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Title screen of Brutus Cannot Sleep, a Ides of March Latin escape room

Ides of March · Latin III

Brutus Cannot Sleep

A Ides of March Latin escape room for Latin III

Works with: Cambridge Latin Course, Book 3, Stages 21–34

The night before the Ides of March. Brutus cannot sleep: strangers have been throwing letters into his house, and tomorrow he must decide whether to strike. Solve seven puzzles to reach the dawn.

Play the free taster (2 of 7 locks)Members: full room

The taster runs in the browser, with nothing to install. Members share a private class link that opens all seven locks. Sound adds to the atmosphere.

What's inside

  • 7 self-grading locks, all in Latin
  • Vocabulary from Cambridge Latin Course Books 1–3 (to Stage 34)
  • Grammar: imperfect and pluperfect subjunctive after cum
  • Macrons never needed
  • Takes about one lesson
Illustration from the picture-count lock of Brutus Cannot Sleep

For teachers

Each of the seven locks practises something different:

  1. Crossword — plots, Rome and the night, in Latin from Book 3.
  2. Anagrams — unscramble seven words from a sleepless night.
  3. Cipher — decode a message in Latin, then answer the riddle it asks.
  4. Matching — two verbs, dormiō ("sleep") and legō ("read"), in the subjunctive after cum: imperfect and pluperfect.
  5. Picture Count — reassemble Brutus' room, then count what you see.
  6. Odd One Out — find the word that doesn't belong in each row to build the story, then answer questions about it.
  7. Final Rebus — one clue from every lock. Their first letters spell the final word.

Most classes take about 50 minutes. Students can work alone, in pairs or in small teams on any device with a browser, or you can project the room and solve it together as a class. Every answer checks itself, so you are free to circulate, and progress is saved in the browser, so a room can be split across two lessons.

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