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IN THIS ISSUE: GAMES, PARTIES, AND MORE – HOW ANCIENT CULTURES RELAXED AND HAD FUN

ANCIENT HISTORY

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JUL / AUG 2021 US $12.50

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WWW.ANCIENTHISTORYMAGAZINE.COM

ANCIENTS PLAYING

GAMES HAVING FUN, FROM EGYPT TO ROME

SACRED GAMES

WORKING OUT

UP ON BADBURY HILL

REBUILDING ROME

Ancient Egyptian board games were fun, but also held a religious function.

Sports and exercise helped the Greeks maintain more than just physical fitness.

What we are learning from archaeological work at Dorset's Badbury Rings.

How a group of digital artists are trying to reconstruct ancient Rome in 3D.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ANCIENT HISTORY Editor-in-chief: Jasper Oorthuys Editor: Sandra Alvarez Image and production editor: Lauren van Zoonen Proofreading: Naomi Munts Design & Media: Christianne C. Beall Design © 2017 Karwansaray Publishers Contributors: Jo Ball, Andreas Charalambous, Colleen Darnell, Murray Dahm, Manon Henzen, Daniel Kershaw, Sadi Maréchal, Sonja Maurer-Dass, Martin Papworth, Lindsay Powell, Nigel Spivey Illustrators: Rocío Espin, Zvonimir Grbasic, Julia Lillo

FUN AND GAMES IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

Special thanks: Carole Raddato (followinghadrian.com), Gary Todd (worldhistorypics.weebly.com), and Jona Lendering (livius.org) for their photographs

How did Egyptians, Greeks and Romans relax and have fun? Even though modern conceptions of 'free time' and 'leisure' do not easily overlap with the situation in antiquity, people still found plenty of opportunities for play.

Print: Grafi Advies Editorial office PO Box 4082, 7200 BB Zutphen, The Netherlands Phone: +31-848-392256 (Europe), +1-740-994-0091 (US)

12 Spectans et frigidulus

34 Mens sana in corpore sano

Ancient leisure activities

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E-mail: editor@ancienthistorymagazine.com Customer service: service@karwansaraypublishers.com Website: www.ancienthistorymagazine.com

18 Gaming the Egyptian afterlife

Contributions in the form of articles, letters, reviews, and news are welcomed. Please send to the above address or use the form on www.ancienthistorymagazine.com

24 Music for the people

Subscriptions Subscriptions can be purchased at www.kp-shop.com, via phone, or by email. For the address, see above.

28 Beyond washing

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The Badbury Rings

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DEPARTMENTS 4

Preliminaries

58 Further reading

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ISSN: 2451-8700 Printed in Slovakia.

ON THE COVER surr and long where ent solEven in the Illiad, the Greeks spend large stretches of time in camp waiting and fighting amongst themselves, rather than dealing with the Trojans. Dating from ca. 510 BC, this Athenian vase shows Achilles and Ajax passing some of this time by playing a board game, while the goddess Athena keeps watch. In antiquity, even heroes had time for some fun.

GAMES OF WAR

THREADING THE NEEDLE

A look at the various board and dice games Roman soldiers played to pass the time.

For Cypriot king Evagoras I, living on the edge of the Persian Empire could be tricky.

© The J. Paul Getty Museum

Anciient Hi Hist sttory 34

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BY LINDSAY POWELL

PRELIMINARIES

EDITORIAL - SUN AND FUN WITH THE ANCIENTS The past year has been difficult to say the least; for many of us, it was fraught with anxiety, loneliness, and uncertainty. After such a turbulent year, I personally longed for a little levity, and as London slowly opens back up and comes to life, a little fun, too. This issue came about through that longing; I wondered, how did the ancients have fun? Obviously, there were no Netflix series to binge, no Zoom with friends, no social media to endlessly scroll through, or a million other things that we have the luxury of escaping into in our present time, so I decided to explore that avenue and set about planning a lighter issue around summer, fun, and plain old enjoyment. There were plagues, wars, famines, and strife thousands of years ago, but surely people still knew how to have a good time? What did that look like? What games did they play? How much did their

ideas of “fun” differ from ours? From wild symposia to board games, from sports to music, we will find out exactly how the ancients made the most of their free time, and what sort of fun has endured across the centuries.

I don’t think we are really so vastly different when it comes down to it.

While Ancient History always strives to be educational and thorough, it doesn’t mean we can’t have a lighter, fun issue every so often that brings smiles to our readers’ faces and takes the proverbial edge off. This is that issue. So kick back, soak up the first rays of summer sun, and enjoy learning about fun, frolicking, and life before Netflix!

Edit

Sandra Alvarez A i

New arena floor for the Colosseum Visitors to the Colosseum in Rome will be able to get a gladiator’s view of the inside of the great building after a brand-new state-ofthe-art floor is installed. The original arena floor was 83 metres by 48 metres (272 feet

by 157 feet). That made it almost twice as long, or one-and-a-half times as wide, as a modern football field. The floor was removed several decades ago. This exposed the brick and stone structure beneath (called the hy© Casa del Mitreo

Roman strongbox stands the test of time The remains of an extremely rare strongbox have been recovered from the site of a Roman villa at Mérida, Spain.

The stoutly constructed box, called an arca ferrata (literally ‘iron-clad box’), was made of wood, iron, and bronze. A type of Roman 'safe', it was used to store the most valuable portable belongings the householder had in the home, especially coins, personal jewellery, and precious objects.

“It is one of the most exceptional objects found and documented in recent years in the Mérida archaeological scene,” explains Ana María Bejarano Osorio of the Consorcio de la Ciudad Monumental Histórico-Artística y Arqueológica de Mérida. It was found disassembled, though complete. The find site is the so-called ‘Casa romana del Mitreo’ in Mérida. The villa, outside the Roman city, was built at the end of the first or the beginning of the second century AD. “Very few examples are known in the entire Roman Empire, only four or five, and almost all of them in Pompeii,” she said, referring to the chests found in the House of L. Crassius Tertius, ‘Villa B’, or House of the Vetii. Others have been identified at Oplontis and in Zaragoza.

“They are truly spectacular and complex pieces, lavishly decorated and with sophisticated locking mechanisms.”

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Ancient History 34

The strongbox is protected by a wooden frame, right before its removal.

They were usually placed in the tablinum or reception room, where the homeowner received his visitors. They were anchored to the wall or floor with nails or iron rods to prevent theft. Indeed, the archaeologists have identified the floor fixtures, as well as the iron bars that reinforced them.

“It was made of wood lined with bronze,” explained Ana Bejarano. She highlighted the finding of several bronze ornamental elements, such as rivets or tacks, which would as decoration. hird centuries were also discovered in the Casa del Mitreo.

pogeum) to the elements. In recent years, a partial floor was laid over the hypogeum.

The new floor will be made of hundreds of lightweight carbon-fibre slats laminated with Accoya wood. Arranged in segments, the slats will rotate to allow visitors to see down into the hypogeum. The slats will be opened and closed using remotely operated electro-mechanical and hydraulic systems located beneath the floor and out of view of visitors.

Reviewing the plan, Dr Darius Arya, CEO of the American Institute for Roman Culture, said: “We have become used to the view of the hypogeum partially exposed. This solution will protect the fragile underbelly. The project – with

a quite expensive price tag – promises to cover and reveal the structure with ease through a sophisticated, non-invasive system.”

Crucially, the new floor will also be retractable, to allow access to the underground structures, and removable to allow future generations to make new floor design plans. Italian engineering firm, Milan Ingegneria Srl, will drive the €18.5 million project. The flooring installation is slated to be completed in 2023.

The Colosseum was officially called the Amphitheatrum Flavium after the imperial family that built it. Construction started under Vespasian in AD 72, but it was inaugurated by his son Titus in 80.

