Romance in Ancient Rome - a Quiz

Cupid on a crab

I) St Valentine was most probably
a) a Jewish priest
b) a Roman soldier
c) a Greek freedman
d) a Byzantine emperor

II) The Lupercalia was a mid-February Roman fertility festival. Which of these was NOT a feature?
a) setting doves free
b) half-naked youths
c) goat sacrifice
d) striking people with leather thongs

III) In first century Rome, the most popular month for marriage was
a) April
b) May
c) June
d) July

14 yr old Miriam the bride

IV) Who was Cupid's mother?
a) Minerva (Athena)
b) Venus (Aphrodite)
c) Juno (Hera)
d) Helen of Troy

V) When Pliny the 'Younger' was older he married
a) a besotted 14-year-old girl
b) his niece
c) the Emperor Domitian's niece
d) Cleopatra's niece

VI) The Romans believed the best finger for a wedding ring was
a) the middle finger of the left hand
b) the middle finger of the right hand (the left was unlucky)
c) the fourth finger of the left hand (like today)
d) the fourth finger of the right hand (the left was unlucky)

VII) The legal age for a girl to marry in first century Rome was
a) 10
b) 12
c) 14
d) 16

The Sirens of Surrentum

VIII) The legal age for a girl to become betrothed (engaged) in first century Rome was
a) any age
b) not younger than 6
c) not younger than 8
d) not younger than 10 (decreed Augustus)

IX) The most common cause of death among young women in ancient Rome was
a) malaria
b) measles
c) Latin
d) childbirth

X) The word 'genuine' comes from the Latin
a) genu 'knee' - because the father took his newborn on his knee to acknowledge it was his.
b) genus 'noble birth' - because if you were of noble birth you were a genuine aristocrat.
c) gens 'family' - because only the genuine members of the family could inherit.
d) genius 'guardian spirit' - because this spirit only protected the genuine family members.

Flaccus gives Flavia a love-poem

Bonus fact: Did you know the words 'Roman' and 'Romance' are linked? Also, Roma backwards is amor!

[If you want to learn more about Roman romance, read The Roman Mysteries, especially The Sirens of Surrentum, which has kissing from the very first line. You might also want to check out a blog I wrote about Romantic Roman Artefacts. Some of the pictures in this blog are from the Roman Mysteries TV series, available on iTunesUK. Carrying on from the Roman Mysteries, the Roman Quests series set in Roman Britain launched in May 2016 with Escape from Rome.]

P.S. The answers: 1 (b); 2 (a); 3 (c); 4 (b); 5 (a); 6 (c); 7 (b); 8 (d); 9 (d); 10 (a)

Ariadne by Waterhouse

It is a beautiful summer evening on the Greek island of Naxos. We see an adolescent girl sleeping as a boat pulls away from the jetty. The girl’s hair is loose, her tunic in disarray, her cheeks flushed with heat, and she occupies only half the couch. The poppies by her head hint at drugged sleep. It is obvious that she and her boyfriend have been making love. But where is her lover? His garland is there, at the foot of the couch, but he is gone. He is in the ship that is moving out to sea, already catching the wind to sail into the sunset. Having used and abused the girl, he is now abandoning her. When she wakes she will go mad with grief, despair and rejection.

She is Ariadne, the beautiful Cretan princess who risked her life to help Theseus. Having permanently cut her family ties through devotion to the Athenian prince, she then gave herself to him: body, heart and soul. But he used her and deflowered her, and now he is abandoning her.


Poor Ariadne. Who will console her? We know that the beautiful and dangerous god of wine will soon come to her. In fact, he must already be here, just beyond the edge of the picture. We see his pet leopard prowling the foot of her bed. But the leopard is not looking at the girl. The big cat is intent on something beneath the couch. His gaze draws ours and we notice, for the first time, a sleeping female leopard, curled up at Ariadne’s feet. The male leopard eyes her with intense desire. I imagine his master, the god of wine, is just out of our picture on the left, eyeing the sleeping girl with the same intensity. When Ariadne wakes and realises her young Athenian lover has abandoned her, she will tear her hair and beat her tender breasts. What will the leopard’s divine master do? Will he immediately take the distraught girl in his arms and let her vent her rage? Or will he wait until her grief and rage are spent? Will he hold himself back until her self-inflicted scratches and bruises heal and her hair is combed again, and only then console her with love and wine?

