Circe Invidiosa

One of the most striking paintings in the Waterhouse exhibition at London's Royal Academy is a tall painting of a beautiful woman tipping luminous turquoise water into an azure pool. It is a luscious vision of blue green.


Going closer, I see the title is Circe Invidiosa: Jealous Circe. I know who Circe is - the sorceress who turned Odysseus men in to swine - but I don't know this particular story. So I do some detective work. Ovid. Metamorphoses. Of course.

In Metamorphoses Book 14, Ovid tells of a fisherman named Glaucus who comes to Circe with a problem. He loves a girl named Scylla. She lives on the island of Sicily and although he has courted her in every manner, she has rejected him. Circe looks Glaucus up and down and says 'Forget love potions. Become my lover. Spurn the one who spurns you and reward she who admires you, and in that one act be twice revenged.'

'Seaweed will grow on the hills,' says Glaucus, 'before I love anybody but her.'

The sorceress is furious and decides to take revenge, not on Glaucus, whom she decides she loves, but on the innocent Scylla. Circe Invidiosa (jealous Circe) prepares a terrible potion and pours it in the grotto where Scylla goes to bathe. As soon as Scylla steps into the pool, the 'water around her groin erupts with yelping monsters'. Seven dogs' heads rise snarling out of the sea. Scylla screams and tries to slap them away. But every blow causes her pain because they are part of her. Her lower limbs have become horrible man-eating dogs.

Revolted and traumatized by this metamorphosis, the once-beautiful Scylla takes shelter in a grotto near the straits of Messina, the place where Sicily almost touches the toe of Italy. And when sailors pass by, her monstrous dog-heads dart out and gulp them down still living. Poor Odysseus loses six men this way.


Waterhouse has shown Circe wearing a stunning gown of peacock feathers. The poison matches her dress. It is a luminous turquoise, like a liquid jewel. But this beautiful mixture will cause unimaginable horror and pain to poor innocent Scylla. Mercifully, the monsterfied girl is eventually turned into a rock, and so her suffering ends.



Note that Circe is shown standing on one of her many beasts in thrall, a kind of dog-faced sea creature that hints at what is to come.

Nowhere does Ovid say Glaucus is good looking, so why does Circe want his love? I think Circe is like one of those beautiful girls who wants every man to desire her, and always pursues the one man who doesn't. Ovid describes her as passing through a crowd of fawning animals. These are enchanted men who have drunk the potion of Circe's beauty and have been made bestial by their desire for her. Although she has a crowd of admirers, she wants Glaucus, the one man who seems resistent to her beauty. But you know that if ever he was ensnared by her and professed his love, she would soon grow bored with him.

J.W.Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite was an exhibition at London's Royal Academy in 2009. It is now finished, kaput, over.

If you liked this post check out my takes on these other paintings by Waterhouse: Ariadne, Hylas, Adonis, Narcissus and Orpheus.

[The Roman Mysteries books are perfect for children aged 9+, especially those studying Romans as a topic in Key Stage 2. The BBC televised some of the books and you can get DVDs.] 

Odysseus by Waterhouse

The story is so familiar to us that we forget how bizarre it is.

The Greek hero Odysseus is on his way home from the Trojan War. He has been warned that the Island of the Sirens is deadly to sailors. No man can hear their beautiful music - their 'siren song' - without wanting to go to them. But their island is ringed with deadly rocks and all who try to reach them are shipwrecked and drowned.

Clever Odysseus thinks of a way to hear their song and not die. He tells his sailors to tie him to the mast. 'No matter how much I struggle and beg,' he says, 'don't untie me until the Island of the Sirens is beyond the horizon.' He then tells the sailors to plug their ears with wax and row for all they are worth.


They do. Odysseus, tied to the mast, hears the song of the Sirens. It is so beautiful that he forgets everything he did and everything he wants. He doesn't care if he dies, if only he can be with them a few moments more, surrounded by that beautiful music. He struggles and shouts and rages at his sailors: 'Untie me! Let me go!' But they stare resolutely ahead, pulling on their oars, their heads filled with the sound of their own deep breaths and their hearts pumping. The Sirens are enraged. Why is this ship full of men not falling into their trap? They rise up off their deadly rocks and flap closer to see, for they are monsters: birds with the heads of women.

They fly as close as they dare to the boat, making their song as beautiful as possible. Odysseus writhes in the ecstasy of their song and the agony of his bondage. The sailors see these terrible creatures and pull harder on their oars. Waterhouse has shown them with bandages around their ears to double the effectiveness of the wax.

Finally they will escape and Odysseus will claim that he was the only man who heard the Sirens' song and lived.

Waterhouse has chosen to show the Sirens as bird-headed monsters. He almost certainly got this idea from the famous red-figure vase (above) showing Odysseus and the bird-woman Sirens. We know he knew this vase because he puts it on a tapestry - reversed - in one of his paintings of the enchantress Circe (left). You can see it behind her head: quite murky, but recognizable if you know the vase.

Some say the Island of the Sirens is Capri, the beautiful island off the Amalfi Coast on the Bay of Naples. The Bay of Naples is one of the most beautiful places in the world and I have chosen to set two books near there: The Pirates of Pompeii and The Sirens of Surrentum. In the second book the seductive patron Pollius Felix describes the struggles of bound Odysseus as ecstatic.

