Fun with First Lines

illustration by Linzie Hunter

Some people collect stamps, Star Wars action figures or ceramic pigs. 

I collect first lines. 

I love to go into a bookshop or library and pick a book off the shelf and open it up to check the first line. 

Here is one of my favourites: 

In the beginning was the Word and the word was with God, and the word was God. 

You might think it is from John’s Gospel in the New Testament portion of the Bible, but it’s also the first line of Umberto Eco’s book The Name of the Rose, now being televised on the BBC. 

Here’s another of my best first lines. One of the oldest, too. 

Sing goddess, the wrath of Achilles... 

It’s the first line of Homer’s epic Greek poem The Iliad. 

I also love Virgil’s riff on it, the first line of his Aeneid, an epic poem in Latin. 

I sing of arms and the man... 

How about this one?

Call me Ishmael. 

That is one of the most famous first lines in the world. It’s from Moby Dick by Herman Melville. But did you know that Kurt Vonnegut begins his book Cat’s Cradle with this first line? 

Call me Jonah.

Can you see the point I’m making? Good first lines can be begged, borrowed and adapted. 

Another of my fave first lines is from the Anthony Horowitz’s Stormbreaker. 

When the doorbell rings at three in the morning it’s never good news. 

That first line inspired the opening of my book Escape from Rome. 

The Emperor’s men came at midnight. 

But I don’t think Anthony Horowitz will sue me. All writers gain inspiration from one another and in fact it’s a kind of tribute when you use a famous first line as inspiration. 

I’m a writer-in-residence at the junior division of Kings College School Wimbledon this week. Hopefully we’ll have time to play a fun game I call Dr Frankenstein’s First Lines.

This is one of over a hundred tricks and tips I include in my new book How to Write a Great Story. The principle is pretty obvious. You take a fave first line (or two) chop them up and stitch them together, a bit like Dr Frankenstein does with his monster. 

I’ve used it in schools and it’s proved really fun and inspirational. Here are a few great first lines we have played with. 

Sophie had waited all her life to be kidnapped.

(from The School of Good and Evil by Soman Chainani)

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. 

(from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett)

The Iron Man came to the top of the cliff. 

(from The Iron Man by Ted Hughes)

And finally, here is a first line I actually didn’t nick from anybody else but am proud of because I use it to tell you the hero, the genre and the setting. And I did all that in the first line! 

Flavia Gemina solved her first mystery on the Ides of June in the tenth year of the emperor Vespasian.

(from The Thieves of Ostia by Caroline Lawrence)

Feel free to play with it and have fun. 

Happy Writing! (And chopping…)

The Naples Tunnel

So-called crypta Neapolitana of Seneca

by Caroline Lawrence

Traveling from the Roman resort of Baiae to Naples one day nearly 2000 years ago, the Stoic philosopher Seneca decided to take the land route instead of the short but choppy sea voyage. Part of the road took a shortcut through a mountain by means of the famous Naples Tunnel. But the Crypta Neapolitana turned out to be almost worse than a sea voyage, a virtual ‘visit to death’. In one of his famous Letters to Lucilius, Seneca describes his harrowing journey.

bronze portrait thought by some to depict Seneca

When I had to return from Baiae to Naples, I convinced myself there might be a storm so I wouldn't have to endure another sea voyage. But the road was so waterlogged that I might as well have gone by ship. Anointed with the mud of the road and then dusted in the Naples Tunnel, I felt like a wrestler. Nothing could be longer than that prison, nothing gloomier than the torches that enabled us to see not through the darkness but rather the darkness itself. Had the place any other light sources it would still be clouded by dust which even in the open air is heavy and annoying. How much more so in that tunnel where the dust swirls back on itself. Shut up without any ventilation, it blows into the faces of those who stir it up. In this way we simultaneously endured two opposing inconveniences: on the same road, on the same day we battled both mud and dust. (Letter to Lucilius 57.1-2)

Emerging from the gloom into daylight restored Seneca to his usual good spirits, but thinking about the claustrophobic darkness of the tunnel afterwards prompted him to write about the nature of death and the immortality of the soul. 

