Pankaj K. Agarwalla ’04 knows what the Roman poet Catullus meant when he wrote, “Amat victoria curam,” or “Victory loves diligence.”

Agarwalla, known on campus as “PK,” earned highest honors from the Classics department and was selected from among ten candidates to deliver the Latin oration today at Harvard’s 353rd Commencement—a testament to his hard work and love of Classical antiquity, according to teachers and friends.

A self-proclaimed Hellenist who studied both ancient Greek and Latin in college, Agarwalla will wax poetic about the social and intellectual development of the average Harvard student in a speech titled “De Hominis Harvardiensis Decursu,” which means “On the Evolution of the Harvard Student.”

Unlike the somber stuff of Cicero, ancient Rome’s most famous orator, Agarwalla says his speech is lighthearted.

“It’s a mockery of hominid evolution,” he says. “I go through each year and make jokes about each type of student.”

Michael B. Sullivan, a resident tutor in the Classics at Dunster House who advised Agarwalla on his grammar and syntax, says the speech is unique because it combines “scientific and humanistic points of view.”

“This is an oration that should appeal to chemists and classicists alike—provided the chemists have a translation, of course,” Sullivan says.

The Latin oration is a hallowed tradition that dates back to the first Commencement ceremony at Harvard in 1642.

In preparation for the 5-minute oration, which will be delivered from memory, Agarwalla has had speech lessons at the American Repertory Theater and can be found on certain afternoons rehearsing at Memorial Church.

“I’m really working on the gestures,” he says. “It’s pretty cool. I feel almost like Cicero. I have a cap. I have a gown. It’s kind of like a toga.”

THE MAN BEHIND THE TOGA

Raised in Washington, D.C., Agarwalla, whose parents are from Northern India, started learning Latin in seventh grade.

He says he first became excited about promoting the Classics while serving as the national vice president of the Junior Classical League (JCL), an organization of junior and senior high school students interested in Latin and Greek.

Agarwalla transferred from Cornell, where he began his study of Greek, after his freshman year.

Even though he has taken six more years of Latin than Greek, he admits, “Greek is my big thing.” For his thesis, “Through the Lens of Epinician,” Agarwalla wrote about foil in victory songs by Pindar and Bacchylides.