An artist's rendering that was recently released by the Italian Ministry of Culture gives some idea of how the Colosseum will look with its new floor. © Dario Franceschini

MORE ONLINE Watch a video demonstrating the new floor. https://bit.ly/3p4XQjY

This type IV bust of the emperor Nero, dated to AD 65-68, is just one of the many treasures featured in the new exhibit about his life and reign. © State Collections of Antiquities and Glyptothek, Munich

Man or monster? Reassessing Nero

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Everyone has an opinion of Emperor Nero.

Most are wrong. The latest exhibition organized by the British Museum sets out to challenge traditional preconceptions and explores what the biased ancient narrative on Nero actually tells us about the inner conflicts of Roman society.

Born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, g Claudius when the old em ro's mother. As Nero Claud tus Germanicus, he ru 68. He was

plebeians. He was, however, reviled by many of the patricians, who wrote the history books.

The image of Nero as a tyrant was created 50 years after his death by the historians Tacitus and Suetonius, and more than a century after this by Cassius Dio. Thorsten Opper, Curator in the Departe , e A selection of gold jewelry (including a ring, bracelets, and earrings) found in the Fenwick Hoard, which dates to AD 60-61. It features in the British Museum's new Nero exhibit.

© Colchester Museums

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Section of a fresco dated to AD 30-40, which features a seated actor dressed as a king, and a woman with a theatre mask.

Nero was famous for his love of artistic pursuits, including drama and music. © Ministero della Cultura - Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli

MORE ONLINE More on Nero at the British Museum. https://bit.ly/3fuRmaQ

e perous and dynamic, yet full of inner tensions, which erupted in a violent civil war after Nero’s death.” Some 200 artefacts tell his story anew. They chart the young emperor’s rise to power and examine his actions during a period of profound social change in the Roman world.

The exhibition includes humble graffiti next to grand sculpture, precious manuscripts, objects damaged in the fire that ravaged Rome in AD 64, priceless jewellery, and even slave chains from Wales. Together they illustrate the story of rich and poor in the

regions from Armenia in the Near East, to Britain, and across mainland Europe. The ‘Fenwick Hoard’ is being shown for the first time since its discovery in Colchester in 2014. The treasure is believed to have been buried for safekeeping by Roman colonists fleeing Camulodunum during Queen Boudica’s attack (AD 60/61).

Some items have come from collections outside the British Museum, while others are on loan from museums such the Louvre or the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.

Nero: The Man Behind the Myth runs to October 24, 2021. Entry is by timed ticket. Face coverings are currently required.

The ghosts of Pompeii visit the Lone Star State Destroyed but preserved by Vesuvius in AD 79, the Roman city of Pompeii continues to fascinate and enchant. For Americans, for whom travel to Italy is still off limits (at the time of this going to press), a trip to the Lone Star State may be just the ticket. The Houston Museum of Natural Science is hosting an exhibition of artefacts from the ancient Campanian city.

Over 150 items help retell the story of the last days of Pompeii. They include several painted frescoes, oil lamps, glass bottles, a silvered mirror, pots and pans, and other household objects, as well as bronze and

e model of a

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Unique Roman building excavated in Scarborough

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Ancient History 34

© MAP Archaeological Practice

Excavations in North Yorkshire, England have revealed an extraordinary complex of buildings. Making the structure distinct and different is a perfectly circular, walled central space with a number of rooms leading off it.

The unusual complex was discovered at the site of a new housing development in Scarborough. It covers the equivalent of two tennis courts. This type of building layout has never been seen before in the British Isles and may even be the first of its kind to be discovered within the entire area of the former Roman Empire.

Dr Keith Emerick, inspector of ancient monuments at Historic England, said: “This is a really exciting discovery and definitely of national importance. I would say this is one of the most important Roman discoveries in the past decade, actually. Easily.”

There are three square rooms adjacent to the circular structure, arranged perpendicular to each other. One of them has stacks of stone pilae from an underfloor heating system. Large flagstones appear to mark an entrance on the open side.

Historians suggest the site may have been the estate of a wealthy landowner that could have later become a religious sanctuary. The Guardian reported some speculation that it may

Archaeologists work on the recently discovered Roman complex in Scarborough, UK.

have been “a high-end ‘stately home-cum-gentleman’s club’.”

The complex included a bathhouse, with the normal suite of cold, warm, and hot rooms. Another theory is that the circular room was part of the farm’s production operations.

Working in partnership with Historic England, North Yorkshire County Council, and Scarborough Council, the housing developer Keepmoat Homes Limited has modified its design for the development to protect the remains for future generations.

The mosaic of a roaring lion is an exquisite e just a sand mm mane Two bronze helmets, found one inside the other show ary h

A highlight of the exhibition is a room in which a video plays depicting the final hours of the city. The floor vibrates and a fog generator fills the dark room with smoke. The experience sets up the final part of the exhibition, which features plaster casts of several victims of Vesuvius’ wrath.

Pompeii: The Exhibition runs to September 7, 2021. Entry is by timed ticket. Face coverings are currently required.

Visitors inspect the artifacts in the Houston Museum of Natural Science's new exhibit on life in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. © Houston Museum of Natural Science

MORE ONLINE Watch a video about the new exhibition. https://bit.ly/3yNuYB1

Pregnant mummy found in man’s coffin Researchers taking scans of a mummy they believed was a male priest were in for a big surprise. It turned out to be a pregnant woman.

The mummy had been donated to the University of Warsaw in Poland in 1826, but it was only recently closely examined. The name inscribed on the outside of the coffin was HorDjehuty, a priest from ancient Thebes.

The CT and X-ray scans revealed four bundles, probably the lungs, liver, stomach with intestines, and heart, which had been removed, embalmed separately as was customary, and then returned to the body prior to wrapping.

However, an unembalmed mass within the pelvis proved to be a foetus. To their astonishment, the Polish researchers had found that the remains were of a woman. Analysis suggested that she died when she was be-

tween 20 and 30 years of age. The cause of death could not be determined. Based on the circumference of the fetal head, she was between the 26th and 30th week of the pregnancy at time of her death.

The Polish team published their findings in Science Direct under the title “A pregnant ancient Egyptian mummy from the 1st century BC”. Their claim that “This find is the only known case of an embalmed pregnant individual” was quickly taken up by the press, but dismissed by Zahi Hawass, the world-renowned Egyptian archaeologist.

Hawass explained that the first and oldest ‘pregnant mummy’ was that of a skeleton of a ‘dwarf’ found in the tombs of the workers who built the pyramids, which dated to c.2500 BC. He noted this discovery was made in 2010.

© The Warsaw Mummy Project

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While long thought to be a man, researchers have recently identified this mummy as belonging to a pregnant woman. While not completely unique, very few pregnant mummies have ever been found.

Ancient History 34

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SCRAPING THE SURFACE

DOR

1 AD

500 AD

A few miles north of Poole Harbour, on a high point between the rivers Stour and Allen, is the Iron Age fort of Badbury Rings, defended by three concentric rings of ramparts and ditches. It was a key vantage point and principal settlement for the local people, and numerous circular hollows terraced into the domed interior of the hillfort are evidence for the circular timber-framed houses they occupied before the arrival of the Romans. This was a well-populated landscape, as surrounding Badbury, archaeological surveys have revealed three other large settlements and many farmsteads occupied over 2000 years ago.

pp per found in Dorset include a miniature spear head and horse harness ring, dating from the late Iron Age into the Roman Period. © The Portable Antiquities Scheme

Part of the honorary inscription from Claudius' triumphal arch, which commemorated his invasion of Britain and mentions the subjugation of eleven British kings.

