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.]

Roman Istanbul

Friday 16 May 2008

I always like to go to the countries where my books are set to get details about the geography, flora, fauna and cuisine. Many aspects won’t have changed since Roman times and those are the things I’m looking for. I am like a detective, trying to find the past in the present. At the moment I am researching the penultimate Roman Mystery, The Prophet from Ephesus.

On our first day in Istanbul we are taken to the site of the hippodrome, the ancient chariot racecourse. Nothing much is left of it, apart from one or two columns, but there is a nice relief sculpture of important Romans watching the races.

Then our tour takes us underground, to some cisterns below an ancient church. I am in for a treat.

When I was in Alexandria last year, I wanted to see one of the many cisterns that lie below that city, but was told by our tour guide that there weren’t any! This was an Egyptian guide who didn’t even know what lay beneath the city. (Bad Kuoni Tours!) But I have found what I’m looking for here in Istanbul. As in Alexandria, these catacombs have columns and vaulted roofs. There is even an upside down head of Medusa.

Hagia Sofia church, the Blue Mosque and the Topkapi Palace are beautiful, too, but there is nothing Roman here.

I slope off early from the Topkapi Palace and I make my own way to the nearby Archeology Museum. There is a peaceful garden here among the sarcophagi and columns, shaded by pines and patrolled by feral cats. In the museum I see some of the best pieces from sites like Miletus, Ephesus and Aphrodisias. One of my favourites is a woman wearing the distinctive Flavian hairdo. (That doesn’t mean her hair is like Flavia’s, it means she lived in the time of the emperoros Vespasian, Titus or Domitian, all of whom had the nomen Flavia.)

The next day we are given an hour in the Egyptian spice market. There are all sorts of goodies for sale, including a man who sells leeches by the jar. Richard buys £30 worth of spices from a dealer who calls himself Al Pacino Turko, the Turkish Al Pacino. He has photos of himself with lots of famous people, like Julio Inglesias and Miss Denmark. So I get a photo, too! I think we could have bought the same spices for half the price in ASDA but I guess it's not every day that your grocer is Al Pacino.

After our tour of the spice market, we take a cruise on the Bosphorus. The following day we drop in on the Sunday service at the Greek orthodox church. I see women writing prayers on scraps of paper. In Roman times people scribbled prayers on paper or cloth or even metal and hung them on sacred trees or left them in the temple of the appropriate god or goddess.

Later, in another service at the Anglican church in Istanbul, the rather formal liturgy is enlivened by a cat chasing a cockroach back and forth beneath the pews.

But the highlight of my time in Istanbul is a visit to a three hundred year old hammam...

Marrakech Souks and Gardens

We've found it! The best hotel yet. Thanks to the Rough Guide we booked the Hotel Gallia. It's a beautiful little hotel based around two tiled courtyards near the Djema el Fna. It's cheap, clean, warm and joy of joys: there is a bathtub! The staff are warm and welcoming and always on hand. They speak French and English. It is bliss after the rather grim and cold Hotel Terminus last night.

I get up early to check out the dyers' souk at 6.30am – like the guide books say – but it must be too close to the Festival of the Sheep; everything is closed and dark. Never mind. I go to a hammam around the corner. This one is called Hammam Polo and I have to go upstairs to the women's section. It is pretty basic with only two taps for hot and cold, not a nice 'Roman' basin like the hammam in Fes. Someone should do a 'good hammam' guide.

Afterwards I'm ravenous and have breakfast in the courtyard of the Hotel Gallia with two women from London, one an Australian and one from South Africa. (I promised Richard he could lie-in as long as he wanted). The breakfast is bliss. Fresh squeezed orange juice, lemon for my tea, honey with croissants and fresh bread and 'Moroccan crepes'. Yay, Hotel Gallia!

Richard is up by 10.00 and I sit with him while he has his breakfast on the sunny roof terrace which I discovered after a little explore. At 11.30 we get a petit taxi to the Jardins Majorelle, one of the must-see sights of Marrakech. These gardens, created over several decades by French artist Jacques Majorelle, are a stunning visual feast. The green of the bamboo, palms and shrubs contrasts beautifully with planters painted in cobalt blue, turquoise and lemon yellow.

After that it's back to the souk for another attempt to find the dyers' souk. This time the souk is packed with people doing last minute shopping and we find the dyers' souk. Colourful skeins of yarn glow in the sunlight slanting through the reed roof. There are necklaces, tassels, garments, all in jewel-like colours. We stop at a paint and spice shop and the owner shows us the jars of powder used to colour plaster for walls.

Back in the Djema el Fna we rent yesterday's Independent (a British newspaper) for 10 dh and have a coffee and salad on a terrace overlooking Marrakech's most lively square. It is glorious in the sunshine, almost warm.

A quick stop back at the hotel to freshen up and then we are back to the Djema el Fna to hire a calech (horse-drawn carriage) to take us to the Palmerie, the closest thing to an oasis we will get to see. We agree a price for the two hour round trip (250 dh) and set off through busy pre-holiday traffic. Our driver Said wears a sombrero and sometimes I think I am in a Western. After negotiating hellish traffic of buses, huge trucks, mopeds and people with sheep in wheelbarrows we reach the outskirts. There seems to be a knife sharpener on every corner, making his stone wheel spin with a foot pedal as sparks fly off the razor-sharp blades of knives. Everywhere is the bleating of sheep and rams as people lead them off home.