Mergellina station seen from Tomb of Virgil

Seneca’s tunnel was in constant use up until about a century ago, when the middle of the tunnel collapsed, but you can still see both ends. The eastern (Neapolitan) entrance is found near the so-called Tomb of Virgil in the Parco Vergiliano a Piedgrotta. Located near Mergellina train station (only a half hour’s walk from Castel dell’Ovo) this Parco Vergiliano (with an e) is not to be confused with the large Parco Virgiliano (with an i) four miles southwest. In 2013 it barely appeared on Google maps but now you can easily locate it by typing in the words Parco Vergiliano a Piedigrotta. It is behind the Church of the Madonna of Piedigrotta and easily reached by taxi or by train to Mergellina. 

Hand-made tile plaque about myrtle at Virgil's Tomb

Virgil, of course, was the great Roman poet who wrote the Eclogues, the Georgics and the Aeneid, my favourite Latin poem. I was lucky enough to visit the Parco Vergiliano in September 2013 with Andante Travels. In this densely populated city without many public gardens the so-called site of Virgil’s tomb offers a cool, green oasis. Flanking the paths are plants and herbs mentioned in the works of Virgil, all beautifully labelled with tile plaques giving descriptions and the Latin names.

Another plaque tells about Virgil and you can see a modern bust of him in a niche, done in 1930 on the 2000th anniversary of his birth. Although the poet was born in Mantua and studied in Rome, he called Naples his home.

The plaque reads:

A modern bust of the ancient poet Virgil

Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces...

Mantua bore me, the Calabrians snatched me away, now Naples holds me. I sang of pastures, countrysides, leaders...

The steep hill is formed of honey-coloured tufa cloaked in ivy and dripping with vines. Like honeycomb, the soft rock is perfect for tombs, niches and tunnels, which the Neapolitans call galleria. The biggest of these tunnels is the dramatic Crypta Neapolitana – Seneca’s tunnel. Next to it is one contender for Virgil’s tomb, a cave carved into the hill with a bust of Virgil in a niche nearby. Nearby is another tomb, that of Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) a hunchback poet who was a great worshipper of Virgil. Sometimes this area is called the Hill of the Poets. 

Medieval fresco of Santa Maria dell’Idria above the tunnel

Undaunted by the background noise of the Mergellina train and police sirens, our Andante guide proclaimed Tennyson’s Ode to Virgil. Then he told us there is another possible tomb to Virgil on a higher level. 
Climbing the brick stairs with the aid of a sturdy wooden handrail we found a small Roman aqueduct that ran above Seneca’s tunnel. From up here you can get a closer look at a niche with a faded fresco of Madonna and Child. Mounting more stairs takes you to a beehive-shaped tomb that also might be Virgil’s. This atmospheric freestanding cylindrical tomb is of the columbarium type, with niches for ash-filled urns. There is a convenient tripod where you can burn fragrant bay leaves in memory of the great poet. The view from up here is breathtaking; you can see right across the bay to Vesuvius. 

Caroline Lawrence in Virgil's tomb

Although Virgil’s real burial place is probably lost in antiquity, this site became a popular place of pilgrimage. During the Middle Ages the poet became known as a magician. This belief might have started because of one of his poems, the so-called ‘Messianic’ Fourth Eclogue, in which Virgil seems to have miraculously prophesied the birth of Christ. (The poet died in 19 BC.) Other legends grew up around him and by the mid-14th century a book called the Cronaca di Partenope or Chronicle of Parthenope (‘Parthenope’is another name for Naples) recounts some amusing achievements of Virgil the Magician. For example, he made a metal horse that cured all sick horses, a golden fly that kept away all flies, and a magic leech that, thrown into a well, rid all Naples of her leeches. 