500 BC

ANCIENT BRITAIN AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE: ca. 300 BC – AD 520

By Martin Papworth

© Jenni Ahonen / Wikimedia Commons

8

T

his area lay within the territory of a tribe known as the Durotriges.

The tribe did not capitulate in AD 43 when the emperor Claudius invaded Britain. Initially, the Roman army concentrated on the most powerful tribes in what is now south-east England.

The historian Dio Cassius informs us that, after a series of battles, the Roman commander paused his advance at the River Thames and sent messengers to Rome. This was the prearranged signal that brought Emperor Claudius with additional troops to take charge of the final assault on Camulodunum (modern-day Colchester), the chief settlement and centre of the Catuvellaunian resistance. An inscription on a Claudian triumphal arch records that the emperor received the surrender of eleven British kings. The most difficult part of the conq However, there were tribes in the southw fo w tr s s h S t a r mapped that was established before the attack on Badbury Rings. The regular rows of barrack blocks, divided by paths, were found to surround the principal buildings.

Ancient History 34

Excavation: battle at Badbury Rings Our excavations at Badbury Rings have recovered some evidence of a battle at the hillfort.

Once messengers had brought the news of Roman invasion, the local people are likely to have left their farmsteads and sought refuge within Badbury’s defences. The legionaries would have crossed the river and brought up their artillery. Distinctive first-century iron spearheads, found south of the hillfort, were thought to have been launched from ballistae used to bombard the defenders of Badbury.

Resistance would have been futile, as the Romans had considerable experience in overwhelming this sort of native stronghold. The great timber gates of the hillfort would have been broken and the Durotrigan defenders vanquished. Badbury would have been forcibly vacated, and those who were not taken as hostages or slaves would have been sent back to their farms and settlements as Roman subjects.

A settlement grew up on the south side of the Roman riverside fortress, to serve the needs of the soldiers. Near the modern village of Corfe Mullen there have been chance finds of exotic first-century goods imported across the Channel. Cremation burials in pottery vessels have also been found, the remains of soldiers who had died of sickness in battle far from home.

Resettlement and acculturation Where did the locals settle after Badbury? They moved down to an existing Durotrigan settlement beside the Stour, six kilometres upriver from the Roman fortress. Here they began to

Badbury Rings as it may have looked at the time of the Roman conquest in AD 43-44. This view is looking southwest. © Julia Lillo

Ancient History 34

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Two iron snaffle bits from Hod Hill, first century AD. Hod Hill, like Badbury Rings, was a late Iron Age hillfort. © Ealdgyth / Wikimedia Commons

(Top) A surviving section of the best Roman road at Badbury, leading from Dorchester to Old Sarum, and known as Ackling Dyke. © Roger Lancefield / Flickr

(Bottom) The foundations of the RomanoCeltic temple at Badbury are no longer visible, but it may have had a similar outline to the Romano-Celtic temple at Maiden Hill Castle in Dorset. © Nilfanion / Wikimedia Commons

adopt a Roman lifestyle l and db l h h gradually changed from th i houses to rectangular Roman homes, some with mosaic floors and painted walls.

This place developed into a small town, well located at a ford across the river. It shrank away in the fifth century and the extent of this settlement was forgotten for many hundreds of years. One day I was out walking the fields north of the small village of Shapwick and found a large area covered with Roman occupation debris including pottery, roof tiles, mortar, and tesserae from broken mosaics.

Following this initial discovery, a map of foundations, property boundaries, and roads has been created using geophysical survey and our excavations have dated the occupation of this settlement from 300 BC to AD 400. How-

h d h k ll down to the River Stour, this place has been continuously occupied right up to the present day, though it is now much reduced in size.

On the south side of the hillfort, we found evidence that the old importance of Badbury was not forgotten. The locals still returned here to worship. Finds of Durotrigan coins demonstrated that this was an Iron Age sacred place, but mole hills also brought up Roman coins and debris. Our excavation revealed that the native holy place was transformed into a Romano-Celtic temple. We found the footings of a square tower or cella surrounded by a covered paved walkway. This lay at the centre of an octagonal temenos enclosure with its entrance facing the hillfort. We found coins dating from the first century to the fifth century. At the end of the Roman period, the walls were demolished and the stone dug out to be used elsewhere. Just little piles of mortar and unusable fragments were left behind.

All roads lead to … Badbury

x

The best Roman road at Badbury is the one known as the Ackling Dyke, which continues the London road south towards the Roman town at Shapwick. It is well preserved here and twice the width of other roads. It also has an outer bank and drainage ditch on each side of its causeway. The width of the road from bank to bank is 30 m. It is a huge construction that blasts its way through the landscape, cutting through any earlier features such as the Bronze Age burial mounds near the hillfort. When it reaches the Roman town, the road ignores the pre-existing buildings and routeways to slice through to the river crossing. In 2004, we found a backfilled well under this road, which had mid-fourth-century coins within it, so the road must be later than that.

There is a late Roman fort built on the north side of the small town. It acted as a secure imperial supply base and contained an inn or mansio where travellers on official business could rest and couriers perhaps could pick up fresh horses for their journey onwards. The road went through the fort, and there were gates eckpoints for t crossed the north and The fort suggests th ing less secure tury.

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Ancient History 34

Iron Age coins dating to ca.

50BC-AD 40. They were created and used by the Durotriges, the tribe occupying the area now occupied by the counties of Dorser, South Somerset and South Wiltshire.

© Somerset County Council

causeway touches the outer rampart of the hillfort. The bank and ditch seem to have been cut or stopped short of the ditch for this rampart.

This is a surprise as its builders had ignored everything else in its path. Was this defensive ring at Badbury added after the road was built?

The evidence for this was found when we excavated inside the hillfort. We encountered a packed chalk floor with Roman pottery, a bronze ring, and a scatter of other finds including fragments of charcoal that could be sent for radiocarbon analysis. These provided a date range of AD 480–520. This was evidence that once Britain was abandoned by the Roman Empire, the local, now Romanized, population needed to look to their own defence. They chose to re-occupy and repair the old hillfort, strategically located at the crossroads.

Our discoveries of late fifth-century work at Badbury to make the fortress defensible again indicate that it had become a frontier between the invading Germanic peoples in the east and the Romanized British defending the west.

There is the possibility that this could be the site of Mons Badonicus, the great battle that held the Saxons in check for 50 years. This Battle of Mount Badon is noted by St Gildas, who wrote of it as a recent event in his mid-sixthcentury account of the arrival of the Saxons.

Though it may well have happened at Badbury, there are other hilltop sites in southern England

Romanplace. entury, of the ars. We ence to y, the occivilization gainst: someD 43–44. AH Martin Papworth is an archaeologist at the National Trust, and a conservation advisor.

FURTHER READING x

Cunliffe, Barry. Britain Begins. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

x

Papworth, Martin. The Search for the Durotriges. Stroud: The History Press, 2011.

x

De La Bédoyère, Guy. Roman Britain: A New History. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2006.

x

Papworth, Martin, “Excavation and Survey at Badbury Rings, Dorset,” Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society 140, 2019: 130–171.

(Top) An aerial view of the Badbury Rings Iron Age Hillfort in Dorset with its well-preserved ditches and ramparts clearly visible. © Anita van den Broek / Shutterstock

(Bottom) The Late Iron Age bronze Portesham mirror, from Dorset. Dating to the first century AD, it was found in the grave of a local woman. The back is decorated with various Celtic motifs.

Judging by the other items found in the burial, this woman was clearly an important member of her community. © Pasicles / Wikimedia Commons

A Romano-British figurine of a bull, ca.

AD 100-300, found in Burnham, Somerset, United Kingdom. © Surrey County Council

Ancient History 34

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THEME: Ancient fun and games

Even though the playful Minoan athletes shown vaulting over a bull in a fresco from the palace of Knossos, Crete were probably engaging in some sort of religious ritual, the event may still have been considered 'fun'. In antiquity, politics, religion, and even work could overlap with 'having a good time'.

