A taste of Homer, Virgil and Ovid by Caroline K. Mackenzie

Five years ago, almost to the day, in March 2020, the pandemic had taken hold and daily life as we knew it was turned upside down. Everyone scrambled to find ways of keeping in touch, since meeting up in person was out of the question, and plans that had been made had to be abandoned. And so my Classics Club, newly formed and a weekly event in the picturesque Pavilion of Burwash Common migrated to Zoom instead. We had no idea how long the restrictions, or our reading material, would last so agreed simply to continue meeting for as long as everyone wished.

One of our members recently mentioned that we are about to celebrate our fifth birthday – tempus fugit, as Virgil observed. When Classics Club was just one year old, I wrote a History Girls' blog about its origins. Now, five years in, seems a good time to reflect on the works we have read and to share some of the highlights.

It is almost impossible to pick the ‘best bits’, as each week we have read something that resonates, entertains, surprises or even comforts us. Therefore, I decided to flick through my well-worn copies of each of the books and to stop where I noticed the most scribbles in the margin, or perhaps highlighted sections of the text, and have chosen from those pages a selection of passages which I hope you will enjoy. If you are new to Homer, Virgil and Ovid, this may give you a flavour of the style and subject matter of these wonderful poets and, I hope, tempt you to read more.

All quotations are taken from the Penguin Classics series, the cover images of which I have included for each work. I have chosen this set of translations as they were the first versions of these poems which I read and have therefore been on my bookshelves for as long as I have been studying and teaching Classics. But the variations between translations and the difficulty of choosing just one for each Greek or Latin work was the topic of a History Girls’ blog I wrote last year.

As these passages are simply a taster, I have not attempted to summarise the stories of the epics or provide a detailed background. Some of the themes, such as the Trojan War, or characters from Greek mythology, such as the Cyclops, may be familiar in any event. However, for each one I have noted whether the original poem was Greek or Latin and the approximate date when the poem was composed and/or completed. The dates for Homer’s epics are approximate and the source of much academic debate.

Homer’s Iliad - Greek - around 750BC

Homer’s characters often utter observations which have a distinctly proverbial flavour, such as this musing by one of the warriors on the battlefield outside Troy:

The generation of men is just like that of leaves. The wind scatters one year’s leaves on the ground, but the forest burgeons and puts out others, as the season of spring comes round. So it is with men: one generation grows on, and another is passing away. (Book 6: 146-9.)

Or this:

…whatever we do, the fates of death stand over us in a thousand forms, and no mortal can run from them or escape them… (Book 12: 326-7.)

Homer is also known for his vivid and striking similes. The Trojan prince, Paris, whose love affair with Helen was the cause of the Trojan war, is cleverly captured with this simile:

Paris did not dally long in his high house, but once he had put on his glorious armour of intricate bronze, he dashed through the city, sure of the speed of his legs. As when some stalled horse who has fed full at the manger breaks his halter and gallops thudding across the plain, eager for his usual bathe in the lovely flow of a river, and glorying as he runs. He holds his head high, and the mane streams back along his shoulders: sure of his own magnificence, his legs carry him lightly to the haunts where the mares are at pasture. So Paris, son of Priam, came down from the height of Pergamos, bright in his armour like the beaming sun, and laughing as he came, his quick legs carrying him on. (Book 6: 503-14.)

Similes are also used to heighten the pathos of a scene. Note here the reference to Menelaos, the Spartan king and husband of Helen, now in the thick of the Trojan war and trying to reclaim his wife from Paris:

As when a woman stains ivory with crimson dye, in Maionia or Caria, making a cheek-piece for horses. It lies there in her room, and many horsemen yearn to have it for the wearing: but it waits there to be a treasure for a king, both horse’s finery and rider’s glory. Such, Menelaos was the staining with blood of your sturdy thighs, and your legs, and your fine ankles below. (Book 4: 141-7.)

A simile is used to great effect to describe the leader of the Greeks, and brother of Menelaos, Agamemnon:

Agamemnon rose to speak, letting his tears fall like a spring of black water which trickles its dark stream down a sheer rock’s face. (Book 9: 13-15.)

Words, so important in Homer’s oral tradition, are often likened to nature:

But when he released that great voice from his chest and the words which flocked down like snowflakes in winter, no other mortal man could then rival Odysseus. (Book 3: 221-3.)

Nestor the sweet-spoken, … from his tongue the words flowed sweeter than honey. (Book 1: 247-9.)