Virgil the Magician also placed a magic hen’s egg somewhere in the eponymous Castel dell’Ovo. As long as the egg remains, goes the legend, the castle will stand strong. 

painting of the Naples Tunnel by Gaspar Vanvitelli c 1700

My favourite legend is that Virgil himself drilled the Naples Tunnel merely by turning his intensely poetic gaze on the hill, not unlike Superman with his laser vision. According to one eighteenth century travel writer, the grosso popolo of Naples revered Virgil more for his magical creation of this tunnel than for the Aeneid. So it is fitting that you will find Virgil’s Tunnel near one of his possible tombs in the vibrant city he loved so much. 

My two retellings of stories from Virgil’s Aeneid are The Night Raid, about Nisus and Euryalus from book 9, and Queen of the Silver Arrow, about Camilla from books 7 and 11. The reading level is easy but the content is dark.

A version of this post was originally published on the Wonders and Marvels blog. 

Did Aeneas Invent Pizza?

When most people think of Italy, they also think of pizza.

The residents of Naples claim to have invented it and they boast that theirs is the best in the world. Although you can put everything from pepperoni to pineapple on a pizza these days, purists maintain that there are only two types of pizza, the two original ones: Marinara and Margherita.

Neapolitan fishermen with Mount Vesuvius at dawn

The first and most basic kind of pizza is simply a thin circle of hand-kneaded dough covered with garlic-infused tomato sauce, garnished with a little oregano and put in a very hot oven for about a minute. Legend has it that Neapolitan fisherman ate this for breakfast. That’s why it’s called Marinara which means fisherman (or ‘boatman’) in Italian. 

The second type of pizza for purists is the so-called Margherita. Buffalo mozzarella is added to the simplest version to create a pizza the same three colours as the Italian flag: red tomato sauce, green basil and white cheese. Guide books will tell you this tricolore (three-coloured) version was created in honour of Queen Margherita’s visit to Naples in the late 1800s, but that story may be apocryphal.

The Petrella mozzarella factory in Aversa near Naples

One of the centres of production of buffalo mozzarella is the town of Aversa near Naples. In 2015, my husband and I were visiting friends and took a tour of the spotless Petrella factory to see how this creamy white cheese is made. Their fresh mozzarella was like ambrosia. That’s another reason Naples claims to have the best pizza: they have the best mozzarella. 

Once, while reading Virgil’s Aeneid, I came across a passage that made me wonder if the concept of the pizza might not go back much further than the 19th century. According to the Latin poet Virgil, after the Greeks sacked Troy and ended the Trojan War the hero Aeneas sailed off to look for a new home. When he and his fellow refugees finally arrived in Italy at the place they were meant to settle, they found they were almost out of food. They only had some stale round loaves of bread to eat. In order to stretch this fare, they collected some ‘fruits of the field’, perhaps berries and herbs, put them on top and devoured the result. 

Tweaked fresco of Aeneas from Pompeii

Because the bread was so stale Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, joked, ‘Hey! We’re actually eating our tables!’ 
(Aeneid VII.116)

At that moment, Aeneas remembered a prophecy given earlier in their adventures: When you arrive at a place so tired and hungry that you eat your tables, you will know you have reached your promised land. (Aeneid VII. 124-127)

The berries certainly weren’t tomatoes, which come from the New World, and the herbs probably didn’t include oregano, garlic or basil, but this passage from a two-thousand year old epic is a lovely link between modern Italian cuisine and its ancient legends.

Caroline Lawrence has written over thirty books for kids set in Ancient Roman times. Two of these, The Night Raid and Queen of the Silver Arrow, are re-tellings of stories from Virgil’s Aeneid.  

Diana, a poem

Diana

Coins

Of golden sunlight,

Pools of green,

Dapple her skin like

A fawn's

As she runs

Through the glade.

Points

Of silver arrows

Flash in the quiver,

Rattle in their case like

The shards

Athenians scratched 

To vote.

Cries

Of startled birds 

Fly up into the blue;

Her arc

Is in her hand,

An arrow notched

And ready.