Don't listen to his 'siren song', Flavia!

J.W.Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite was on at the Royal Academy in 2009 but has now FINISHED. For more Waterhouse check out my blogs on Adonis, Ariadne, Circe, Hylas, Narcissus, Odysseus and Orpheus.

Narcissus by Waterhouse

The myth of Narcissus is a famous one.

Narcissus was a beautiful Greek shepherd of fifteen who cruelly scorned all those who loved him, including a nymph called Echo. She followed him around, echoing the final words of his sentences but was so thoroughly ignored that she pined away to nothing until only her voice remained. The Roman poet Ovid is one of those who tells the story and Waterhouse has almost certainly used his account. Here is the story as Ovid told it and Waterhouse painted it.


One day, while hunting in the woods, Narcissus comes to a pristine pool of water and bends over it to drink. Mirrors were almost unknown in those times - especially to rustic shepherds - and when he sees his reflection, he thinks there is a beautiful youth under the water. The youth seems to be alive and responding. When Narcissus smiles, so does the youth. The youth is so beautiful that Narcissus falls in love. He bends forward to kiss the boy in the water and the 'boy' rises up to meet him. But just when the moment of consummation should occur, just when their lips should touch, the boy's image blurs and ripples and Narcissus gets a mouthful of water.

Eventually Narcissus realises it is his own reflection in the water but he still cannot bear to pull himself away. He has fallen in love with himself. Like Echo, who is watching him, he will pine away to almost nothing. He will become a flower, nodding its head over the reflection in a pool. You can see the flower at his feet. The narcissus is another name for a daffodil, which I have always thought is a rather boring flower for Narcissus to turn into.

Notice that Waterhouse has used the same boy model as he used for Hylas and the Nymphs. That dark hair, the well-shaped head, those perfect features, the smooth limbs. He is not at all feminine, but he is beautiful. Waterhouse has painted his sunhat on the ground to his right and his quiver of arrows on his left, just by the edge of the painting. The quiver makes us think of the god of love. In Roman art, Cupid is often shown as a baby with bow and arrows, but in Greek mythology Eros was an adolescent, like Narcissus. He was beautiful and smooth enough to be desired by both men and women.

Today we call someone a 'narcissist' when they are obsessively self-centered and have no empathy for others.

I am basing my next book, Brother of Jackals, around the myth of Narcissus, but in a way it's never been done before. This painting is one of my inspirations. Thank you, Ovid. Thank you, Waterhouse.

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

I often steal plots from Greek myths. After all, their authors are long-dead and can't sue me. For my ninth Roman Mystery, The Colossus of Rhodes, I used the Voyage of Jason and his Argonauts as the structure for my Roman detectives' search for a criminal mastermind.

In the myth, Jason is on a quest for the Golden Fleece and he has assembled many heroes on board his ship the Argo. For example Hercules and his special friend Hylas, a beautiful youth.

In The Colossus of Rhodes, I get Flavia and her friends match the crew of their boat, the Delphina, with the crew of the mythical Argo. Here is the list Flavia and her friends compose:

Lupus the ship-owner is like Jason, the Brave Hero on a Quest
Flavia Gemina is like Atalanta, the speedy Heroine
Jonathan would like to be Peleus, a Hero and father of Achilles
Nubia has agreed to be Hercules, because both wear lionskins
Captain Geminus (a twin) is Castor, Pollux's mortal Brother
Aristo (a talented musician) is Orpheus, whose Lyre tamed Beasts
Bato (former junior magistrate) is Mopsus, a Wise Soothsayer
Flaccus (aristocratic snob) is Acastus, arrogant son of King Pelias
Zetes (Flaccus's slave-boy) is Zetes, the Hero who could fly
Silvanus (handsome youth) is Hylas, young Squire of Hercules
Atticus (old and Greek) can be Argus, who built the Argo
Punicus (Phoenician helmsman) is Tiphys, Helmsman on the Argo
(pp 24-25)

In my book, Flavia makes Silvanus, a handsome Ostian youth, correspond to Hylas. This could be bad news for Silvanus. The original story of Hylas goes like this:

Jason and his crew have anchored somewhere on the coast of Bithynia to take on water. Hercules and his boyfriend Hylas go off to fetch water but Juno, Hercules's great enemy, sees a chance to torment him. She makes sure that Hercules and Hylas are separated. She then tells a beautiful huntress nymph called Dryope that there is a handsome boy in the woods who would make a perfect husband. His name is Hylas.


The poet Gaius Valerius Flaccus (played by Ben Lloyd-Hughes above) tells the story like this:

Dryope the huntress nymph flushes a swift deer out of the trackless woods and tricks Hylas into pursuing it, away from Hercules. The stag leads him far away to a place where a bright fountain gushes forth. With a single bound the deer leaps over the pool and is gone. Disappointed, the handsome youth finally stops his pursuit. As sweat bathes his limbs and his chest rises and falls, he greedily sinks beside the pleasant stream. The dappled light that shifts and plays upon the lake shows the gleam of his beautiful body. He does not notice the nymph's shadow or the perfumed scent of her hair or the splash of water as she rises up to embrace him. He cries out to Hercules for help as she throws her smooth arms around his neck, but in vain. Hercules is far away and cannot hear him, and the lovely nymph she draws him down into the water, her strength helped by his falling weight.