Homer’s Odyssey - Greek - around 725BC

Odysseus returns home to Ithaca after twenty years of absence: 10 years at the Trojan war and 10 years making his tumultuous journey home. He is disguised but his faithful dog recognises him:

As they stood talking, a dog lying there lifted his head and pricked up his ears. Argus was his name. Patient Odysseus himself had owned and bred him, though he had sailed for holy Ilium [Troy] before he could reap the benefit… in his owner’s absence, he lay abandoned on the heaps of dung from the mules and cattle which lay in profusion at the gate…. But directly he became aware of Odysseus’ presence, he wagged his tail and dropped his ears, though he lacked the strength now to come nearer his master. Odysseus turned his eyes away, and, making sure Eumaeus did not notice, brushed away a tear….. As for Argus, the black hand of Death descended on him the moment he caught sight of Odysseus – after twenty years. (Book 17: 291-305… 326-7.)

Odysseus is cunning, crafty and has a way with words. The word-play in the following episode is one of his more famous tricks. The Cyclops has just eaten alive some of Odysseus’ companions and washes them down with wine. Odysseus is narrating the story:

The Cyclops took the wine and drank it up. And the delicious drink gave him such exquisite pleasure that he asked me for another bowlful. “Give me more, please, and tell me your name, here and now – I would like to make you a gift that will please you. We Cyclopes have wine of our own made from the grapes that our rich soil and rains from Zeus produce. But this vintage of yours is a drop of the real nectar and ambrosia.”…

“Cyclops,” I said, “you ask me my name. I’ll tell it to you; and in return give me the gift you promised me. My name is Nobody.”…

The Cyclops answered me from his cruel heart. “Of all his company I will eat Nobody last, and the rest before him. That shall be your gift.” He had hardly spoken before he toppled over and fell face upwards on the floor, where he lay with his great neck twisted to one side, and all-compelling sleep overpowered him. In his drunken stupor he vomited, and a stream of wine mixed with morsels of men’s flesh poured from his throat. (Book 9: 353-9… 364-74.)

Odysseus and his men seize the opportunity and drive a sharpened olive stake, heated in fire, into the Cyclops’ single eye, blinding him. He shrieks and calls for help from his fellow Cyclopes who gather outside his cave and ask what is wrong and whether somebody is trying to kill him. The conversation that follows goes like this:

“O my friends, it's Nobody’s treachery… that is doing me to death.”

“Well then," came the immediate reply, "if you are alone and nobody is assaulting you, you must be sick… and cannot be helped.” (Book 9: 408, 410-11.)

Odysseus’ trick has worked, just as the Trojan horse trick worked, another of Odysseus’ cunning plans, which brought an end to the ten year Trojan war. That story was not told by Homer but by our next poet, Virgil, in his epic poem, the Aeneid.

Virgil’s Aeneid - Latin - 19 BC

Virgil’s use of personification is perhaps best showcased in this wonderful description of rumour. An ancient take on ‘fake news’:

Rumour did not take long to go through the great cities of Libya. Of all the ills there are, Rumour is the swiftest. She thrives on movement and gathers strength as she goes. From small and timorous beginnings she soon lifts herself up into the air, her feet still on the ground and her head hidden in the clouds…. Rumour is quick of foot and swift on the wing, a huge and horrible monster, and under every feather on her body, strange to tell, there lies an eye that never sleeps, a mouth and tongue that are never silent and an ear always pricked. By night she flies between earth and sky, squawking through the darkness, and never lowers her eyelids in sweet sleep. By day she keeps watch perched on the tops of gables or on high towers and causes fear in great cities, holding fast to her lies and distortions as often as she tells the truth. (Book 4: 173-88.)

Book 4 is dedicated to the story of Dido and Aeneas. If you only have time to read one book of the Aeneid, this might be the one to pick. It inspired Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas which includes the haunting and exquisite Dido’s Lament. Virgil’s account hints at the tragic ending with this observation:

Love is a cruel master. There are no lengths to which it does not force the human heart. (Book 4: 412.)

Ovid’s Metamorphoses - Latin - AD 8

Perhaps what sets Ovid apart from Homer and Virgil is his wit and rather mischievous take on popular myths. He can certainly rival his predecessors in beautiful narrative and storytelling but this passage demonstrates his comic portrayal of the man-eating monster, the Cyclops, named Polyphemus, whom we met above. In Ovid’s version, Polyphemus has fallen in love with a beautiful nymph, Galatea, and attempts to win her affections:

The wild Polyphemus was combing his prickly locks with a mattock, attempting to trim his shaggy beard with a pruning-hook, and trying to look less fierce when he gazed at his face in a pool…. (Book 13: 765-7.)

“Truly, I know myself, I recently saw my reflection in pure clear water and liked the image that met my gaze…Don’t think me ugly because my body’s a bristling thicket of prickly hair….I’ve only one eye on my brow, in the middle, but that is as big as a fair-sized shield. Does it matter?” (Book 13: 840-1, 846, 851-2.)

Ovid invites sympathy for Polyphemus and shows his romantic side when Polyphemus attempts to woo Galatea with promises of gifts: 

“My orchards are groaning with apples, my trailing vines are swollen with grapes, both golden yellow and purply red; I am storing each harvest for your delight.” (Book 13: 812-4.)