Pebbles

Scatter, wet and gleaming,

As her golden-sandalled foot

splashes in the brook,

A warning

To the prey

She seeks.

Tears

Sparkle on her cheeks

Like angry diamonds,

Splash onto sunburned arms 

And dusty knees;

Weary she returns

To her garden.

Stars

Begin to prick

The violet dusk;

Bathed and clean

She sits in the fragrance

Of evening jasmine, henna, myrrh,

Under a crescent moon.

And he comes

To her there

In the secret place,

Tiny brazen hooves and silver horn,

pushing his velvet nose

Into the hollow of her neck,

Bowed in prayer.

Caroline Lawrence 1998

Nothing is lost! This poem I wrote in 1998 bore a kind of fruit nearly 20 years later when I did a re-telling of an ancient Roman tale for Barrington Stoke. Virgil's tragic Camilla story is found scattered out of order in books 7 and 11 of The Aeneid. I tried to put it in order and fill in the blanks. Queen of the Silver Arrow is written in simple prose for reluctant or dyslexic teen readers. But although the vocabulary is easy enough for a 7-year-old to read, some of the themes and images are better suited to children 11+

Classics Bucket List

When you first became interested in Classics, did you have certain goals? Perhaps you dreamt of reading Homer in the original Greek? Or of learning to scan lines of Virgil? Did you hope your Classics degree might give you a grasp of Greek philosophy or insight into Roman politics? Did you imagine yourself doing certain things? Wandering ancient ruins in the shimmering heat of the Mediterranean sun? Drinking retsina under a grape arbour at dusk on the coast of some island? Swimming in the same dark waters sailed by Odysseus and Cleopatra?

How many of those dreams and goals have you realised? Maybe it's time to take stock. To ponder which can be ticked off a list and which can stay on. When I was thinking about this talk, I sent out a tweet asking Classicists what goals they still had. 80% of the answers were intellectual: e.g. to memorise a speech, learn a language, grasp a concept. Only 20% had to do with physical activity, usually a pilgrimage to some ancient site or trek along some famous road. We Classicists exist so much in our heads that I thought I would make most of the items on my list about the physical tasks rather than mental goals. My aim with this list of suggestions is to encourage you to use all five senses to reconnect with your original dreams and goals, so you can be inspired and inspire others. 

1. MEMORISE A PASSAGE - Learning something by heart is a precious thing. Memorise a speech or poem in Latin, Greek or Hebrew. Not only will you inspire your students, you will have something to recite when you find yourself in an ancient Greek theatre with those famously excellent acoustics. And a speech or poem is always more impressive than saying testing one two three when you’re trying out a microphone. Best of all, the passage becomes part of you. Tip: Recite it every morning while doing your push ups and crunches.

my kylix from the Vatican giftshop

2. START COLLECTING ARTEFACTS - It’s always fun to collect replica artefacts that you can play with and use in class. I like to buy one at every ancient site I visit. This can be costly at times, but it gives you a entry into the mindset of ancient Greeks or Romans as your teeth click on the ceramic rim of a kylix or as you hold a guttering oil lamp at night. Artefacts are an amazing way of bringing a text alive, of transferring knowledge from your head to your heart. The physician’s cupping instrument taught me about the four humours, the strigil about the baths, the sponge-stick about Roman hygiene.

my replica strigil and oil flask

3. TAKE YOUR STRIGIL TO THE BATHS - In Rome last year, I met two experts on ancient Roman thermae or baths. Neither one of them had ever been to a hammam or public bathhouse of any kind! How can you study Roman baths without ever trying out the nearest thing? A trip to a Turkish bath or hammam can be a sensory revelation. In a hammam in the old town of Fez, I once saw a boy shovelling sawdust into the underfloor furnace, just like a Roman hypocaust. I went to another Fez hammam at night and the electric lights glowed in the steam like oil-lamps. I almost fainted after the hot room because I got up too fast. With its cream and apricot marble and dome pierced with elaborate steam vents, Cağaloğlu Hamamı in Istanbul is so opulent that a visit makes you feel like a Roman emperor or empress. Tip: You don't have to go to Morocco or Turkey, there is a Roman Bath in Bayswater with rooms marked tepidarium, caldarium and laconicum. Take a flask of oil and your replica strigil to the Porchester Spa. 