ANCIENT LEISURE ACTIVITIES

THEME

SPECTANS ET FRIGIDULUS

I hope the reader will forgive my approximation of the modern phrase ‘Netflix and chill’ in Latin, and I do not wish to start a fieerrcce de fi deba b te on ho ba h w wee sh hoo ssp pecta tans anss forr ‘wa w tching n ’ and d frigidulus for ‘chill’ (although the laatt tter e is a term asssoc er tion ti o – I didn’t relaxo). Nonetheless, th hinki k ng aboo t eir fr th f eee tim ime he first question might be “Whose free time?’ or “Whose leisure?” It is true that most of our evidence for such activities comes from the upper classes of ancient so oc man, Neaar comes fro Rom astralog (knucklebones), based on a Hellenistic original, ca. AD 150. Found on the Caelian Hill in Rome, it is now in the A ©

122

By Murray Dahm

Ancien en nt Hi Hist stor oryy 34 or

afford free time. Lower classes probably saw much less free time away from their working activities and, what is more, their lives have left much less material and literary evidence.

It is true that some leisure activities such as hunting and fishing, attending religious festivals, and playing games probably spanned all strata of society, although perhaps on different scales. Things such as Greek symposia or Roman convivia dinner parties may also have been undertaken by all levels of society, but our evidence of them is usually from an elite perspective. The poems of Pindar, Bacchylides, and other lyric poets were intended to be performed at private Greek dinners, but again, they were reserved for the wealthiest members of society. Still, we can say that listening to poetry in such contexts was indeed a leisure activity. Dancing was another activity that may have crossed social boundaries, although, again, our evidence comes from the upper strata: public monuments, festivals, and grave goods. So too with athletics training such as at gymnasia or palaestra – we

x

© Pecold / Shutterstock

Roman ivory gaming pieces bearing the words "Malest", "Victor" and "Nugator."

Now in The British Museum.

© Flickr / Kevan

might also question the idea of participating in sports as leisure (as opposed to watching sports as a leisure activity). Many of the dialogues of Plato and Xenophon are set in wrestling schools, and these seem to represent all sections of society (although this may be an illusion and only the upper levels of society are again reflected).

Who could play?

In most cases, we are dealing with evidence of aristocratic (and royal) leisure, perhaps including what we might term the ‘upper middle class’: those who could afford to take time off and who had others to do the work for them. Some of these leisure activities, such as the copious letter writing of a Cicero or the immense amount of reading someone such as Galen undertook, were not activities that the ‘everyman’ had time for or would even have considered leisure. There were also occasions where a leisure activity would see all levels of society, such as the Crown Games, chariot races, plays, or gladiatorial games. The vast number of religious festivals in all ancient societies were public holidays and so, in many cases, society as a whole would have been at leisure. It is estimated that at Athens there were 120 days of religious festivals a year; in Rome the number was even greater. In Rome there were dies ferialis or ‘free days’ – some fixed, some moveable (such as modern Easter), and others by order of a magistrate. There were also dies festi or ‘holy days’ dedicated to a particular deity.

city’s Dance , such as in choral lyric performances in Greece, fall into the same category – religious festival and participation in the life of the city rather than, necessarily, leisure time. Similarly, the athletes and performers at such festivals were not at leisure but were professionals or amateur competitors participating for gain, religious dedication, the honour of their city, or a combination of all three. Again, their activity was not a leisure activity as such. That being said, most sports (and dance and choral activities) probably began as leisure activities and

(Top) The Theatre of Herodes Atticus, Athens, built in memory of his deceased wife Aspasia Annia Regilla. © Flickr / Derek Winterburn

(Bottom) Completed in the first century AD, the stadium in Aphrodisias, Turkey was the site for a variety of sporting events and competitions. While participating in sporting events was a common pastime in the ancient world, watching them was just as — if not more — popular. © steve estvanik / Shutterstock

Relaxing with the gods Many of the activities that we might consider leisure, such as attending the play performances at the Dionysia or Lenaia, festivals at Athens, or the Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian, or Nemean games (not to mention the others like the Athenian Panathenaia), were irrecoverably entwined with religious observance.

We might think that attending a play performance was primarily a leisure activity even if it was part of a festival and a competition, yet we also know that Athenians saw attending such plays as an important part of their participation in politics – especiallyy in thee mpooning of politicians in the comedies of stophanes and others. Attending public eeches and lectures might also be re-

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The humble yo-yo is older than you might think: the rare wooden toy shown here was found in Pompeii. Further interest is demonstrated by Greek vase paintings that show the yo-yo in use. © Gary Todd / Flickr

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An ancient Athenian kouros base showing men playing keretzein, a game which appears to be similar to hockey. © Flickr / Gary Todd

d b f d h h were professional and religious elements to them. Bull-jumping at Knossos (seen unambiguously on the frescoes uncovered by Arthur Evans) was clearly a religious activity. It may have been a leisure activity too – possibly the first ancient ‘extreme sport’!

Other activities that we might describe as leisure might have had a different meaning to the ancients. A journey to Delphi (or any other oracle site), for instance, might seem to be a leisure activity or it might have been considered

A ROYAL TOURIST

The Persian king Xerxes I appears with an attendant on a column in the ruins of Apadana Palace in Persepolis. The relief still survives intact to this day, but the photograph shown here was made by Italian Luigi Pesce sometime in the 1850s. © Public domain

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For those with the means and opportunity, tourism and travel could also become a form of entertainment. The Persian king Xerxes provides a perfect example of this. Before invading Thessaly in the summer of 480 BC, he gathered his forces in Therma (modern Thessaloniki). Seeing the peaks of Olympus and Ossa, he decided to visit the canyon between the two mountains, called Tempe. One reason was to reconnoitre the road ahead. The Greek researcher Herodotus (Histories 7.128-130) mentions a second motive: the king greatly admired the great works of nature.

The royal visit offers Herodotus an opportunity to digress.

Referring to an ancient myth that the god Poseidon had created the Tempe canyon, he comments that this is a reasonable explanation. After all, he argues, the poet Homer had called Poseidon the ‘shaker of the earth’, and it was obvious, according to Herodotus,

a v a s s th w w s h Cy the crates per leve the time to go to such places, although there is evidence that members from all levels of society undertook such activities.

We have wrestlers depicted on Sumerian reliefs from 3000 BC, and the Epic of Gilgamesh (ca.2000 BC) refers to some kind of boxing match between Gilgamesh and Enkidu.

The tomb of two royal servants, Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, shows various wrestling moves. An Athenian tomb relief (from ca.510 BC) shows a game akin to hockey; Plutarch later names a game called keretizein. Many

By Jona Lendering that the rifts were made by earthquakes. Although he is wrong – Tempe was in fact created by erosion – he shows awareness of the fact that the surface of the earth has changed since the world was created.

Xerxes himself admired the valley – just as he had admired a plane tree, somewhere along the road to Sardis, and had even ordered one of his soldiers to guard it (Histories 7.31). It is easy to recognize an almost modern view of the beauty of nature.

However, there may have been a religious aspect. According to the Persian creation story, there once had been one perfect tree, until some devilish force had corrupted the integrity of the original creation. Perhaps Xerxes, the royal tourist, recognized in this tree an aspect of its primordial beauty.

