engagement, so I found it even more astounding that everything was ready so early, including the food! It gave us time to actually get dressed in our sheets and put on makeup before the guests arrived. The decorations were pretty standard: we draped the inside of the hall in pretty fabric to make a tent, and arranged tumbling mats, a futon mattress, and various plush chairs below it for seating.
One folly was not quite realizing that the sun sets significantly earlier in September than it does in June. As a result, our outdoor dinner at 7:30 was after dark. We remedied this with a last-minute hoard of tea-lights illuminating all along the stone counter/railing of the outdoor pavilion. After draping some pretty fabric and stapling some actual ivy to the rafters, it looked great.
The Food:
The food for the Ludi Romani is probably our most authentic to date. It was remarkably easy to come by all things Italian, and we had a number of signature dishes.
We served bread with oil and baslmic vinegar, of course, kalamata olives, grapes, figs, and dates, tuscan canteloupe (as opposed to musk-melon, which is generally what passes for canteloupe in the U.S.), tabouli, hummus, spinach-artichoke dip (very Roman), a cheese plate, and wine. As always, we also served our Fabulous Party Punch and Cream Puffs.
Also pita triangles and figs and brownies. Some of our lovely guests brought crackers and deli meat wraps, tasty homemade Greek salad, a salami and cracker tray, devilled eggs and dried apricots. It was fortunate that we got all of these Mediterranean delights at Costco the morning of the party, since we didn't pre-plan any spectacular themed dishes. We just figured on grapes and cheese and the abundance of other things was fortuitous. Oh, and there were gallons of wine.
Another little touch that took about ten minutes was to translate the food identification cards (buffet labels? what are those called?) into Latin or Pretend Latin, depending on whether our Latin dictionary had anything to say on the matter.
The Entertainments:
One small trouble with our lack of pre-planning is that we didn't have any games planned for our Roman Games which is a little bit silly. A lovely length of rope happened to come into my possession a few weeks before the event, so we would have a Tug-O-War, but aside from that we had vague ideas of wrestling, discus, and boffer that just didn't happen. It seems that the actual Ludi Romani included theater in later years, so the only game besides Tug-O-War was "two person skits kind of like charades except you talk."
Alas, we only played two official games (Tug-of-War and Not-Charades-at-All), and I'm not at all sure how well they went over. You see, Tyler was playing three unofficial games that were very Roman indeed: Drinking Wine, Orgy, and Vomitarium. Not necessarily in that order.
I was not playing these games alone, however. More than a fair quantity of guests were imbibing heavily, and although I like to drink at these functions a fair bit, my compatriots and I went perhaps a trifle far. Rather than being charmingly tipsy, we may have plumbed new depths in the cess-pit of depravity.
As you can see from some of the photos of the Ludi Romani, I ... made a new friend. Luckily, several other guests were ... renewing acquaintanceships ... on the front porch as well. Whether this was wise or not remains to be seen.
What he said. There is a fine line between just-enough-alcohol to make people willing to participate in games, and just-too-much alcohol to care about party games. We crossed the line into the domain of frat parties, I'm afraid.
Conclusions:
We had about thirty guests for this one, which wasn't bad considering that we didn't actually tell people about it until a few weeks before.
Perhaps a little more effort next time would be a good idea.
The sun does not set at 9:30 in September.
Perhaps Tyler should wait until after the games to imbibe.
Perhaps we don't need to stress out like crazy before parties for them to come together.
Perhaps a little more notice would result in more guests.
Less alcohol, but not too much less.
Many more pictures can be seen at the Ludi Romani Photobucket album!
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