Sadly for Polyphemus his love is unrequited and, to add insult to injury, his beloved Galatea is smitten instead with ‘a beautiful boy of sixteen, with the first smooth down on his cheeks’ (753-4) – quite the opposite of a huge, hairy monster. Polyphemus’ romantic side soon turns to anger when he is rejected and he issues this threat about his love rival: 

“I’ll draw his guts from his living body, then tear it to pieces and scatter his limbs all over the fields and the waves where your home is.” (Book 13: 865-6.)

This sounds more like the Cyclops we met in Homer.

What next? Greek plays - 5th century BC

It is hard to follow the works of Homer, Virgil and Ovid but, inspired by our theatre trips to West End productions of Oedipus (two different ones within just a few months) and Elektra, Classics Club will spend the summer term reading Greek tragedies written by the playwrights, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. One of our members discovered this lovely edition with 16 plays in total: how will we choose which ones to read together? Perhaps we shall simply read them all.

www.carolinetutor.co.uk

Rutland Roman Villa - the story of a remarkable discovery. By Caroline K. Mackenzie.

Professor Alice Roberts from BBC Two's 'Digging for Britain' and Jim Irvine, who discovered the Roman Villa and its mosaics. © Jim Irvine.

A chance discovery during a walk in the fields during lockdown became breaking news in late November 2021. Jim Irvine, engineer and son of a farmer, realised that he had stumbled across a Roman Villa, complete with stunning mosaics which have been hailed as ‘the find of the century’. The Villa complex is believed to have been occupied between the 3rd and 4th century AD, probably by a wealthy individual with a knowledge of classical Greek and Roman literature.

The remains of the mosaic measure 11m by almost 7m and it is thought to have been the floor of a large dining or entertaining area where it would have been designed to impress visitors to the Villa. Three panels tell the story (almost like a cartoon strip) of Achilles’ battle with Hector at the conclusion of the Trojan War. Mosaics appeared in private and public buildings across the Roman Empire, and often depicted characters from mythology and history. However, the Rutland mosaic is so far unique in the UK (and one of only a few across Europe) in showing scenes from Homer’s Iliad. Homer’s epic poem, based on events in the Trojan War, was composed in the 8th or early 7th century BC. The mosaic also depicts Hector's body being ransomed for gold, a scene not in Homer's Iliad but in a lost version of the Trojan War by the Greek playwright Aeschylus (who lived in the 6th to 5th century BC).

Caroline K. Mackenzie spoke with Jim Irvine about the story behind the headlines, the serendipity of a swarm of bees, and the thrill of being part of BBC Two’s ‘Digging for Britain’ with Professor Alice Roberts.

Reconstruction of the dining and reception area at Lullingstone Roman Villa c. AD 330-60. (See earlier blog on Lullingstone.) The mosaic at Rutland Roman Villa may have been designed for a similar setting. (Illustration by Peter Dunn.) © Historic England Archive.

Please could you tell me a little bit about yourself and how long you and your family have been farming the land?

My Dad’s family own the farm. He and his brother own the land between them and my Dad is the tenant farmer. I have been working on the farm since I was a kid and I have walked in the field where the Roman Villa is for over 30 years.

I am an engineering director of a company in the hydrogen production business. So my actual farming activities are really limited now to evenings during harvest and/or weekends when my Dad needs me to chainsaw up a tree or fix a broken combine harvester!

Please could you tell me the story of how you first discovered the initial signs of a Roman site?

It was a bit of an adventure! During lockdown when six people were allowed to get together, my wife and I and our two daughters saw quite a lot of my parents as they live only a few miles away. One sunny day in the summer of 2020, during that particularly dry period, we decided to go and lark about in the river. As we were going down to the river we had a bit of a run-in with some local bees which the local beekeeper has there and we all got stung. My wife tumbled onto the ground and I had to pull the bees out of her plaits - it was all quite disconcerting.

After we had played in the river, we decided we probably should not go back past the bees again. We decided to walk around the bottom of the field on the other side. The crop had not grown by the river because in the winter of the previous year there had been some flooding. There was about 10m of bare soil which we were trudging along. This is where I spotted a few bits and pieces which were the sorts of things you might see in a local museum: a piece of pottery, part of a hypocaust [a system of central heating in a building that produces and circulates hot air below the floor of a room], and even some oyster shells. Although I could reconcile the piece of pottery with some building rubble from the Victorian house across the river, I couldn’t reconcile the oyster shells as I was pretty sure they had never grown in Rutland!

The orange bits of tile were the first bits that jumped out at me because the rest of the ground is brown with bits of limestone strewn across it from the subsoil. As soon as we started looking closely at the ground, we started noticing more bits. If you walk across the field today, even in the stubble, you can’t really go five paces without spotting some broken bit of building material, or a bit of pot, or a tessera [a small block of stone, tile, glass, or other material used in the construction of a mosaic]. In retrospect I am slightly annoyed at myself as I consider myself to be quite an observant person - how did I not notice this before?!