We know from a poem of Ovid (Heroides X) that Ariadne will wake that night and see the ship in the distance by the light of the full moon. She will beat her breast and tear her hair and run back and forth over the island in a frenzy of grief. Ovid imagines the letter she might write. She begins by telling Theseus that mitius inveni quam te genus omne ferarum: ‘Every wild beast is gentler than you’. But later she confesses she is she is terrified that there are wild beasts or wild men on the island who will hurt her. She does not know what we know, that a god will find her and console her, and that they will be happy together...

...as far as any abandoned woman can be happy who finds her consolation in Dionysus, the god of wine and madness.

P.S. The Roman Mystery which comes closest in tone to this painting is The Sirens of Surrentum, a book about passion and poison in Sorrento, midsummer of AD 80. See also my blog on the Villa of Pollius Felix in Sorrento.

P.P.S. If you liked reading about Waterhouse's Ariadne, you might enjoy my blogs about some of his other treatments of figures or scenes from Greek Mythology: Circe, Orpheus, Adonis, Narcissus, Hylas and the Nymphs.

P.P.P.S. J.W.Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite was an exhibition at London's Royal Academy in 2009. It has now finished.

Vivat Minimus!

A dozen years ago, I was a Latin teacher at a small independent primary school in London. I used the Cambridge Latin Course, supplemented by my own worksheets. The Cambridge Latin Course was excellent, but suited to children older than those eight to ten, the ages of my pupils. I wish now that I'd had a course like the popular Minimus. But by the time Minimus series came out, I had left teaching to become an author. I finally got around to reading the first Minimus textbook last week... and I loved it! I emailed Barbara Bell - the creator - to compliment her, and as a result we agreed to meet for lunch in the Court Restaurant of the British Museum.

It is a lovely fluffy spring day in London. I am a little early for my appointment with Barbara so I make our reservations and then go for a walk up to Waterstones on Gower Street. In the children's book section I notice a man looking at one of my books. 'I wrote those books,' I say, 'and if you'll buy one of them, I'll sign it!'

'Thank you,' he says, smiling, 'but I think my children already have them all.'

I notice he is with a girl and a boy. Although I am not a natural saleswoman, my retail instincts kick in. 'Do you have the Roman Mysteries Travel Guide?' I ask, pulling that book off the shelf and holding it up. 'Or Trimalchio's Feast and other Mini-mysteries?' I hold up this book, too.

The girl and the boy shake their heads. In the end I sign Trimalchio's Feast to 'Tim' and Travels with Flavia Gemina to 'Alice'. That makes me very happy.

I walk to the British Museum and wait under the statue of the naked guy on the horse. I am reading Percy Jackson and The Sword of Hades, a world book day book. It's OK, but I'm not a huge fan of fantasy... I like the Groovy Greeks on the back though!

Barbara arrives exactly on time. She looks very elegant with stylishly cut hair and lavender outfit. She has to look nice; she is going to City Hall to meet the mayor Boris Johnson, and other Classicists, to talk about bringing the classics to inner city schools. Everybody knows our mayor is a Classicist. Yay! I hand her a signed first edition of The Slave-girl from Jerusalem to give to him. Why that particular book? Because it has lots about Roman oratory, and Boris loves oratory.

I give Barbara a signed first-edition of The Sirens of Surrentum because it is the most 'grown-up' and romantic. It turns out she loves Sorrento as much as I do and is going there in a few days! Here are some other things we have in common.

1. We both adore Italy and especially Sorrento
2. We both have a character named Flavia
3. We have both been to the Villa of Pollius Felix more than once
4. We both love the Latin language, and especially Virgil
5. We both have books set in Vindolanda...
(or at any rate she does now and I soon will!)

As we wait for our tuna steak to come, Barbara gives me some adorable Minimus Mini Stories, and then tells me some exciting news: the sales of Minimus textbooks have just passed 100,000!

We almost order champagne to celebrate, but then don't. Barbara needs a clear head for the mayor's important meeting!

Go Barbara! Go Boris! Go Classics in inner city schools! And Vivat Minimus! (Long live Minimus!)