In the painting by Waterhouse (below) the painter makes the scene much more watery and adds six more nymphs, bringing their total number to a mystical seven. We see Hylas with his water jug, entranced by their beauty. If you go to the Waterhouse exhibit at the Royal Academy, be sure to invest an extra £3 in the audio guide. The guide tells us that the nymphs eyes are black with desire and that the exchange of looks between Hylas and the head nymph Dryope is almost mesmeric. She is hypnotising him, bewitching him, seducing him. She wants to draw him out of the world, into a life of watery pleasure. He is captivated by her beauty and he is unconsciously leaning forward. At any moment he will plunge into the water.


According to some accounts, Hylas falls in and drowns. According to others he stays with the nymphs to love them and be loved. But in every case, Hercules and the Argonauts never see him again.

In my book, the young Ostian crewmember named Silvanus goes for water on an island and never comes back. Was he also taken by nymphs? Or did something more sinister occur?

Maybe it's a coincidence, but Waterhouse loved water. It appears in at least half the paintings in the exhibition. He also liked to use symbols. For example, long hair. To Waterhouse, long hair was a symbol of feminine seductiveness. Check out his painting of 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci'. She is wrapping her luscious locks around the neck of a handsome, hapless knight. His armour will not protect him against her perfumed tresses.

Notice, too, that the handsome young model Waterhouse uses is the same one who posed for two other archetypes of Greek male beauty: Narcissus and Adonis. I think his is also the head of Orpheus, a painting not in this particular exhibition.


Back to Hylas and the Nymphs. See how that one nymph to the right of Dryope is seductively fluffing her hair? And the nymph between Hylas and Dryope holds something in her hands. Pearls. You don't notice them until you're standing right in front of the painting. She seems to be offering the pearls to Hylas. Or is it something more sinister? Waterhouse knew (and the commentary tells us) that pearls were thought to be the tears of drowned men.

Run, Hylas! Run!

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

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.

Oil Lamp Clues

The detective and the historian have similar jobs.

The detective has to reconstruct the events of a crime.
The historian has to reconstruct the events of the past.

Both use concrete objects as clues.
Both read statements taken by eyewitnesses.

In the case of the historian, or historical novelist, we call these 'primary sources'. My favourite witnesses are Martial, Suetonius, Pliny the Elder and his nephew Pliny the Younger, just to name a few. They are my 'informants'.

This is one of the reasons historical detective stories are so satisfying to write and to read. The two genres go beautifully together.

Researching my mystery stories set in imperial Rome, The Roman Mysteries, I love Nancy-Drewing the halls of museums for information about how ancient Greeks and Romans really lived. I especially love any artefact that gives me a glimpse into the mind of a first century Roman. For this reason I usually move quickly past the gold wreaths and silver treasure troves and go to the humblest display cases, those showing objects of every day life.

For example, in the British Museum, Room 69 has wonderful displays of Greek and Roman life. The stylus and wax tablets and inkpots of school children; dice, knucklebones, marbles and board markers for games of strategy and gambling; little votive statues offered at a shrine; a baby’s ceramic potty or feeder cup; the cook’s strainer or bun pan; the engineer’s plumbline and papyrus 'blueprint'.

A beautiful rock crystal dice in the games display case of Room 69 became a vital clue to the identity of Ostia's dog-killer in The Thieves of Ostia. The naughty apotropaic pendants in The Colossus of Rhodes can be seen in the display case about superstition in the same room.

In the Museum of London, You can see carbonized seeds of the flowers they planted and food they ate in Londinium. There are also oyster shells, fish sauce bottles, hair-pins, coins, brooches and templates for the cobbler to make sandals. They have naughty apotropaic amulets, too.

But in all museums, I particularly linger at the oil-lamp collection. These were not the cheapest lighting in Roman houses, those were candles made of tallow (animal fat). But oil lamps were cheap, cheerful and extremely popular. Made of clay in moulds, they were produced en masse. The variety and type of designs on them tells us a lot about the Romans, and especially what they liked: which types of entertainment, which gods and goddesses, which birds and animals. Some of the oil lamps are funny or rude. They show drunken Cupids, or maenads and satyrs. Some are X-rated! Others are perfectly innocent.

They also tell us details about Roman life. An oil-lamp with a quadriga from the British museum reminds us that racing chariots were small and light, unlike heavy wooden ceremonial chariots. (Ben Hur, take note!) Just as a modern football supporter might buy a souvenir mug after the match, in ancient Rome you might take home an oil lamp from the Circus Maximus, daubed with the colour of your favourite team: the Reds, the Greens, the Blues or the Whites.

A delightful oil lamp in the Museum of London is shaped like a foot with a sandal. I love the detail, especially the hobnails, faithfully reproduced on the bottom.

At one time you could buy reproductions of this sandal oil lamp in the museum shop. I bought one a few years ago and one day I decided to try it out. I filled it with olive oil and put a piece of string in the 'toe nozzle', to act as a wick. I was sceptical. Surely a piece of string would burn up in a few seconds? But it didn't. It burned for hours and when the flame began to diminish I just poured olive oil in the 'ankle hole' and it burned brightly again.