The field is used for cereal - it gets cultivated, it grows, is harvested, and is re-cultivated. Usually, the best time to discover any hidden artefacts in a field is just after the field has been ploughed and after some heavy rain which washes all the soil off anything like pottery, stone and glass. But in this instance, it was the specific conditions on that small patch of field where the flood had not allowed the crop to grow that led to the discovery. The combination of lockdown, the bees, and the right conditions all conspired to illuminate this find to me. And I have some lovely honey in the cupboard so I forgive the bees for stinging us!

Jim digging in the field under the watchful eye of one of his daughters. © Jim Irvine.

What happened next?

I brought a few bits home and photographed them. I did a lot of work to find out why they might be there. I looked at LiDAR [a detection system which works on the principle of radar], old maps, and the thing that really illuminated it was the overhead Google maps photo which revealed a very obvious crop mark along the outline of the building - you couldn’t miss it! This was also a fluke as the photo was from June 2018, which was when we had a long, hot summer so the crop mark was clearly evident. I looked back at the historical imagery right back to the 1990s, taken at all different times of the year, and there was no evidence of any crop marks at all.

I texted my Dad to ask if he had ever noticed any big bits of stone in the field while ploughing it and he said he had seen a couple of bits. So I sent him the picture!

I then went to where I thought the crop mark was in the field and looked around to see what the topology was like. I walked around the tramlines and looked in the gaps where there were no crops. I found a few more oyster shells on the surface in the mixed-up plough soil. I even dug a small trench along one of the tramlines but didn’t really find anything. At this point the crops were about one month off being harvested, which distorts the heights and makes it hard to see the ground levels.

I kept badgering my Dad to get on with harvesting the wheat! It was towards the end of lockdown and one day we decided that instead of going to the beach we would go to the field. We took the kids and went with some folding chairs, a sunshade, and a picnic. I worked out where I thought the wall would be, based on the crop mark, the GPS on my phone and the position of features like the tram lines in the field, the trees and hedges.

I have always been interested in archaeology generally, but I have never studied it. I had a rough idea of what I thought a Roman Villa might look like, with a courtyard surrounded by buildings with covered areas. But because the crop marks indicated a building with apses, I was thinking more of a medieval building or a church. I had never seen an apse on a Roman Villa, but I had never really looked that closely.

This time when I dug a trench, I found some small tiles at the bottom of the hole - they were tesserae measuring around an inch square. I still didn’t consider it was Roman. I had in my mind it was medieval as there are so many medieval buildings here in Lincolnshire and Staffordshire.

In a portion of the trench I dug, the soil changed to a lighter colour - more like mortar. The soil is quite loamy - limestone mixed with soil - so is easy to dig when it is dry. I dug a couple of feet down making a hole not quite a foot square and there were about 30 tiles at the bottom. I had thought I would find a wall but instead it appeared to be a path around the outside of the building. My Dad came with a pickaxe and some brushes, and we expanded outwards until we reached a number of small tesserae joined together and a pattern started to emerge. We were pretty shocked.

This was the guilloche [a pattern of interwoven strands, resembling rope, often used as a border in Roman mosaics] around the outside of the figured mosaic. We went a bit further and exposed what transpired to be a depiction of a foot and so worked upwards to reveal more of the figure. I should add that we were exceptionally careful as we worked. We only uncovered the bit that was easy to uncover. The Romans did a spectacular job of creating a level floor. I put my mobile phone on it with a Level App and it was completely level in both directions. This made it very easy to dig because you knew what level to put in your spade without digging into the floor. We uncovered quite a bit of the mosaic but stopped where the mosaic had clearly been damaged by something or other - it was sinking down a bit.

As the mosaic was uncovered, the depiction of a face appeared. © Jim Irvine.

When did you realise you needed to call in some archaeologists?

Having discovered some of the mosaic panels, we decided we needed to tell someone about it. After various initial phone calls, such as to the museum in Peterborough, I ascertained that I needed to report it to the Leicestershire Historic Environment Record Officer, Helen Wells. I put a presentation together outlining all the above with photos, and we talked through it all on a video call. Interestingly, someone else had spotted the crop mark and recorded it about a month before I had. Helen suggested we arrange a field walk.

A couple of days later, Peter Liddell, the former county archaeologist, came to the site together with John Thomas and Dr Jen Browning, both from ULAS (University of Leicester Archaeological Services). I remember the four of us peering into the hole that I had dug.

How long did the excavations take and what were the most exciting discoveries?