Man on Market Street, San Francisco

4. TRY CUPPING - Cupping teaches you about the four humours, one of the ancient mindsets we've forgotten. The cupping instrument was such a common aspect of Greek and Roman life that doctors often hung replica ones outside their surgeries or put reliefs of them on their tombs. But many classicists wouldn't know a cupping vessel if they saw it. Cupping was designed to balance the humours bringing you back to health and stability. Reading Book VI of the Iliad, I suddenly realised that Hector is melancholy by nature and Paris – likened to a leaping stallion – is sanguine. Tip: Your local Chinese doctor or Acupuncture technician can do dry or wet cupping. 

Chris Lydamore

5. THROW A POT - I once attended a workshop in London where children in inner city primary schools were asked to make amphorae from plastic cups, masking tape and balloons! This was supposed to give them an grasp of the shape and function of amphorae in the ancient world. Arghh! How much better for them to have seen a potter at work or even had a go themselves to get a feel for the manufacture of real pots and jars. I was lucky enough to take pottery in high school. I still remember the feel of the lump of clay spinning between my hands, of how you have to pump the wheel with your foot making your thigh ache after a while, of how a pillar of wet clay grows and wobbles and tips if you haven't centred it. The slippery feel of clay water, the leathery texture of a partly dried pot, the chalky texture of a cup painted with glaze before the firing and its delightfully glossy durability afterwards. Tip: Your local community college or City Lit (in London) should offer courses in pottery or ceramics.

The Cambridge Greek play in 2013

6. ATTEND (OR STAGE) A GREEK PLAY - Oxford's Armand d’Angour dreams of seeing an authentic reconstruction of an Ancient Greek tragic chorus. He’s hoping to stage one himself in 2015. Those of you who are teachers have a captive cast and crew. You could always do an adaptation or a musical version. In Cambridge last year, I saw a superb double bill of Prometheus and The Frogs by Helen Eastman and others.  Personally, I would love to see the ancient version of a pantomime, in which a single pantomime dancer wearing a mask would dance out a story sung by accompanying musicians. We don't have any surviving examples, unfortunately, but you could put your own interpretation on it. 

with Andrew Ashmore 

7. TAKE PART IN A RE-ENACTMENT - You don't have to be in the front line. Re-enactments are not always about fighting. Sometimes they're about dressing up. You can be a poet or scribe or camp follower. If you don't take part in one, try to attend one. Wander from stall to stall, event to event. Talk to the re-enactors. They have insight into the classical world that can only be gleaned from sleeping in a field under a leather tent or cooking recipes from Apicius on a coal brazier or wearing a chain mail shirt all day. Tip: The British Museum and Museum of London stage regular re-enactment events. Check out this film clip about Gladiator Games held in London's Guildhall Yard. 

Ben Kane walks for charity

8. GO ON A PILGRIMAGE - Ray Laurence, professor of Classics at the University of Kent, tweeted his dream of following the Via Flaminia from Rimini to Rome. Liz Gloyn would walk Hadrian's Wall. Classics teacher Andrew Christie from Rugby School has the grand ambition to follow the footsteps of Alexander the Great. But why not aim high, like Andrew? You only live once. If you need an excuse to attempt a pilgrimage, why not go on a sponsored walk as author Ben Kane recently did. He and some dedicated friends walked from Capua to Rome in full armour! Tip: train for this one. 