If this interpretation is correct, Herodotus’ comment may very well go back to a debate at Xerxes’ court: look at this canyon, a supernatural destroyer must have smashed its former splendor and created these rough rocks. If so, geology started when Persian tourists debated cosmology.

sports that were in the Crown Games were probably played for leisure as well (longjump, discus, boxing, and wrestling), but there are others that remained leisure activities only as far as we know – e.g. ball games, archery, and hoop running (seen on several depictions of Ganymede on vases). In all of these examples, we need to remember that our evidence for such activities is for the wealthiest level of society – even the archery ‘game’ in books 21–22 of the Odyssey is for the suitors of Penelope, not lower members of society, and the competition to show off archery prowess is a royal/aristocratic prerogative. Earlier (in book 8) there has been a similar competition in javelin throwing (as well as boxing, wrestling, and broad-jump) at the court of King Alkinous. Hunting too, could be an aristocratic or royal pastime.

For others it was a livelihood – but the hunts shown in ancient Egyptian reliefs, Persian parks, and elsewhere were exclusively for the benefit of the wealthy.

Fun for all

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Luckily, we have a range of evidence that allows us to glimpse some responses from

all levels of society to leisure activities, from graffiti in Pompeii and elsewhere to literary accounts that include ‘the masses.’ In other cases, such as tombs or grave goods, we seem to get a reflection of society as a whole, although these may again reflect only the upper levels. e of s ), e er ny, to show that responses to leisure activities in wider society probably also ran the entire gamut of responses to every activity.

Thus, we can have the Scriptores Historiae Augustae telling us of the emperor Lucius Verus’ fanatical dedication to the Greens chariot team and Pliny the Younger (only a few decades earlier) condemning the frivolo ces of opposition, as we saw in AH iot ore

Made from an alloy called orichalcum, this coin is known as a spintria. Found at sites across the Roman Empire in a date range that roughly covers the first century AD, the exact use of these tokens has long puzzled scholars. While the face of these objects usually depicts either an erotic scene or the bust of an emperor, the reverse always contains a numeral between I and XVI. The most popular current theory regarding the spintria's function is that it was used in some sort of short-lived and now forgotten game.

© www.cngcoins.com

A fresco from the tomb of Baqet III in the necropolis of Beni Hassan, Egypt, depicting men wrestling, ca. 2150–1991 BC. © Leon petrosyan / Wikimedia Commons

An Attic red-figure oinochoe (or chous), ca. 470 BC showing Ganymede running with a hoop and a gamecock. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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While hunting has always been an important source of food and means of survival, the elites in nearly all ancient societies also enjoyed hunting for sport. As shown in this relief from Nimrud, which dates to 883-859 BC, Assyrian kings particularly enjoyed hunting lions, often after the beasts had already been captured and placed in a pen for easier access. © Gary Todd / Flickr

Dating to the second century AD, this fragmentary painted glass beaker showing gladiatorial and beast fights was possibly purchased as a souvenir. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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An exquisite copy of the Royal Game of Ur, from Ur, modern Dhi Qar, Iraq. Now in The British Museum. Thanks to a surviving cuneiform tablet, it has been possible to reconstruct the exact rules for this ancient game. © BabelStone / Wikimedia Commons

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than a millennium across all levels of society.

The Circus Maximus at Rome could house 150,000 spectators, the Hippodrome at Constantinople probably 100,000; these capacities attest to the widespread popularity of these sports and the ability of members of all levels of society to attend. The Colosseum (or Flavian Amphitheatre) at Rome could house between 50,000 and 80,000 attendees, from all levels of society. Titus held 100 days of games when he opened the amphitheatre in AD 80; Trajan held 123 days of events. These saw gladiatorial contests, beast fights, and other displays (including executions) and were immen society for c have Seneca ing of such 404 for them even then th amphithea mans exp of such l flung corn back to th where, clea vidual glad all levels of We m sure activi daylight h e al-

lowed more time for these activities, but winter, with short days, would have allowed very little time and only such activities as could be continued by fire- and (limited) lamp-light.

Some of the activities undertaken in such conditions, such as knitting or sewing, were not ‘leisure’ no matter how decorative or artistic we might consider them – they were not fun crafts but essential tasks, even if performed with artisanal skill of the highest level. An object such as a fishhook (and we have some from Sumer dating to 2600 BC, although they are ubiquitous at other sites and periods) might reflect leisure or an essential work task – sometimes it is impossible to distinguish.

Evidence of games and leisure activities Archaeological finds can offer a wider picture. We have many dice, made of bone or deer antler and of bronze, from all manner of sites, including Roman forts, which reveal that games and gambling were common. Knucklebones was a game that could be played by members of any level of society, and we find examples of similar games across g out were played iety yalty

down – even the tomb of Hesy-re, an official under Djoser in 2620 BC, contained a game of Senet. Many of the depictions and copies of actual pieces and boards are from royal tombs, but there is also graffiti of boards showing that playing the game was a (leisure) activity that spanned all levels of society. Other board games, such as ‘Hounds and Jackals’ (or ‘58 holes’ – both modern names, played mainly in the Egyptian Middle Kingdom 2040-782 BC), and Mehen (played between 3000-2300 BC) were also popular across the board, if you will pardon the pun.

Mosaics and paintings reveal other activities such as swimming and hunting. In some cases these were considered leisure for the upper classes, but they were work for the men and women attending their owners or employers. Sculptures show other activities too but, since most sculpture is funerary or public, these too might reveal religious or public commemoration connotations.

In the Roman world we might consider going to the baths as a leisure activity, and such visits must have continued to have that aspect to them. We know that private Roman villas had baths and bath houses were built outside Roman forts. As such they must have been a leisure activity to some extent, even if those examples were also for public display and/or demonstrations of wealth and power.

Attending the baths also had the important social and political function of amicita and clientelae relationships, especially since the baths were usually public spaces.

Even when we have theatres built for public consumption outside the realm of religious festivals, such as the theatre of Pompey or the theatre of Herodes Atticus at Athens, there were other motivations behind these structures aside from just providing spaces for leisure activity. These were also demonstrations of power and wealth, and participation in them might show political support for other gains. The 100 days of games under Titus a were pa too. He of ‘bre these but cal part

a ok w, es en hat blic crats) ’ by participating. ivities of the r all manner of to explore: not of such activities them, but exploring ancient leisure time allows for nuanced conversations about what constitutes a leisure activity in the ancient world, for whom, and what else may have been going on in the presentation, performance, and participation of such activities. AH Murray Dahm is the author of Leuctra 371 BC: The destruction of Spartan dominance and the Creative Director of Opera Express, an experiential opera program for children.

He is also the assistant editor of Ancient Warfare magazine.

A papyrus fragment from Dura Europus, ca. AD 225-235, with the Feriale Duranum edict - a calendar with holy days and holidays for the garrison. In the GrecoRoman world, religious observances and freetime often blurred together. © The Yale University Library

The Virgil Mosaic from Sousse, Tunisia.

Dating to the third century AD, it shows the poet Virgil and the Muses Clio/History (left) and Melpomene/Tragedy (right).

Especially for the upper classes, reading and listening to dramatic recitations of poetry and literature could be an enjoyable way to pass the time. © Effi Schweizer / Wikimedia Commons

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THEME: Ancient fun and games 500 AD 1 AD

ANCIENT EGYPT: ca. 3250 – 1600 BC

Relief from the mortuary temple of Ramses III at Medinet Habu depicting wrestlers. The hieroglyphs reveal that they are 'trash talking' one another.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MEHEN & SENET

500 BC

THEME

GAMING THE EGYPTIAN AFTERLIFE

In the popular imagination of ancient Egypt, hieroglyphic texts and papyrus scrolls – think the “Book of Thoth” that awakens Boris Karloff in the 1932 The Mummy – are seen as serious business. The humour and playfulness of texts nd d sc scen en en caan be easil asily figur fig ures ur es thaat lilin n A when we turn to more personal forms of entertainment – board games. ne example will suffice to appreciate the ancient Egyptian sense of humor. In the first court of th Rame esses III a depicttions of A stone Mehen coiling serp oldest g of the ©

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By Colleen Darnell

Ancien An A nci cien een nt Histtor oryy 34 34

ers that decorate a balcony at which the king would appear to observe and be entertained by such ritual combat. Hieroglyphs next to the sportsmen, members of the Egyptian military, are the equivalent of ancient ‘trash talking’.