For more info about the mouse that made Latin cool, go to http://www.minimus.com

And you might like to know that Minimus - I mean Barbara - always stays at the beautiful Hotel del Mare in Marina Grande. It has stunning views across the Bay of Naples to Vesuvius and is close to the Villa of Pollius Felix. I'm certainly going to stay there next time I visit Sorrento. Maybe I'll see you there!

Villa di Pollio Felice

ruins of the villa of Pollius Felix in Sorrento

Today is midsummer and I plan to devote the whole day to visiting the Villa of Pollius Felix on the Capo di Sorrento. Also known as the Villa di Pollio Felice and sometimes the Bagni della Regina Giovanna (in Italian). I dubbed it the Villa Limona when I put it in my history-mystery books for kids, The Roman Mysteries. Many experts think it was the villa of a rich Epicurean named Pollius Felix, mentioned by Statius in several of his poems (e.g. Silvae 2.2) In another blog post I tell how I first discovered this magical place. 

model of the 'Villa Limona' at the George Vallet Museum

In the morning Richard and I catch the 7.20 SITA bus to Piano di Sorrento and find the Georges Vallet Museum with its superb model of the villa. We take tons of photos and sketches and translate the Italian commentary. I will use my photos of this model as a basis for a detailed plan and sketch in book 11, The Sirens of Surrentum. Richard, as usual, will work his artistic magic with my sketches and notes.

We board another SITA bus to Sorrento's Marina Piccola and are just in time to catch an 11.00 am hydrofoil to Capri. It passes right by the Villa of Pollius Felix, so more photos are snapped.

Capri is stuffed to the gills with tourists, so we have a quick (but delicious) salad in the Grand Marina and catch the 12.00 boat to the Blue Grotto. What they don't tell you is that once at the Blue Grotto it costs another eight and a half euros to get a little rowing boat to take you in. It is a great - if quick - visit, because of the queue of boats packed with people waiting their turn. The entrance to the grotto is tiny, (hence the rowing boat) and once inside the blue is luminous. Rather like the blue of an LA swimming pool lit up at night.

We are the last people aboard the 14.00pm hydrofoil back to Sorrento. I snap more photos of the ruins of Felix's villa and we're back in Sant'Agata by 16.30 for a quick dip in the lovely pool of the Hotel Delle Palme.

Richard is exhausted, but I am determined to do a kind of pilgrimage to the Villa Limona. The climax of Sirens takes place on midsummer's evening of AD 80, so what better day to make my pilgrimage than midsummer's eve 2005?

I catch the 17.55 SITA bus from Sant'Agata, disembark at Capo, and am down at the Villa of Pollius Felix by 18.30. It is great to see the ruins with the model fresh in my mind and I immediately see what I should add or change. After a good hour's wander, I sit happily on the north east corner of the foundations and read some of Pirates while eating a picnic dinner of olives, marinated white beans (a local specialty) and water. For dessert I have a juicy orange. Yum.

There are only a few other people around the villa ruins: a man down on the lower rocks, two scuba-divers in the secret cove (!) and some English women wandering through, so I feel the villa was properly mine.

Here's a spooky fact: in AD 80 there was a full moon on 21 June, midsummer's eve. Guess what? Today there is a full moon on 21 June! What are the odds?

I watch the sun set, as yellow and juicy as a lemon, and bid my beloved villa goodbye. Oh, how I would love a time machine to travel back to AD 80 and see what this villa and its owners really looked like!

Back up at the Bar del Capo I have a few minutes to spare before the last SITA bus back so I find the 'boss'. His name is Antonino. I give him a copy of Pirates in English and also one in Italian, dedicated to his three daughters. He is delighted and takes me onto the terrace to introduce me to Vincezo, a reporter for the local paper. I have to get my bus but promise to come back tomorrow for dinner at 20.00, when Vincenzo will interview me.

Pollius Felix gives a banquet at his Surrentum villa

On the bus back a huge full moon, orange as an apricot, rises over the mountains. A wonderful end to a productive day.

[The 17 books in The Roman Mysteries are perfect for children aged 9+, especially those studying Romans as a topic in Key Stage 2. Carrying on from the Roman Mysteries, the Roman Quests is a four-book series set in Roman Britain. You can watch The Roman Mysteries on Amazon Prime.]