Ostia Antica, numinous and magical

9. VISIT AN ANCIENT SITE - Have you stood in the ruins of Troy or climbed Vesuvius? Cambridge professor Mary Beard would like to go to Palmyra and Mons Porphyritus. Oxford professor Llewelyn Morgan dreams of climbing Mount Ilam in Pakistan. American Latin teacher Edward Zarrow wants to take his kids to Leptis. Many of my friends claim their interest in the subject was first sparked by a visit to an ancient site, not always an exotic or glamorous one. Tip: Ostia Antica is my favourite ancient site in the whole world. It has an almost numinous quality and is only an hour from Rome by train.

Santa Lucia fishing village in Naples

10. VISIT A CITY WITH A CLASSICAL HERITAGE - After many years of avoiding Naples, my husband and I spent a week there on the advice of Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill. We stayed in the peaceful Santa Lucia district – a hidden fishing village at the foot of the Castel dell'Ovo – and we fell utterly in love with the city. Vibrant, crowded, full of superstition and joie-de-vivre, Naples is probably the closest I will get to travelling back in time to Pompeii. Sadly, many Classicists avoid Naples apart from a half-day visit to the National Museum. Athens is another city that has a reputation of being hot and crowded, but if you go off-season, it can be a thrilling experience. We are living in a golden age of air fare and from the UK you can get to Classical cities more cheaply than any at other time in history. Tip: EasyJet.

Puy du Fou near Nîmes in France

11. ATTEND A BULLFIGHT OR CHARIOT RACE - You can't go back in time to the Colosseum for beast hunts and gladiatorial combats or to the Circus Maximus for chariot races. But the closest equivalent to a day in the amphitheatre is a day at a bullfight. If the idea of watching a bull being slaughtered offends you there are bullfights in France where the bull is not killed. This can be an eye-opening experience. The shape of the arenas is the same. Bull stadia are often draped in garlands, as we know the Colosseum was. You can rent a cushion and buy a snack, just like in Roman times. The most important person sits at the shady end of the oval nearest the sand (Latin harena = arena, of course). Dead animals are dragged off with hooks and the bloody sand raked over. Music was played then and is played now. Less evocative are modern chariot races. Health and safety means we will never legally watch twelve four-horse chariots race round a track at breakneck speed, but the Puy du Fou in France probably comes closest. Tip: You need a car for the Puy du Fou but not for the Great Roman Games at Nîmes. Just fly to Nîmes, get a bus to the city centre and you're there!  

The Amber Fury

12. WRITE A NOVEL OR SCREENPLAY - As a Classicist, you have enough insight and knowledge to write a book. Maybe you will write the next Eagle of the Ninth or The Last of the Wine. It could be a child’s picture book about the Trojan Horse, your own translation of Catullus' Love Poetry, or a tongue-in-cheek re-telling of Homer's Odyssey in the style of The Diary of A Wimpy Kid... Oh wait! That's been done. Classicist Natalie Haynes has recently written a contemporary novel based on a Greek tragedy template: The Amber Fury. Or, if a novel doesn't appeal, You could write a screenplay based on a updated Greek myth or re-telling of a fascinating incident from history. I am currently kicking myself that I didn't think of Ruby Sparks, the Pygmalion story from a writer's point of view, or Mark Wahlberg's upcoming The Roman, a filmed version of teenage Julius Caesar's abduction by pirates. If you're really ambitious, why not map out a whole TV series about Theseus or Hadrian? Tip: Find a good story structure method, like Save the Cat.

So those are my dozen suggestions of things you might want to do before you KICK THE BUCKET. If you don't like them, come up with your own! 

Tweet me @CarolineLawrenc to let me know how you get on. Or leave your suggestions in the comments section below.  Bona fortuna! Good luck!

P.S. My personal bucket list:

1. To memorise twenty lines of Homer's Iliad

2. Acquire a replica bronze age helmet with lining and crest

3. Take a pottery class and make a Geometric cup

4. Take part in a real Roman banquet, reclining on couches

5. Watch a Roman pantomime (or something close to it)

6. Climb Mount Vesuvius to the crater

7. Spend the night among the ruins of Troy

8. Visit Jerusalem

9. Witness a chariot race at Puys du Fou

10. Write an HBO television adaptation of the Aeneid

[This post is based on my presidential address at the JACT AGM and conference in May 2014.]