I turned out all the lights in my riverside flat and crept around, holding the oil lamp and pretending I was Flavia looking for clues. I observed that the light was quite flickery and spooky, and that the lamp gave off a fair amount of black smoke. Over time, this smoke would have discoloured Roman ceilings and walls. I also noticed that my hand got a bit greasy. Clay oil lamps are porous and 'sweat' oil, unlike their more expensive bronze counterparts. Also, oil can dribble out of the nozzle if it's full.

This gave me an idea. Maybe Flavia could find a greasy handprint on a wall at the scene of a crime. She would deduce from this clue that the crime had been committed at night, because the perpetrator had been holding an oil lamp. Furthermore, the perp must have been poor, or he'd have taken a bronze oil lamp that didn't sweat oil... I used this idea in my volume of Roman Mystery Mini-Mysteries, for 'The Case of the Citruswood Table'.

Recently, I came across the most delightful collection of oil-lamps I have ever seen, in the most unexpected place. My husband Richard and I were exploring the volcanic Aeolian Islands, just north of Sicily. The largest of the 'seven sisters' is an island called Lipari. The second floor of the Archaeology Museum there has at least a hundred Roman oil lamps, all beautifully displayed.

Here are some of my favourite oil lamps from the Archaeological Museum of Lipari:

Several of the oil lamps show gladiators, some defeated and some victorious. (This was obviously a popular subject.) Defeated gladiators kneel on one knee and lift the forefinger of their left hand to beg for mercy. Victorious gladiators hold up their shields and brandish their swords.

Gods and goddesses are popular, too. One delightful lamp shows Venus with her hair down. The person who owned it might have worshipped the goddess of love. Or an oil lamp with a depiction of Venus bathing might simply have been a romantic hint to his girlfriend.

One charming oil lamp shows a peacock. The peacock was Juno's special bird, so it might belong to someone who worshipped her. Or it might just stand for beauty. Another oil lamp with a picture of a blacksmith (below) might be Vulcan, god of the forge.

Love is a favourite subject for oil lamps. This is fitting. After all, lamps were mainly used after dark. A tipsy Cupid helps his even tipsier friend home after an evening of banqueting. (at the top of this post) Or two Cupids try to bag a hare. Pliny the Elder tells us that ignorant people believed eating hare made you more beautiful! A girl might have given her boyfriend or husband an oil lamp with cupids on it. And he might have given her a lamp with an erotic scene on it. There were many of these, showing a men and women in various positions reminiscent of the most notorious frescoes from Pompeii.

A theatre-goer, poet or playwright might have a theatrical mask on his oil lamp. We often forget that the theatre - tragedy, comedy, pantomime and mime - was as popular as the race-track or the arena. Ancient Romans might also have collected oil lamps that showed their profession. The blacksmith on this lamp (right) holds tongs in his right hand and a hammer in his left. Most craftsmen and artisans wore sleeveless tunics. He has forgotten his. His 'heroic nudity' may indicate that he is Vulcan, god of the forge. A sailor might have a ship on his. Or if you had an ancestor who fought in a famous naval battle, your favourite lamp might be one with a warship on it.

Mythical creatures appear frequently on oil lamps: nereids, sea-horses, tritons etc. Real but exotic animals like a camel (left) or a hyena (below right) are also popular. These might have reminded the owner of a day at the arena, where beast fights made up the morning events. Such oil lamps show us that camels and hyenas were known in first century Rome.

Birds were popular. The dove and the pomegranate (below) both speak of love. We have seen Juno's peacock. You might give an oil lamp with an owl on it to a wise daughter, or a hawk on a branch to your son. A sparrow plucking a berry may have hinted at your love for someone.

Or it may have been an innocent gift for a nature-lover. You find deer and horses on oil lamps, too, especially when they are doing something exciting, like racing or eluding the hunter.

Oil lamps are the ancient equivalent of modern coffee mugs and tee-shirts; they provide us with clues about what the ancient Romans liked and what made them laugh. If these delightful artefacts are anything to go by, the ancient Romans liked sports, love, animals and stories. Just like us.

There is a Latin proverb that says Fallaci nimium ne crede lucernae: don't trust too much in deceptive lamps.

But the humble oil-lamp can throw a different kind of light on the ancient world.

[The 17+ books in the Roman Mysteries series are perfect for children aged 9+, especially those studying Romans, Greeks or Egyptians as a topic in Key Stage 2 and 3. The new Roman Quests series, set in Roman Britain, launched in May 2016 with book one: Escape from Rome are also perfect for use in classrooms.]

The 10% Surprise

Ever since I read Homer's Iliad in translation and Mary Renault’s classic Classical historical novel The Last of the Wine, I have longed to go back in time to see what ancient Greece and Rome would have looked like.

Thanks to a wealth of written documents from that period, and the rich archaeological remains, we can make a fairly good guess at what 5th century BC Athens or 1st century AD Rome would have looked like.

Or can we?

When I go into schools to talk about my books - The Roman Mysteries - and about ancient Rome, I tell the children that my biggest wish is to have a time machine to go back for just one day. (My time machine would include an invisible transportation bubble which I could float around in to observe unseen. I would be able to hear and see through this bubble but it would protect the ancient Romans from my germs and it would protect me from their germs, stray arrows, ravening beasts in the arena, slave-dealers, pyroclastic flows, etc.)