One says, “Now look – I will seize you by your legs and I will throw you on your buttocks before Pharaoh!”, while another retorts, “Prepare yourself, O Nubian! O enemy, I will make you fall down helpless before Pharaoh!” Any literate viewer was certainly intended to laugh at these exchanges, while simultaneously appreciating the role of mock combat in festival celebrations for both the king and the gods.

For much of the pharaonic era, two games dominated the playing field: Mehen, attested during the late fourth millennium through to the end of the third millennium BC; and Senet, attested from 3000 BC, but which rose in prominence as Mehen declined. While the shape of the board and the rules of the game – to the extent that we can reconstruct them – differ greatly between Mehen and Senet, both are symbolic journeys through the afterlife. Living players could plot out moves that

Mehen The game Mehen is one of the first board games known in world history, its earliest attestation being a late Predynastic/Early Dynastic (ca.3250–3000 BC) burial at Naqada.

That example is a miniature or model game board, indicating that the game’s origins lay in a more remote era. The cirA votive sculpture cular-shaped board game is of a turtle incised with a Mehen board named after the serpent Me(ca. 3100 - 2649 hen, literally the ‘coiled one’, BC) from Thebes. © The Metropo who protects the sun god Museum of Art in his daily journey through the heavens and the Netherworld. The serpent’s coils are adopted for the distinctive shape of the game board: the head of the snake is in the centre of the board, while his tail curls around.

The playing surface consists of squares c bo num (clockw number of squares are all highly variable.

The rules of the game are unknown, but an image in the tomb of Hesy-re (ca.2650 BC) shows the board next to 36 marbles (six sets of six) and six lion-shaped pieces (three lions and three lionesses). Each player manoeuvred his or her lion pieces around the squares curving along the serpent’s back, and wear patterns on some boards suggest that the marbles might have been rolled in the grooves between the coils. The lack of any ‘randomizing’ devices such as throwing sticks, as well as hieroglyphic captions of conversations during play, suggests that Mehen was a race game of strategy, not luck. In one such snippet from the Old Kingdom, a player says, “Hurry up, fool,” a playful use of insult, like those employed during the ritual combat before Ramesses III at Medinet Habu. The earliest Mehen boards date to a period before lengthy religious texts are preserved, meaning that a game, rather than any other source, may attest to the antiquity of the Mehen serpent’s mythological role.

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© Olaf Tausch / Wikimedia Commons

foreshadowed their future as spirits, while the souls of the dead amused themselves in the afterlife with the same games. The living could even square off against a spirit, including their own – games pierce the veil between the visible and unseen worlds.

Mehen in religious texts ature n the Mehen game. Utterance 332 describes the king “coming forth from nd (one can assume Mehen’s coils), and emerging with the fiery blast of the serpent’s mouth.

Utterance 758, known from the pyramid of Queen Neith, states that the deceased woman rests among Mehen’s coils, physically occupying the Mehen game. In Utterance 659, a deceased king takes up his playing pieces and manoeuvres around the game’s coiled serpent, which allows the king to achieve the status of a god. The Coffin Texts, spells and theological treatises written on wooden coffins (predominantly between 2100 and 1800 BC), mention both the “roads of Mehen” and the “mysteries of Mehen”. A depiction of the former indicates

Black and white marbles from Egypt, possibly game pieces for Mehen (ca.

3850-2300 BC).

© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

An Egyptian game piece in the shape of a lion, which was possibly used for Mehen.

It dates from ca. 3100–2649 BC and originated in Abydos. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Re sails through the Netherworld in the Book of Gates, his shrine protected by the coiled Mehen serpent. From the tomb of Ramesses I in the Valley of the Kings. © Leon petrosyan / Wikimedia Commons

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Hou

An ivory board with "Hounds and Jackals" gaming pieces, from the Middle Kingdom (reign of Amenemhat IV, ca.1814-1805 BC). © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Copy of a painting from the tomb of Nefertari. The queen is shown playing Senet. In the Book of the Dead, the deceased is often depicted with the game, showing how intertwined Senet became with Egyptian religious practice. From the Valley of the Queens (ca.1279-1213 BC). © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Dur Kin ex Hounds and Jackals. The modern name derives from the dog- and jackal-headed pegs that were moved around a bo ni

ears: floppy ears for the dog and erect ears for the jackal. The inclusion of the game within tombs suggests that playing Hounds and Jackals also had links to the afterlife, and the jackal pegs were perhaps avatars of the funerary jackal-headed deities such as Wepwawet or Anubis. From Egypt, Hounds & Jackals spread widely: south into Nubia and north and east as far as Persia.

tha pen doorway navigate – form the Mehen ga use just a few The serpent who coils himself protectively around Re was also the keeper of secret knowledge. In the illustration of Mehen within the Coffin Texts and in abundant imagery from the New Kingdom Netherworld Books, Mehen winds around the sun god or the cabin of the solar bark. Mehen, as a serpent, is the ideal creature to combat Apep, another serpent who embodies negation and evil, his chief goal being to halt the sun’s journey. One of the central mysteries of Egyptian

religion was the knowledge needed to defeat Apep – so the Netherworld Books likely provide some of the content of the “mysteries of Mehen” mentioned in the earlier Coffin Texts.

What connection (if any) such mysteries have to the obsolescence of the Mehen game at the end of the Old Kingdom remains unknown.

Archaeological evidence indicates that Mehen was not confined to Egypt – the game was also played by Nubians, or at least the ruling nobility of Nubia. In the Qustul cemetery, a burial of a ruler of late fourth millennium BC Nubia included a fragmentary Mehen board and playing pieces. In a fascinating variation, the Nubian game uses hippopotami in place of lions. The inherently portable nature of board games makes them uniquely suited to cultural exchange. In the case of the Qustul tombs, the inclusion of the Mehen game among the burial goods likely had a significance beyond Nubian rulers enjoying an Egyptian game. Other objects within the Nubian rulers’ burials demonstrate that they shared a symbolic universe with Predynastic Upper Egypt, and the Mehen board may testify to an equally shared system of beliefs. A passion for Mehen may be one more commonality between Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia, complementing overlapped political, social, and religious realms.

Senet

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Mehen and Senet both seem to originate in the late fourth millennium BC, but from the First Intermediate Period (ca.2150–2055 BC) wards, Senet game par excelle for the ancient Egyptia Senet lit ‘passing to pas the ob

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Dating to the New Kingdom (ca.1390-1353 BC), this faience gaming board and thirteen pieces make up a senet set from Thebes.

© The Brooklyn Museum

Netherworld. Unlike the round Mehen game, a Senet board is rectangular, its upper surface divided into three rows of ten squares, some marked with hieroglyphic signs. Since dice did not yet exist, each player threw sticks or astragali (small sheep or goat bones with four distinct sides) that added a randomized element to the pieces’ movement around the board.

Senet boards could be as simple as a rectangular outline and grid carved into a stone or as elaborate as the ebony and gold examples from the tomb of Tutankhamun.

As a player manoeuvred his or her pieces around the board, he or she was re-enacting a journey through the afterlife. A Netherworldly significance is given to Senet by the time of the Coffin Texts, although the very name ‘passing’ suggests that Senet’s religious connotations are coeval with its creation. The er 17 of the Book of Going Forth By Day re conventionally known by the Book of the Dead), d can ased playing Senet, one of of these scenes being the d image in the tomb of ca.1260 BC). The title to pell by ans sant ncludt”.