In the summer of 2020, they secured funding which accommodated some geophysics and an archaeological dig with the help of some volunteers. David Neal, a mosaics expert, came and sketched the portion of the mosaic that was uncovered. I was fortunate enough to be able to help out and was asked to drive the digger. What is great is that they have kept me involved throughout. My Dad doesn’t like reading emails so I am the point of communication for everybody - a bit like the PR guy! It has certainly kept me busy.

I have learned so much having been actively involved in excavation in both years, 2020 and 2021. I have a trowel and I now know how to clean a mosaic and how to record it, having worked with the archaeologists.

There was also the involvement from the BBC Two ‘Digging for Britain’ team led by Professor Alice Roberts. John Thomas at ULAS has worked with them before so the producers contacted him to ask if he had anything going on at that moment. He said “Actually, yes!”. I had the opportunity to work with the Digging for Britain team throughout and we were fortunate that they gave the discovery a lot of airtime - almost half a show was dedicated to it.

David Neal drawing and recording the mosaic. © Jim Irvine.

I gather you had to keep it all secret - that must have been hard!

It was probably the worst kept secret in the area! A lot of my friends knew it was going on and we did have a number of visitors to the site but they all had to keep quiet about it. We were fortunate in that it is quite an inaccessible area so people probably wouldn’t notice it just driving past. Now of course the mosaic has been reburied for its ongoing preservation.

In the first year of excavations it was only open for four or five weeks. The archaeologists came back later to do some further excavation on the other areas of interest such as parallel ditches - a lot of the artefacts were at the bottom of the ditches.

We had uncovered about one third of the room with the mosaic in 2020. In 2021, the plan was to dig a much bigger trench over the whole area. That was when the rest of the room was uncovered and it transpired that the mosaic was about 11m by 7m.

Reconstruction of the dining and reception area at Lullingstone Roman Villa c. AD 330-60. (See earlier blog on Lullingstone.) The mosaic at Rutland Roman Villa may have been designed for a similar setting. (Illustration by Peter Dunn.) © Historic England Archive.

The mosaic itself is a remarkable discovery. Although there are other Roman mosaics in Britain, this is the only one we know of so far depicting scenes from the Trojan War. The three panels show Achilles and Hector fighting from their chariots, Achilles dragging Hector’s corpse around the walls of Troy and finally Hector’s father Priam ransoming his son’s body for gold. Do you recall the moment when the scenes were identified and their significance was realised?

I had a long call from the Leicestershire county archaeologist, Richard Clark. After we had revealed the three panels which each showed a portion of the story, they were able to figure out what it was because of the various details such as the horses, and Priam’s Phrygian cap [an attribute often used in classical Greek iconography to identify Trojans as non-Greek]. Richard explained it to me really clearly and I thought “Wow - that is amazing” because this is a story that has endured from Greek times, through Roman times right up until the present day - you can even watch Brad Pitt in a film about Troy!

This part of the mosaic depicts the ransoming of Hector's body for gold by his father Priam, identifiable by his (red) Phrygian cap. Priam is second from the right in this image. © Jim Irvine.

Was this your first introduction to Homer and his stories of the Trojan war? If so, has it inspired you to learn more about the Classical world and/or Roman Britain?

Being an engineer, I don’t have time to read stories. But I had seen the film about Troy! However, my Classical education is limited. When I was a kid I used to read factual books rather than any mythology books. It is only as I have got older that I have been more interested in History and this discovery is a really good focal point for me. I think Homer’s Iliad is a massive volume and probably beyond my capability to read.

[CKM interrupts to say that a good translation is accessible to anyone - it is quite simply a great story. CKM enthusiastically waves a copy of Homer's Iliad at her computer screen and urges Jim to read it.]

OK - I’ll do that! I don’t feel like I am doing my job properly unless I read it!

My interest in this is really what does this tell us about the Roman people at the time and how they interpreted the Iliad. Did they get this from a pattern book and tell the mosaicist that they wanted these three pictures? Or was it someone who knew about the Iliad and had it written down somewhere and said, “I want you to represent that story for me”? For me, the people aspect is thrilling.

Absolutely. I have been reading Homer's Iliad with my online Classics Club reading group throughout lockdown (see earlier blog on Classics Club) and it is amazing to think that people in Roman Britain may have been reading and enjoying the same story as we are today. Although I haven’t gone as far as commissioning a mosaic floor, one member of the reading group who is an artist created a lovely painting for me depicting, guess what, Hector and Achilles in battle, with the Trojan horse in the background. It seems our desire to have images in our homes of the stories we love has not changed in 1600 years!

Looking forward, are you able to tell me about the future plans for further excavations?

It will depend on funding of course. Historic England and ULAS are co-ordinating some more excavation this year but the plan is not yet formalised. I understand they are expecting to uncover a lot more in terms of square metres than previously.

The whole site has phases of archaeology across it. There are potentially some roundhouses, rectangular buildings, a bath house, and aisled buildings, etc.