I tell the kids my theory. That as I floated around first century Rome in my invisible time machine bubble I would see many things I was expecting. I would say to myself: ‘Yes, this is just as everyone said it would be. Classical Archaeologists got this about 90% right!’ But I think there would be some surprises, maybe 10%, where I would exclaim: ‘Great Juno’s beard! I never expected THAT!’

Caroline Lawrence in the forum set at Boyana Studios, Bulgaria in 2007

The problem is, we can’t know what that 10% is until someone invents a time machine.

The two books I read on my gap year inspired me to study Classics at U.C.Berkeley. I fell in love with the subject. The language, like a giant code; the art and archaeology, so beautiful and compelling; the primary sources by Greek and Roman authors so like us and yet so unlike us… All these things fed my addiction, my craving to know what the ancient world was like. Then – a year or two into my course – I saw a film depicting ancient Rome that blew my mind. It was like a curtain being pulled back. It was a horrible, fascinating, concept-overturning revelation. It was Fellini Satyricon and it made me think ‘THAT is what first century Rome would have looked like!’ (Be warned, kids: this film is rated X and for over 18's only!)

This was no clean, white-columned world of pristine togas and Marlon Brando enunciating ‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen…’ This was a dimly-lit, colourful, sweaty, perverted place of jewel-coloured mini-tunics, smoky night-time scenes, boy-love, casual violence, cheap human life, the disabled and the disfigured. It stank of incense, sweat, lamp-smoke, open sewers and sacrificial blood. The music was strange and discordant, the language a strange babble.

I recently watched Fellini Satyricon again, and I’ve also just finished Mary Beard’s excellent Pompeii and together with my favourite witness of the Flavian period, Marcus Valerius Martialis AKA Martial, I have come up with a possible list of things that might surprise a 21st century time traveller if she went back to first century Rome around the time Vesuvius erupted.

1. The smell. One of the creators of HBO's Rome says 'You would smell Rome before you saw it.' Open sewers, dung in the street, smoke from oil-lamps, pine-pitch torches, urine from the fullers, rotting fish entrails from the garum factory, blood from hundreds of daily sacrifices, frying onions and sausage from fast-food joints, etc. People did not wear deodorant and many must have had rotting teeth. We know from the poet Martial that some Romans had such bad breath that they added perfume to their wine. Others chomped mastica, the ancient version of chewing gum.

2. Sacrificial smog. In first century Rome there were dozens of temples and most of them sacrificed animals and then roasted them. This was probably a main source of cooked meat in Roman times. There would also have been smoke from a thousand braziers, outlets from the hypocausts at the baths, daily funeral pyres, small-scale industry like pottery kilns and glass-blowers, plus pine-pitch torches burning at night. Rome probably had a permanent cloud of smoke hanging over it.

3. Animals in the forum. The best thing about HBO’s Rome was the set dressing. They put chickens in the forum, furtively scavenging dogs in the market, rats in the sewers. Romans used mules or oxen to pull the carts, rather than horses, but there was no wheeled traffic in Rome during hours of daylight. This caused too much congestion. An ox who had trampled a child wore hay on his horn as a beware sign, but was not banned from the streets. Mary Beard points out that Roman hitching posts were the holes you can still see drilled in the pavement edge.

4. Bodies on crosses and beggars in the gutter. The mouldering bodies of crucified slaves and criminals would have lined the streets in and out of Rome, along with the tombs of the dead. The area behind the tombs were probably used as shanty towns by the poor and unwanted babies were often exposed there. We know from Martial that there were beggars everywhere, many of them would have been child beggars, but you would also find the crippled, blind and otherwise disabled.

5. Low grade infections and disease. The worst diseases killed off a good percent of the population but those who survived would probably be suffering much more than we allow for in our TV and film depictions. Skin ulcers from poor nutrition for all but the richest Romans, spotty skin (Martial tells us skin patches were fashionable at this time), pink-eye would probably have been the most common affliction. Today we can easily get something over the counter to quickly stop eye-infection and a tube of Savlon for wounds. Then, the tiniest cut opened the possibility of a life-threatening infection. Also, bunions from the cold and verrucas from the unhygienic baths. And did I mention worms?

6. The cacophony of the city. Music would have sounded discordant to our ears. It was mainly banging, jingling and plucking. Maybe some strange singing, like a combination of Indian and Arabic music, alien to our Western ears. The town crier – or town criers – would constantly be patrolling the streets, shouting out the hour and the latest news. You would have heard asses braying, donkey bells, priests processing with tambourines and chanting, dogs barking, babies crying, couples arguing, roosters crowing. All in the heart of the city.

7. Gaudy Rome. Colour was everywhere. Blood red paint on walls and on the bases of every column. Mustard yellow and black were also popular colours for walls. Mosaics, frescoes, graffiti on the walls. Statues were painted. If marble in the forum wasn’t exotic green, yellow or pink, then it was coloured by hand. In the film Gladiator, Ridley Scott drains Rome of colour, to make it look almost black and white. This is just wrong. The set designers of HBO’s Rome and The Roman Mysteries did better. Fellini Satyricon probably did best. Rome would have looked more like Mexico City on fiesta day or Calcutta during Diwali. Mary Beard notes that Pompeian frescoes show us how colourful Roman’s clothes would have been. White was the colour of the candidate (the word comes from Latin candida: white) and was only achieved with much effort and use of chalk. It was a rarity.