Senet inscriptions and graffiti An ancient Egyptian of any period with an urge to play Senet did not need to carry a pre-made board, since a rectangle divided into thirty squares could be scratched into any available surface. Carving a board into a temple floor was not considered an act of desecration, for many such graffiti exist, including the last datable Senet game scratched on the roof of Dendera Temple some time during the first century AD. While early incarnations of the game itself may not have overt religious imagery, the context of the games – especially at desert rock art and inscription sites – tells a different story.

Among the many examples of desert inscription sites with Senet boards, one east of the ancient city of Elkab exists within a well-known sacred landscape. A broad, dry canyon now called the Wadi Hilal connects Elkab with the vastness of the Egyptian Eastern Desert. Old Kingdom priests carved dozens of hieroglyphic inscriptions on a large freestanding outcrop within the wadi, known as Vulture Rock. The priests were

Vulture Rock in Wadi Hilal, El Kab (ancient Nekheb), Egypt. This site held religious significance during the Old Kingdom, and may have even been a sort of temple in and of itself. The rock is covered in graffiti from priests who visited the site. One, named Serefkai, even carved a Senet board onto a flat rock nearby. The board may have been used as a way to pass the time, or even directly related to the religious rituals carried out there. © Shutterstock / BZK Photos

The west wall of the chapel of Nikauhor (ca.2465-2389 BC), where two men can be seen playing a game of Senet. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

swer: they were participating in sacred festivities. The evidence may be circumstantial, but taken together, playing on a simple Senet board on a rock in the desert may even itself have been a religious act of worship.

Later religious significance

A vignette from the Book of the Dead made for Kenna, (ca.1325 BC). Thoth, in his form as a baboon, waits by the scale that will weigh Kenna's heart against the feather of Ma'at. The demon Ammit awaits, ready to devour the heart if it is too heavy.

The deceased (Kenna) is taken by the hand and guided by the god Anubis. © Rijksmuseum van Oudheden

© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Ancient History 34

The frog represented fertility and was one of the squares on the Senet gaming board.

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Game box with a double playing surface for Senet and "The Royal Game of Ur", which was known as the "Game of Twenty" in Egypt (ca.1550-1295 BC).

coming out to the desert during religious processions, and some priests even state that they were coming to the desert and to “this temple”. The lack of archaeological evidence for an Old Kingdom temple in the Wadi Hilal, combined with the demonstrative “this”, suggests that the temple is Vulture Rock itself.

This context then serves to explain why another priest created his own small place in the rocky desert along the north side of the Wadi Hilal, not far from Vulture Rock.

Among a few boulders at a site designated EK61 is the name of an Old Kingdom priest, Serefkai, who is likely the same man who carved a Senet board on a flat rock nearby.

He could entertain himself and a companion in this distant place. But why would he or other priests be in a distant place? The inscriptions on Vulture Rock provide the an-

Definitive evidence for the religious significance of Senet does not appear until the New Kingdom, with a written ritual that accompanies the game and hieroglyphs of divinities on the board itself. On these Senet boards, a square in one corner is called the “House of Thoth”, the god depicted with his familiar avatar of the ibis. The famous image of Chapter 125 of the Book of Going Forth By Day shows Thoth leading the deceased into the Judgement Hall of Osiris, the Hall of Two Truths.

The square with Thoth may similarly induct the players into the Netherworldly realm.

Later, in Square 12, is the “House of Orion”, a constellation known from the Greek world, but which already in ancient Egyptian astronomy symbolized the god Osiris. This god was “Foremost of the Westerners” (i.e. the dead) and “ruler of linear eternity”. When players encounter his constellation near the middle of the game, they are confronting the very ruler of the Netherworld. At the exact midpoint, the “House of Repeating Life” is symbolized by a frog, juxtaposed with the g g Netting” in Senet aposs of turn, but the negative. In the

© The Walter's Art Museum

Foreign fun The heightened religious significance of g g alongside the introduction of other games from beyond the Nile Valley. The Game of Twenty is attested in Egypt from ca.1600 BC, an import from the northeast, where

y Egyptians full Twenty into t the squares fo as Senet. On o play their trad could flip the recently impo versible board the pieces these

history (it is also comyal Game of Ur”). The d h G

Netherworld Books, the blessed dead need to know how to elude nets, but those very nets also served the positive purpose of trapping inimical forces. One should avoid making assumptions that a particular element in the afterlife existed in a binary of “good” or “bad”. For example, in one of the Netherworld Books, the Book of Gates, a lake experienced as cool water for the blessed dead could be a lake of fire for the damned.

The Netherworld was an inherently terrifying locale, during which a deceased spirit must traverse multiple gateways, whose guardians demanded that he or she recite the demon’s name as well as each element of the door. Even the sun god faced his greatest peril at the midpoint of the night: in the sixth hour of the night as depicted in the Book of the Hidden Chamber (in New Kingdom royal tombs), Re and his crew do direct combat with Apep, who attempts to suck the water from beneath the solar bark, running the ship aground. Isis and the Great Magician work their spells against the threatening serpent.

Senet magically transformed its players into participants in the solar journey through

gatt joinHorakhty himessfully bypassed Square he seizing of a player’s wned in the Waters of would unite with Rend win the game.

An Egyptian throwing stick, used as a game counter and made of hippopotamus ivory. The stick is originally from Thebes, and dates to ca. 1400-1295 BC. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Conclusion Playing board games in ancient Egypt, as in many ancient societies, was not merely for entertainment. Games such as Mehen and Senet were imbued with meaning, and both symbolically represented a journey through the afterlife. People could play with one another, spirits of the dead, or their own souls, bridging this world and the next through the movement of pieces on a board. But the seriousness of the games’ themes need not detract from the fun of playing them! AH Colleen Darnell is an Egyptologist whose most recent book is The Ancient Egyptian Netherworld Books (2018), co-written with John Coleman Darnell.

The ceiling of the temple of Dendera, held up by two Hathor columns, depicting different deities and the solar bark.

Senet was partially about recreating the the sun god's journey through the underworld on this vessel, turning players into active participants in the various trials that were faced along the way. © Svetla Ilieva / Shutterstock

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for recreation, including the cradle-kithara (a wooden, stringed instrument that resembled a lyre). Moreover, the universal and enduring lullaby was present in Greek homes, as women sang songs to soothe babies and young children. Evidence of ancient Greek lullabies can be observ erature. Fo by the m newborn while bot was hope In G child of A esied that ultimately prevent th imprisoning his daughter.

This sixth-century BC gold children's However, this did not stop rattle from Greece an enraptured Zeus – dishas been made in the guised as a shower of gold form of a poppy pod. © The Metropolitan – from entering this prison Museum of Art and impregnating Danae.

Acrisiu grandson tained erou p lullaby, as recorded by Simonides of Ceos, are as follows:

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My c you sl this jo in the You pay no heed to the deep swell of the waves rushing by above your head nor to the sound of the wind, lying wrapped in your purple blanket, a beautiful face. If this were truly your danger, then you would turn your tender ear to my words. But I order you, sleep, my little baby, and let the ocean sleep, and let the vast evil go to sleep…

in andrones

y intended for ng men would yre. to receive the sible ames f the as the bled what ze as ‘tag’. tion of the of secondwho called . According it chelichelone ted to be the e ground while encircling her. g the following y-tortoise, what m weaving wool your child, how he leapt into the t li th ‘t toise’ then leapt to her feet and selected another girl to take her place.

Music in public places Music for the public was generally performed outdoors. Greek citizens would typically hear street musicians perform as they headed to their destinations or walked around their cities.

While music was present to some extent in daily life, religious festivals were among the most opportune occasions to hear and wit-

A red-figure hydria from Sicily shows a scene from the myth of Danae and Perseus.