Illustration of the baths at Lullingstone Roman Villa, Kent as they may have appeared in the late third century AD. (Illustration by Peter Dunn/Richard Lea.) © Historic England Archive.

Rutland Roman Villa may also have had baths. 

What would be your dream discovery on your land?

Gold. (Only joking!)

For me, my main interest is what is the state of preservation of the other parts. I am thinking from an engineering point of view here. Next to the field is an area of unfarmed land of about one acre which is just left wild as it is completely inaccessible - it has not been farmed since big machinery came along. It has trees and brambles on it and is in a horrendous mess - anything underneath it will have roots through it. I am fascinated to learn more about the history of the site from the time when whoever owned it with the mosaic ceased to occupy the site and how it has been maintained as it is today.

My personal view is that for the preservation of things like the mosaic, which is only two foot deep and well within root damage depth, for it not to have been damaged and the walls still to be there must mean it has been continuously inhabited or maintained as farmland since it had a building on it. That is the only way it wouldn’t get destroyed by vegetation over time. We have literally just shaved the top of everything through farming but everything else is pretty much as it was when it fell down. I can’t wait to see it all.

At the end of the last excavation, we discovered another mosaic in an adjoining room to the main mosaic room, and we just exposed the corner of it. There also appears to be a tiled corridor which may be the next part of the building which was in great condition

Is there any chance the mosaic of Hector and Achilles will be uncovered again?

It is well preserved. The first year it was covered in a special washed sand, then a membrane and soil on top of that. When [Professor] Alice [Roberts] brushed off the sand it was exactly as we had covered it up before. I was really emotional about that as I had been thinking about it the whole time, for a whole year, and I hadn’t seen it except for the picture on my phone which I look at every day. So seeing it come back again was a moment of “Wow, this is really great.” We cleaned it last year and it looked amazing. When the sand came off, as you can see in the footage, it looked spectacular and that was really what it looked like. Preservation in situ is the best way to look after these things - it’s not going anywhere. The cost of putting a building over it and having tourist access would be millions of pounds. It is well recorded with photos and David Neal’s drawings. Also, the local museum is going to have a virtual exhibit.

Professor Alice Roberts cleaning the sand from the mosaic. © Jim Irvine.

What was the most exciting part for you of it all?

Driving the digger. (Only joking - again!)

It was great to do the TV and to meet the professionals, [Professor] Alice [Roberts] is really nice, and she knows her stuff about bones! I had the chance to work with her while she was on site and it was very interesting as I had never worked on anything like that before.

The thing that has been most interesting is to have been asked to be involved in the excavations and fieldwork with bio-archaeologists. How many people get to excavate and clean a Roman mosaic? I am quite privileged. I think more people have been on TV or driven diggers than have excavated mosaics!

I would love to do more because you have to really think about what you are doing and understand what you are poking your trowel around to make sure you don’t damage anything. I am pretty careful when it comes to working with small things like this but I can also tell when something is robust and is made to be strong. Working in the field and working directly on the mosaic was great - I was there whenever I got the chance. I cleaned Hector’s face and Priam’s feet goodness knows how many times - not many people can say that!

It must have been an amazing discovery for your daughters as well! Has it inspired either of them to become archaeologists?

My youngest daughter wants to become a palaeontologist but for them it has been rather matter of fact. She is at primary school and her class are learning about the Romans and mosaics. They all wrote to me asking me to tell them something about my experience, which was really nice. This is why I like doing talks about the Villa as I love to tell people about the discovery and to get people interested. It is something that I never thought I would be interested in and I think everyone should have the opportunity to engage in this sort of history.

We have a lot to thank you for, not only for discovering the Villa, but also for being so enthusiastic and keen to share the discovery.

The news broke on the Thursday and the following day when I went to work in my garden shed/home office, I telephoned my boss to ask if I could have half a day off as I had to meet ITN and BBC in a field to do an interview. It was then non-stop for a week. It was great and another new experience for me. As well as learning about history and being involved in an archaeological dig, I was then doing media stuff which I had never done before. The last two years have been a massive thrill for me.

It’s amazing to think that the Roman Villa and its incredible mosaic have been under our feet for a long time and we had not noticed the signs until recently. But my interest and awareness have significantly improved and changed such that I look at every piece of farmland slightly differently now.

*****************************************************

Post script: While writing up this interview, I reflected on the circumstances that led to this remarkable discovery, and the serendipity of the swarm of bees. Stories of bees seemed strangely familiar. I then remembered that in Book 2 of the Iliad, Homer describes the Greeks gathering for a council as resembling a mass of bees ‘swarming out from a hollow in the rock in a never-ending stream’. Later, in Book 12, a Trojan warrior describes two Greek warriors defending the entrance to their fortifications as fierce insects defending their nests: ‘But now, like… bees who have made their houses by a rocky path, and will not leave their hollow home, but face the men who come to hunt them and fight to defend their babies, so these men… will not give way from the gates’. [Translations: Hammond, Penguin Classics.]