8. Vermin. Rats in your apartment. Feral cats scavenging in rubbish tips. Possibly feral dogs, too. Flies everywhere. Lice in your tunic. Fleas on your animals. Mosquitoes in the summer. In the hotter Roman provinces they had scorpions and snakes, too. You never walked alone. Oh yes: let's not forget intestinal worms, etc...

9. Long-haired-boy love. In Rome a man was considered strange if he was sexually attracted only to women or only to adolescent boys. The norm was to desire both. There was no concept of child rights or child abuse in ancient Rome. Children were mini-adults. It was accepted that pre-pubescent boys would be openly courted by older men. Martial himself was one such man. In his mid-forties, he sulks because a beardless boy rejects his advances in favour of another middle-aged man. When a boy started his first beard, only then did he cut his hair. This is the main reason Roman boys had a paedagogus accompany them to school. To protect them from the distraction of randy adult suitors.

10. Child labour. If a boy wasn’t being accosted on the way to his school (often nothing more than a screened-off section of a colonnade in the forum) he was probably working for his father. Girls were indoors weaving, if they were lucky. Childhood officially ended at 12 for girls (when they could legally marry) and 16 for boys, (when they put on the toga virilis). But that was only in families rich enough not to have to put their kids to work, perhaps 10% of the population at most.

11. Superstition, superstition, superstition. Almost every waking action was accompanied by some ritual to avert bad luck or disaster. The Romans did not believe in an infinite and benevolent God, but in a world of peevish gods to be appeased and astrological forces to be observed. Almost every emperor had his astrologer. Shrines were like ancient cashpoints, but you made deposits there, not withdrawals. Daily offerings were made in your household shrine, apotropaic charms were worn, blood spilt on temple altars, the sign against evil performed without thinking, as regularly as we rub our nose or scratch our chin today. Step over the threshold with your right foot. Don’t even leave the house on inauspicious days. An eclipse? Disaster!

12. The crumbling city. Rome was not a 'nanny state'. There were very few regulations about building. Fires were a daily occurrence. Apartment blocks often crumbled and collapsed without warning. Chamberpots were emptied out of windows. Shop displays and tavern tables spilled out onto the pavement. Roads and sidewalks would have been obstacle courses of uneven paving stones, sleeping dogs and even human faeces. Who repaired potholes in the street? Or a dangerously leaning wall? Many buildings were probably being built or undergoing repair, covered in scaffolding and/or the ancient equivalent of the bright orange plastic netting you see all over Rome today. One of the most memorable scenes in Fellini Satyricon is of a lofty ziggurat-like apartment block crumbling away, sending men, women, children and animals screaming for safety.

In the light of all this, would I still like a time machine to go back to first century Rome?

Absolutely.

But only if I had that floating protective bubble of invisibility!

[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 series set in Roman Britain launched in May 2016 with Escape from Rome.]

Roman Law-courts

When I started to research my thirteenth book, The Slave-girl from Jerusalem, I wanted to have lots about Roman law, the making of wills and Roman law-courts. But it wasn't easy finding out what Roman law-courts looked like or how they worked.

So I diligently read Cicero, Quintilian and Pliny the Younger, along with some good secondary sources. Here are some surprising things I learned about Roman law courts. (I recently shared some of them at a conference called ‘Visualising Law Courts in Late Antiquity’)

Ben Lloyd-Hughes as Flaccus

Lawyers - Today, lawyers are usually very well paid. In Roman times, the lawyers - or orators - did not receive payment. They were upper-class patricians (i.e. independently wealthy) who studied rhetoric and then argued cases in order to gain a reputation, advance themselves politically and perform a public service. Although they weren’t officially paid, lawyers often received gifts from grateful clients.

Prosecution - Today, if someone commits a crime, the police arrest him and the state pays a lawyer to prosecute him. In Roman times there was no state prosecutor. A criminal would only be tried if a private individual summoned him to court. People who were not Roman citizens could not file suit; they had to find a patron to do this on their behalf.

No Oath - Today, witnesses must take an oath, swearing to tell the truth. In Roman times no such oath was required. In fact, witnesses were often bribed or threatened in order to make them lie. Sometimes the lawyer himself even insulted and slandered his opponent. Character witnesses were an important factor in trials, but they could lie, too.

Chairman = Judge - What we call the judge, the Romans called the chairman. This was not his specific job, but his public duty (munus) as an elected magistrate. He was usually a duovir (which means ‘one of two men’) or a praetor. In Ostia, the two duoviri were appointed for a period of one year, and they gave their name to the year. They presided over the city council and acted as chairmen in trials. They did not vote, but read the verdict and passed judgment.

Judges = Jury - What we call the jury, the Romans called judges: iudices. These were probably members of the town council, the decuriones. Ostia’s council had one hundred in the late first century. In order to be admitted as a decurion, you had to be freeborn, at least 25 years old, and wealthy. One of Cicero’s cases had 300 judges sitting in. They voted by using wax tablets marked with a ‘C’ on one side and an ‘A’ on the other. If they thought the defendant was guilty, they rubbed off the 'A', leaving the 'C' for CONDEMNO. (I condemn) If they thought the defendant was innocent, they rubbed off the 'C', leaving the ‘A’ for ABSOLVO. (I release) The tablets were placed in a jar and a clerk counted them up, then gave the result to the chairman.