Finally we reach the relative tranquility of the Palmerie, which turns out to be an expensive residential area of houses with walled gardens. And some palm trees. If Chella in Rabat was an amazing revelation, this place is a bit of a letdown. Never mind. We stop at the 'Caravanserie' and take a photo of two camels and have mint tea in the weakening afternoon sun. Tomorrow is the Festival of the Sheep when we will have an unforgettable experience but for now we carpe the diem.

[This trip was to research Roman Mystery 14, The Beggar of Volubilis.]

Seeking warmth in Fes

Yesterday – Friday – it was cold and pouring with rain at Moulay Bousselham, where we've been staying at a guesthouse. We eagerly pack our cases, knowing we are off to the warmth of a hotel room reserved in Fes... we hope.

Gentiane's Berber butler drives us through pouring rain to Souk el Arba, about an hour away. We find the small unheated train station and wait for the ticket man to arrive. We manage to buy tickets, a good sign. At exactly 12.52, the time of the train to Fes, everyone goes out onto the platform and stands shivering for another half hour. Then someone makes an announcement and everyone drags their cases back across the tracks to wait on the unsheltered platform. It is still raining steadily. We are cold and damp. At last the train arrives. It is an ancient unheated creature that due to be replaced by a modern double-decker in the near future. Cold consolation.

We find a compartment with a nice Moroccan couple who are returning to Fes to spend the festival with their family. At one point another Moroccan breezes into our compartment long enough to establish – in excellent English – who we are and where we are from. He recommends a restaurant in Fes and a guide named Ali who speaks excellent English. I ring Ali straightaway and arrange for him to give us a half day tour of the medina the following day.

The windows are wet and steamy, so we can't see any of the countryside passing by. Richard and I pass our time shivering, reading and sharing food with the Moroccan couple. I offer them salted peanuts, which they accept. We get juicy tangerines in return. Finally we arrive at Fes. It's 4.30pm and will soon be dark. I have been cold and damp since I got up at 7.30 and am yearning for warmth. But it's not easy to get a taxi on a rainy afternoon in Fes. At last we succeed and climb into a red petit taxi. He drives us past medieval walls of golden mud and stone. The rain pours down.

The desk clerk at the Hotel Batha (pronounced Bat-ha) jokes that he doesn't have a reservation for us. Ha ha. When I ask if the room is heated he says no but it has air conditioning. Ha ha. And when is breakfast? Between 4.00 am and 6.00 am. Ha! But he usefully informs us that we can have dinner in the hotel restaurant for only a slight increase to our room rate. A porter takes our luggage and shows us to the lift and at last we find what we have been seeking all day long: WARMTH! There is also a bathtub - oh bliss - and a toilet without the ominous wastebasket beside it (meaning used paper goes there and must not be flushed).

The Rough Guide says there is a hammam near here, close to a cinema. As I haven't done anything research-y that day, I decide to be brave and go. After consulting the guide book I pack a towel (thanks Hotel Batha), shampoo, soap, face cream, a hairbrush and a spare pair of panties. 

Out of the hotel – still raining, and dark now, too – up to the cinema. I can't find the cinema but a peanut seller kindly takes me to the unmarked door of the hammam and beams a toothless smile. I tip him two dirhams. In the entryway I buy a ticket from an old man. Entry to the hamam costs 18 dirhams, about one pound fifty. Through ancient double wooden doors to find a steamy room with a tile floor and small drain in the centre. Around this courtyard on three sides is a low stone balcony with women changing. I go timidly across and up a few stairs, find the lady who takes you ticket. With a bit of questioning in French I rent a locker (wooden box above the bench) and agree to a massage for 50 dirhams, about four pounds. I undress down to my panties, like everyone else, and an old lady (also in just panties) grasps my left arm above the elbow with a calloused hand and pulls me across the slippery floor to a room aroud a corner.

This room looks just like the ruins of Roman baths: tile floor, tile walls, high ceiling and two stone basins, one for very hot water, one for cold water. There are naked women everywhere, sitting on the  floor surrounded by colourful plastic buckets. They are all ages, ranging from little girls to old women. They are washing themselves, their hair, and even their clothes.

My crone guide takes me into a second steam room, almost identical to the first but less crowded. She gets me to sit on the floor and starts tipping buckets of deliciously warm water over me. Then she asks for my shampoo. When I produce the Head and Shoulders she washes my hair, brushes it through rinses it with a bucket. Bliss.

Now another lady, naked apart from a red bandana-type headscarf, takes a scrubbing glove and rubs me hard all over. It is almost painful, probably because I'm not used to it. I am lying on my back. The floor is heated underneath in Roman style and is so hot it almost burns. I close my eyes and try to relax into it. Before Bandana Lady gets me to turn onto my front she shows me the worms of grey skin she has rubbed off me, even though I had that hotel bath to get warm just an hour earlier. Eww.

Bandana Lady does my back they sluice me off. Then a third lady – Blue Headscarf – gives me my massage, rubbing me painfully hard with my bar of soap. Finally I know it's over when they sluice me down with gaspingly cold water.

I go back to my locker and have started to dry myself when I feel a bit nauseous. I have to put my head between my knees for a few minutes. I should have rested after the bath. The hammam must not be rushed. But Richard is waiting back at the hotel room. After a few minutes I feel better. I get dressed and go back to the hotel.

I feel cleaner than I have in my whole life. And very warm.

Dinner in the hotel restaurant is uninspired but good and especially nice because they've seated us by the fire. We have harira - the noodle, vegetable and bean soup - then I have chicken kebab and Richard has a beef tajine. We treat ourselves to a bottle of rosé from Meknes and finish off with oranges sprinkled with cinnamon. That night we sleep in a warm room on clean sheets and a firm mattress. Yay! Hotel Batha and warmth.