The Colossus of Rhodes

FAIL! (no straddling)

by Caroline Lawrence (author of The Roman Mysteries)

OK. Let's get one thing straight.

The Colossus of Rhodes DID NOT STRADDLE THE HARBOUR.

Fun though that might have been: sailing underneath and looking up as you entered the harbour. He probably stood in a sanctuary on a hill behind Rhodes Town where he could have been seen for miles.

Before I tell you some TRUE facts, let me correct some common misconceptions about Rhodes and the Colossus. (BTW, Colossus just means a "colossal" or "massive" figure.)

FAIL! (no beard)

1. He did NOT straddle the harbour.
[They didn't have the technology]
2. He did NOT wear nappies/tunic.
[He would have been TOTALLY NUDE!]
3. He was NOT based on Statue of Liberty.
[It was based on HIM!]
4. He is NOT still standing today.
[He was toppled, & later chopped up for scrap & carried away]
5. He did NOT have a big old beard.
[unlike this early cover version (left) for The Colossus of Rhodes]

FAIL! (too small)

Here are some TRUE facts about the massive statue and the island of Rhodes.

(I get most of these facts from Pliny the Elder, who wrote about the Colossus in his Natural History, book 34, section 18. You can check these facts in the Loeb edition, which has Latin on the left hand page and English on the right.)

I. It represented the Sun god (fuit Solis colossus)
II. It was built c. 292 BC by the sculptor Chares of Lindus
III. It probably had spikes on its head, representing rays of the sun.
IV. It was 105 feet high (LXX cubitorum altitudinis)
[The Statue of Liberty from her heels to the top of her head is 111 feet high. ]
V. It only stood for 66 years...
VI. ...then was toppled by an earthquake.
VII. Even in chunks on the ground it was considered one of the 'Seven Sights'
VIII. Few people were tall enough to embrace the thumb with both arms.
[Did you know your arms outstretched roughly equals your height?]
IX. People could walk around inside the hollow parts on the ground.
X. There were hundreds of other colossi in Rhodes Town, the capital city of the island.
XI. There was a colossal statue in Rome based on this statue of the sun.
[It was originally a statue of Nero but after his death the head was changed!]
XII. The Flavian Amphitheatre was called the Colosseum after the Roman Colossus nearby.

YAY! Ben Lloyd-Hughes is "Floppy"

Here are some more surprising facts about Rhodes.
I. It was a base of slave trading in Roman times
2. It had a population of small deer...
3. ...imported upon the advice of an oracle...
4. ...to rid Rhodes of an infestation of snakes!
5. A Greek poet called Apollonius came from Rhodes
6. He wrote an epic poem about Jason called the Argonautica
7. The walking bronze giant Talus in this poem might be based on the colossus in the Argonautica
8. In the 1st century AD a young Roman began to write his own Argonautica in Latin verse
9. His name was Gaius Valerius Flaccus (Flaccus means "Floppy")
10. He appears in the Roman Mysteries TV series & books

You can enjoy an exciting mystery involving a trip to Rhodes, the slave-trade and a thrilling fight atop the Colossus if you read The Colossus of Rhodes or watch season 2 of the Roman Mysteries TV series.

Marco Polo Mansion in Old Rhodes Town, where I stayed during my 2003 research trip

P.S. Read a Classicist's review of The Colossus of Rhodes book/TV and The Fugitive from Corinth TV episode.

[Roman Mystery 9, The Colossus of Rhodes  and Roman Mystery 10, The Fugitive from Corinth, are perfect for kids aged 9+, especially those studying Greeks as a topic in Key Stage 2. In addition to the Roman Mysteries, I have written a four-book series called the Roman Quests, two Virgil retellings and a timeslip novel set in Roman London, The Time Travel Diaries.]