Jurists = Legal Experts - Because being the chairman or a member of the jury was just one of many duties, the praetor, magistrates and lawyers often went to a jurist for legal advice... This was a man who specialised in certain aspects of the law, like interpreting a last will & testament.

Outdoors - We think of trials as being held in the basilica of a Roman town, but many law-courts were held outdoors, in town forum or marketplace.
In his book Catullus and his World, T.P.Wiseman writes: Trials in the Roman republic were not held in a sober courtroom, but outside in the sunshine, with the forum crowd jostling around.
In his ‘Study of Rhetoric’ the famous orator Quintilian wrote: If we are called upon to speak in the sun or on a windy, wet or warm day, is that a reason for deserting the client whom we have undertaken to defend? (Inst. Or. XI.3.27)

Not always in the Basilica - Some trials were held in temples, some in private houses. Cicero pleaded a case in the house of Julius Caesar. However, some trials were held in the basilica, so that is where I set mine.

Plan of a typical basilica, from The Slave-girl from Jerusalem

Basilica - The basilica was a public space for meetings and therefore law-courts. By the first century AD, when my books are set, the basilica had three naves (long rectangular spaces) and an apse (a semi-circular space). The ‘naves’ were created by long rows of columns. The wall of the central area was higher than the rest of the building, so that windows high up in the walls could light it. The basilica at Ostia was probably built in the time of Domitian. The floor and walls were faced with marble, giving it a lavish appearance. The upper gallery probably had decoration on it in the form of reliefs: the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, the Capitoline geese warning of approaching barbarians, the abduction of the Sabine women. etc.

Judicial scene from Ostia Antica

Podium – One of the most striking aspects of Roman law-courts was that the chairman (judge) sat up on a high podium also known as a tribunal. We have physical remains of this podium in Ostia’s basilica and also in the basilica of Pompeii. From Ostia comes this fresco of two men in a dispute over a broken amphora, probably in the market place. This fragment (right) and another less well-documented show the chairman seated on his high podium. You can read more about the context of these frescoes if you scroll down this page of my favourite Ostia website: www.ostia-antica.org. (Thanks to Jan-Theo Bakker)

Steps - The judges (jury) probably sat below the chairman on stepped seating, perhaps wooden removable benches. The judges listened in silence and were forbidden to speak to each other. Finally they voted as described above. The chairman did not vote, but pronounced judgement and sentence. He was also responsible for making sure the punishment was carryied out.

basilica from the BBC adaptation of The Slave-girl from Jerusalem

Opposite sides - Confronting each other from opposite sides of this space may have been the prosecution and defence, their supporters also sitting on removable wooden benches. Pliny the Younger tells about the time he defended a young woman who had been disinherited by her aged father in favour of her young stepmother. [My speech] was delivered on behalf of Attia Viriola, and its interest lies not only in the position of the person concerned but also the rarity of this type of case and the size of the court which heard it. Here was a woman of high birth, the wife of a praetorian senator, disinherited by her eighty-year-old father ten days after he had fallen in love and brought home a stepmother for his daughter, and now suing for her patrimony in the united Centrumviral Court. One hundred and eighty judges were sitting… both parties were fully represented and had a large number of seats filled with their supporters, and a close-packed ring of onlookers, several rows deep, lined the walls of the courtroom. The bench was also crowded, and even the galleries were full of men and women leaning over in their eagerness to hear (which was hard) and also (which was easy) to see. (Pliny 6.33)

Arena of spectators - The spectators probably formed a ring – or rather a rectangle - around the space formed by the podium and benches. The space inside was where the prosecuting lawyer and defending lawyer stood and spoke. Wiseman writes: The corona, or ring of bystanders, enclosed the space like an arena, and what went on within might well be in effect a mortal combat.

Women? Children? - There were also upper galleries and women were probably encouraged to watch from up here. According to Smith's dictionary, this gallery reached entirely around the inside of the building, and was frequented by women as well as men, the women on one side and the men on the other...

Screens - Most basilicas were huge, so if more than one trial was going on at a time they were often screened off from each other with moveable panels, perhaps of rush or wood.

What to wear (defendant) – Today, if you go to court you usually dress as smartly as possible. In Roman times the defendants sometimes put on their oldest clothes and then tore their hair and scratched their cheeks to gain the sympathy of the judges. Sometimes they brought along their young children or aged parents. Cicero recounts a case in which he had 'filled the Forum with sobs and laments' by holding aloft the young son of the defendant. These family members, as well as the defendant, would often dress in rags and muss their hair to appear more pathetic.

