Participants: Sibylla Ambrosia Fulvia
Aulus Iulius Paterculus
Publius Sextius Laevus
Numerius Octavius Astronomus
Marcus Claudius Pupienus Maximus
The first portion of this meeting was occupied with provincial business.
Sibylla, who had been close to cancelling MithraCon due to lack of confirmed attendees, stated that the event could be financially viable if we could sign up six paying attendees by the Ides of March, in addition to Sibylla and M. Quintius Clavus. We discussed possible weekends for this gathering and agreed to send messages to Discord and the Main List to interest people.
M. Claudius stated that he lived in New Hampshire, four hours from New Haven. He also introduced himself, sharing his brief biography.
We moved onto the provincial requirements and how we could ensure Nova Britannia met them. The two big issues were required message volume on the forum (15 per month by at least 5 citizens) and in-person meetings (at least two per year with at least five resident citizens in attendance). We all agree to post more and Sibylla stated that she would ask Quintius to ask members of Legio III whether some of them would be willing to become nominal members of Nova Roma so that a higher proportion of events could reach the threshold number of local citizens.
We then talked a little about food - Sibylla was snacking on a horse-shaped gingerbread cookie, and Astronomus gave a positive review to the tahini halva I'd brought for Saturnalia.
There was a conversation about numismatics, which was a particular topic of interest for Claudius. Claudius said that Roman coins continued in circulation into the Middle Ages. Sibylla mentioned imitation of Roman coins, sometimes creating a "Xerox effect" Claudius also mentioned that he knew someone who found a hoard from the crisis of the third century. Astronomus commented that coins "very fingerprint of the government that made them."
Then we made plans for presentations for the year: Claudius agreed to present on numismatics in March, Astronomus on astronomy in June or July, Sibylla on spices, and I on Roman medicine on unspecified dates.