What a lovely twist of fate, therefore, that bees played a part in the discovery of the Rutland Roman Villa and its stunning mosaic of Hector and Achilles in battle. Homer’s comparisons of the Greeks with bees and the bees’ role in leading Jim Irvine to the mosaic of Achilles (perhaps the most famous Greek warrior of all) provides yet another link between the stories of 8th century BC Greece, the inhabitants of the Roman Villa in Britain in the 4th century AD, and the family who own the land today.

Many thanks to Jim Irvine for kindly giving the interview to the History Girls and for permission to use his photographs of the dig.

Thank you also to Historic England Archive for permission to use the images of Lullingstone Roman Villa.

@carolinetutor

Website: www.carolinetutor.co.uk

LinkedIn: Caroline K. Mackenzie

Classics Club during Covid by Caroline K. Mackenzie

Caroline K. Mackenzie tells the story of her Classics Club and how it has provided her with companionship and inspiration during lockdown.

Classics Club began with an odyssey around the art and archaeology of Greece and Rome (Image: The Caryatids of the Erechtheion in Athens).

This image appeared on my flyers as a visual ‘amuse-bouche’.

© Caroline K. Mackenzie.

A couple of years ago, I decided to set up a ‘Classics Club’. I had moved to a new area and thought it would be a good way to meet new people and share my love of the ancient world. The village has a lovely Pavilion, next to the cricket pitch, and this seemed an ideal venue: not too large to be impersonal, but spacious enough to feel like a classroom. I resolved that, even if no-one turned up to Classics Club, I would still happily spend Monday mornings there with my books in the tranquil surroundings.

The first term was to be a series of lectures on Classical Art and Archaeology. I had just completed an MA on this subject, so my research was fresh in my mind and I was keen to share it. I printed some flyers and set about distributing them. Local businesses were brilliantly supportive and displayed my flyers on notice boards, included them in e-newsletters and generally spread the word. This also gave me the perfect excuse to visit every local coffee shop and pub, leaflets in hand: much coffee and cake was consumed en route, all in the name of marketing.

If you have read my previous post (A Latin Lexicon) you may already have gathered that I am rather fond of coffee and cake. So it seemed natural to include these as part of Classics Club (not least as I liked the alliteration). I hoped it would be an incentive for people to try out Classics Club and would make meeting at the Pavilion a more sociable event.

Classics Club before Covid.

Coffee and cakes were the secret to keeping the numbers up!

© Caroline K. Mackenzie.

For the second term, we planned a smaller reading class which would allow more group discussion and an in-depth look at some of the wonderful Classical literature. Homer’s ‘Iliad’ seemed the perfect place to start. However, after just a few weeks, the pandemic had taken hold and all group meetings had to be abandoned. What were we to do? Zoom came to the rescue.

We had a rather bumpy first session - I kept losing my internet connection so constantly moved around the house until I ended up sitting on the bedroom floor in half-darkness to avoid screen glare. However, everyone was very patient - the thrill of actually being able to ‘see’ each other after the abrupt confinement to our homes gave us the drive to persist. Within a few weeks we had settled into our new routine, and Homer led the way.

Coffee and cake or ‘dainties’ (to borrow a popular translation of Homer’s word for ‘nibbles’) were now ‘bring your own’. However, holding the class online meant that members from further afield could join us, even from abroad. We tackle about 300 lines of Homer a week and even at this steady pace we run out of time to discuss all that we should like to. Homer is such a rich quarry of material, with his observations on the frailty of humanity seeming as urgent and relevant as ever. Not only does Homer bring reassurance but also much needed escapism. We have had some hilarious debates about our favourite characters (mine’s Hektor: I even named my rescue cat after him) and we can’t decide whether to love or hate Achilles, with his arrogant swagger and shameful treatment of Hektor’s corpse.

The longevity and popularity of Homer’s work may largely be thanks to the skill and sensitivity with which he examines human emotions and experiences: hope, fear, love, friendship, family and, of course, death. The poet even seems to have known (or at least hoped) that his work would be immortalised when his leading lady, Helen of Troy, delivers this telling line as she bemoans her ill-fated affair with Paris, the cause of the Trojan war: ‘On us two Zeus has set a doom of misery, so that in time to come we can be themes of song for men of future generations’. That line fills me with delight every time I read it, sending a shiver down my spine: I can’t help wondering, ‘What would Homer have thought of us (three generations in one group no less) discussing his poem 2,700 years later, via Zoom?’. It’s certainly a new twist on the ‘oral tradition’.

 

Achilles, star of the ‘Iliad’: petulant Mummy’s boy or heroic role model?

© Caroline K. Mackenzie.