What to wear (lawyer) - On the other hand, the lawyer had to look dignified. At the beginning of the trial, at least. The toga (the big blanket thingy) was required wear at formal occasions, and pleading a case in the basilica was definitely such an occasion. But Quintilian describes how the orator might become increasingly dishevelled as the trial progressed. When, however, our speech draws near its close, more especially if fortune shows herself kind, practically everything is becoming; we may stream with sweat, show signs of fatigue, and let our dress fall in careless disorder and the toga slip loose from us on every side. This fact makes me all the more surprised that Pliny should think it worth while to enjoin the orator to dry his brow with a handkerchief in such a way as not to disorder the hair, although a little later he most properly, and with a certain gravity and sternness of language, forbids us to rearrange it. For my own part, I feel that the dishevelled locks make an additional appeal to the emotions, and that neglect of such precautions creates a pleasing impression. (Study of Rhetoric 11.3.147) The exhausted appearance of the sweating and dishevelled orator probably impressed the jury more than it disturbed them.

The Gestures of an Orator

The Gestures - In his book Study of Rhetoric, Quintilian describes many gestures of an orator, e.g. the gesture for amazement, the gesture for silence, the gesture for disbelief. Cicero warns that the orator's style should not be as broad as actors’ gestures, but he permits the orator to stride up and down, or strike his brow or his thigh. Those are both melodramatic gestures and I suspect that ancient orators would have been like actors in the early silent films.

Overacting - We get a wonderful idea of a bad lawyer from this passage of Quintilian, in which he tells would-be orators what NOT to do:
For it is a mistake to look at the ceiling, to rub the face and give it a flush of impudence, to crane it boldly forward, to frown in order to secure a fierce expression, or brush back the hair from the forehead against its natural direction in order to produce a terrifying effect by making it stand on end. Again, there are other unseemly tricks, such as that so dear to the Greeks of twitching our fingers and lips as though studying what to say, clearing the throat with a loud noise, thrusting out one foot to a considerable distance, grasping a portion of the toga in the left hand, standing with feet wide apart, holding ourselves stiffly, leaning backwards, stooping, or hunching our shoulders toward the back of the head, as wrestlers do when about to engage.

Secret Signals - Some orators tweaked their clothing or made other secret signals in order to prompt their supporters to yell, boo, cheer… or worse! Once, Julius Caesar was supposed to signal a massacre by the common and innocuous gesture of letting his toga slide off his shoulder. (Aldrete p 41) Another time, Pompey the Great got the crowd to shout out the name of the accused every time he shook out the folds of his toga. We know about this from Plutarch.

Six Parts of the Speech - Once the judges had been sworn in, the main speeches would be given, prosecution first, then defence. After that, witnesses would be called and cross-examined. Quintilian tells the story of a woman whose husband had been murdered. ‘When I begin the peroration,’ said her advocate, ‘hold up this portrait of him.’ The woman did not know that peroration meant the conclusion, so every time her lawyer glanced at her, she held up the portrait. This soon became so comical, that everybody stopped feeling sorry for her and started laughing!
Here is Lupus' explanation of the six parts:
EXORDIUM -- INTRODUCTION
NARRATION -- WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE THE CRIME
PROPOSITION -- HOW THE CRIME WAS COMMITTED
PROOFS -- EVIDENCE AND CLUES
REFUTATION -- HOW YOUR OPPONENT IS WRONG
PERORATION -- CONCLUSION

Exhibit ‘A’ – In addition to portraits of the deceased, lawyers sometimes brought pictures of the crime actually being committed, painted on wood or cloth, like an ancient version of Crimewatch. We know they did this because Quintilian specifically disapproves of this practice. (Study of Rhetoric 6.1.32) Ergo, it must have been a strategy used by other lawyers. Of course such scenes were usually pure conjecture.

over-large clepsydra?

Time’s Up! - The lawyers’ speeches were timed by a clepsydra or water clock. These probably lasted about 20 minutes, so when Cicero brags that he spoke for six clepsydrae, he means two hours! When they were filming The Slave-girl from Jerusalem, the set designers tried to find an image of an ancient water clock. I sent them a picture of the clepsydra from the film Cleopatra, but I forgot to include scale. They constructed an enormous version, bigger than a man!

Prison? - Imprisonment was not a form of punishment in Roman times. In antiquity prisons were used only to hold suspects until trial. Sometimes houses were used as prisons, as the case with St Paul in Rome. If the person was convicted, the punishment could be a fine, a whipping, forced labour, or the death penalty. For freeborn citizens, this meant beheading. For slaves, this meant crucifixion. Some condemned criminals were executed in dramatic and entertaining ways during lunch break in the arena, in order to illustrate Greek myths. (See my book, The Gladiators from Capua).

New Function - from about the fourth century AD, basilicas began to be used by Christians as meeting places and many became churches. That is why you can still see the form and layout of the ancient law-court in some churches: the three naves, the upper gallery and the apse at one end.

Some books on Roman Law-courts:
Catullus and his World T.P.Wiseman
Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome by Gregory S. Aldrete
Crime and Community in Ciceronian Rome by A. Riggsby
Roman Law in Context by David Johnston
Actors and Audience in the Roman Courtroom by Leanne Bablitz
Final Judgments: Duty & Emotion in Roman Wills by Edward Champlin

The Slave-girl from Jerusalem has lots of courtroom action

[The Slave-girl from Jerusalem is number 13 in the Roman Mysteries series of books. You can watch the televised adaptation if you can find the Roman Mysteries Season Two DVD. The new Roman Quests series, set in Roman Britain, launched in May 2016 with book one: Escape from Rome.]