Perhaps just as important as celebrating Homer’s legacy, Classics Club during Covid has provided an anchor to the week - for me, there is a comforting routine to our regular Monday morning meetings which set me up for my week of teaching (one to one Latin and Greek tutoring, much of which is based on Homer’s works and stories). The group has formed firm friendships and this last year feels almost like a rite of passage - the unique experience of having travelled together through every line of the ‘Iliad’ in such unprecedented times. Homer’s compelling narrative of tragedy, drama and, at times, comedy is beautifully framed by his famous similes depicting the power of nature. In many ways, his narrative has reflected our experiences through the pandemic - the losses we have suffered among family and friends, our finding comfort in those close to us, and our longing to be outdoors among nature for peace and reflection. One of the ‘Iliad’s’ best-known phrases ‘Before the Greeks came…’ seems ironically reflected in our own words (heard rather frequently these days) ‘Before the pandemic came…’.

One of our group was even inspired to create a Classics Club logo, pictured below. It depicts Hektor and Achilles in action, with the Trojan horse behind them, and incorporates the lovely diagonal composition that was a favoured technique of the Greek sculptors and artists. The grapes are a nod to the wine which the Homeric heroes frequently drink and offer to the gods and are also reminiscent of Homer’s epithet for the sea as ‘wine-dark’. Framing the image are the words ‘Classics Club’ in English, Greek and Latin. The Greek version means ‘Greek club’ and the word for Classics in Latin should strictly also be ‘Greek’ (Graecus) but we thought we should give the Romans their due, hence ‘Romanus’. The Greek word for club also means ‘companionship’ and the Latin one is literally ‘a circle or group for conversation’. Both these descriptions fit our group rather well. We also had a competition to compose a motto for our class to accompany the logo. The winning entry was: ‘legere, loqui, libere’, the Latin for ‘To read, to discuss, to enjoy’.

 

‘legere, loqui, libere’. Classics Club logo: © Lang.

The future of Classics Club

Before Covid, Classics Club had also had some fun days out together. We attended lectures at the British Museum and combined these with tours of the Greek and Roman galleries. Of course, all trips have had to be postponed for the time being but we are looking forward to some more Classical adventures in due course.

 

Classics Club visit to the British Museum - the rain didn’t keep us away.

© Caroline K. Mackenzie.

I have also promised the group a party. As soon as we are permitted, Classics Club will reunite in the Pavilion where I shall ensure the wine is flowing as abundantly as the Homeric hexameters.

In the meantime, we shall shortly be setting sail with Homer’s ‘Odyssey’, arguably the sequel to the ‘Iliad’, but an epic that can be enjoyed in its own right (and it is actually my favourite of the two works). In due course we shall return where we began, to the picturesque Pavilion, in the manner of ‘ring composition’ (a narrative framing device favoured by Homer whereby an episode begins and ends symmetrically). But for those Classicists further afield, I shall also be running a parallel class on Zoom.

As I type this, Classics Club ‘online’ is approaching the end of its first year, so it seems rather appropriate that we are just embarking on the concluding books of the ‘Iliad’. It has been quite an odyssey (forgive the pun). Our meeting next Monday will fall a day before our first birthday - I think I shall put a candle in my slice of cake…

*********************************************

Free lecture on Lullingstone

The final lecture of Classics Club pre-Covid was about Lullingstone Roman Villa in Kent, the subject of my first book and also my first ever blog for the History Girls: Culture and Society at Lullingstone Roman Villa. Last week I delivered an updated lecture on the same topic hosted by my publisher, Archaeopress. So by way of offering you a slice of Classics Club (without the cake, I’m afraid) I attach a link below in case it is of interest. P.S. If you watch the talk you will find a code for a 25% discount on both my books.

 

An evening with Archaeopress: ‘Culture and Society at Lullingstone Roman Villa’. 

Click here to watch the recorded lecture: An Evening with Archaeopress: Caroline K. Mackenzie

Classics Club - new classes starting soon!

I shall be starting a new Classics Club reading group on Monday 10th May 3pm GMT. We shall be reading Homer's ‘Odyssey’ over the course of the year. Meetings will be via Zoom every week for 1h30mins. The first hour is a presentation of the text by me followed by 30mins discussion. Cost is £10 per session. For more information or to reserve a place, please get in touch:

Twitter:  @carolinetutor

Website: www.carolinetutor.co.uk
LinkedIn: Caroline K. Mackenzie

Acknowledgements

First, thank you to Mary Hoffman and all the History Girls.

Thank you to our local Pavilion and its committee for providing Classics Club’s first home. Looking forward to coming back to you soon! (Hopefully we won’t take as long as Odysseus to return home.) Thank you also to all the local businesses who happily displayed my flyers (and for the delicious ‘dainties’).

Thank you also to everyone at Archaeopress, especially Patrick Harris.

Last but certainly not least, huge thanks to all the members of Classics Club for your support and friendship, particularly all of you who have joined me throughout lockdown.