The pair are about to be locked in a chest

by Danae's father. Their plight was immortalized in a popular ancient Greek lullaby. © Marcus Cyron / Wikimedia Commons

The Panathenaic Way in Athens, named for the Panathenaia a festival which involved the re-robing of Athena's statue on the Acropolis. Celebrants processed along this road, while singing and playing instruments. © George E. Koronaios / Flickr

While infants were lulled to sleep by the soothing songs of their mothers, as children grew, they participated in their own musical activities both within and outside the home. Male children received formal music education that typically consisted of learning to play the lyre and the aulos (a pair of pipes that contained reeds in the instrument’s mouthpieces). When boys became men, they participated in the musical activities of the symposium that were held with-

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A red-figure stamnos, 475-450 BC, shows a procession of three women including an aulos player. In ancient Greece, religious observance and musical performance often went hand in hand. © The Detroit Institute of the Arts

Dating to 360-350 BC, this votive relief depicts a flute player and his family in front of Dionysus and Artemis. The series of theatre masks indicate the main location where he practiced his profession.

Now in the Glyptothek, Munich. © Bibi Saint-Pol / Wikimedia Commons

Ancient History 34

rambs were common musical features at many different festivals; however, these hymns were most prominent at the Great Dionysia. During the Great Dionysia, the citizens of Athens were divided into ten groups, and each group was required to create two choruses. The first chorus comprised a maximum of fifty men and the second group consisted of the same number of boys. These choruses would each perform dithyrambs that were specifically composed for the festival. Standing in a circle, the singers would then perform and compete for a prize that was much sought after by the participants.

Like most public performances, this contest took place outdoors, where a very large number of singers and audience members were easily accommodated.

Another very important festival that was celebrated annually in Athens was the Panathenaea. Each summer (in mid-August), all of Athens and Attica participated in the festival’s events, and quadrennially, a more extravagant festival called the Great Panathenaea occurred. A distinguishing feature of the festival involved dressing Athens’ great statue of Athena with new robes. As for music, like the Great Dionysia, opportunities to engage with and experience performances were far from lacking. At the beginning of the festival, music contests were held in the Odeum (which was constructed by Pericles in 435 BC), and the winner was awarded with a wreath made of gold along with a monetary prize. The Panathenaea also had m i and dancers – that extended throughout the whole city and led up to the Acropolis.

We can see visual representations of these musical processions on surviving vases and pottery, which frequently depict pairs of musicians playing the aulos as well as pairs playing the kithara.

The paean was another song that festival participants may have sung in the Panathenaea. While these songs were p aised ould also be Athena

strument which This aulos - an in pes held in the consisted of two pi found in Paeswas mouth at once - a), a city in South ni tum (Poseido Greek colonists.

Italy founded by © Amphipolis / Flickr

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ness extravagant pe festivals, two o a c G th Panathenaea. After the s of these considerab for public c Celeb spring (Ma Great Dionys Dionysus, the ity, and grape h events were prol of days, and during was at the forefront of popular deity. During on sion, music was played carried a statue of Diony boundaries, after which sanctuary. Following the Dionysian procession, music contests took place – specifically, singing, kithara, and aulos contests – in addition to many other musical performances including the singing of dithyrambs.

Originating in the seventh century BC, dithyrambs were hymns dedicated to Dionysus that consisted of choral refrains. The dithyramb’s lyrics concerned events pertaining to Dionysus and fertility and were sung by a chorus of men and boys who were accompanied by aulos players. Dithy-

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Terracotta statue of Apollo holding a kithara with traces of paint clearly visible (including pink skin and purple hair), from Canosa in Southern Italy.

© The J. Paul Getty Museum

(or other g performed lescent bo were freq celebration and as has thought by so and prophy In a and contes ticipated feature in some festive sporting events. Notably, the Pythian Games – which honoured Apollo and took place in Delphi – held music contests that allowed performers to exhibit their virtuosity. One of the most highly respected genres performed at the Pythian Games was called kitharodia, which required that an artist possess exemplaty to p ay musical accompaniment on the kithara, write poetry for lyrics, and sing masterfully (these artists were expected to sing while simultaneously accompanying themselves on the kithara).

It is possible that musicians also accompanied athletes as they competed. Extant Greek vases sometimes depict athletes in the midst of competing in different sports such as running and discus throwing, while musicians (notably, those who play the aulos) stand in close proximity to athletic figures. Since vases provide a limited surface on which to paint images, the exact distance that would have separated the clear. extricably Many inne origins believed to have created the first lyre, the los’ creae god Pan ds. While nterest in so an inyday lives tainment ties, funy, music was at f ancient Greek culture. AH Sonja Maurer-Dass is a Ca gist and harpsichordist. Sh suing a PhD in Musicology of Western Ontario.

The theatre of Dionysus in Athens was originally part of the sanctuary to Dionysus Eleuthereus. The Great Dionysia were also hosted here. © GoodMan_Ekim / Shutterstock

Dating to ca. 500 BC, this Attic black-figure neck-pelike may show a kithara player participating in a musical competition. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

usicolotly puriversity

Ancient History 34

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THEME: Ancient fun and games 500 AD

THE ROMAN EMPIRE: ca. AD 1 – 500

1 AD

The caldarium (hot water bath) from one of the baths in Pompeii (Forum Thermae). The inscription on the marble labrum (basin) names its donor.

PUBLIC BATHING DURING THE ROMAN EMPIRE

THEME

By Sadi Maréchal

BEYOND WASHING

M fo sa paast p stim ime. im ee.. T p nu ume m ro rous us rem e ai em an of the of h encc en

he origins of public bathhouses go back to the Greek-Hellenistic period, when modest bath buildings housing several individual bath tubs were introduced to large parts of the Mediterra ran a hou ho u W i wearer avoid slipping on the wet floors in the bathhouse, while also offering protection from the the hot tiles in the caldarium.

proverbial dust into the large and luxurious leisure facilities that offered all sorts of entertainment. The peace and prosperity of the Roman Empire spurred technological innovations. A better water supply through aqueducts enabled an increase in the size of the pools, while the use of concrete and more efficient heating systems (hypocausts) allowed for larger and betterinsulated heated rooms.

By the end of the first century AD, a typical Roman public bathhouse consisted consecutively of a dressing room (apodyterium), a cold room (frigidarium) with one or more cold pools (piscinae), a tepid room (tepidarium), and a hot room (caldarium) with one or more warm pools (alvei). If space and budget allowed it, an exercise yard (palaestra) with an open-air swimming pool (natatio) and a sweat room (sudatorium) could also be present. Wealthy members of the ruling classes, not least the emperor himself, tried to outdo their political rivals by offer-

© Livius.org

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bathhouses contents of drains in Roman performed the of s die stu in: dra the s wn Do us some clues to the activitie across the empire have givenpredictable finds, while items like scalpels there. Dice and jewelry are expected, but indicate that the baths were and spindle whorls are less a good place to catch up with handcrafts. and of Art both a site for medical care, © The Metropolitan Museum

© Carole Raddato / Flickr

ing the urban population ever larger and ever more luxurious baths. The largest examples in Rome, the baths of Caracalla and of Diocletian, could accommodate up to 2000 or 3000 bathers respectively. No troubles or expenses were spared for these so-called imperial baths: the pools were clad with slabs of imported marble, the floors and ceilings embellished with fine mosaics and the supporting domes and vaults with granite or porphyry monolith columns.

The generous benefactors were commemorated in large inscriptions above the entrances and with life-size marble statues throughout the gardens and bath rooms. In the larger complexes, separate rooms for ball games (sphaeristerium), massage rooms, gardens with monumental fountains (nymphaea) and theatre-like stands to watch performances, and even libraries were added to offer the bathers a wide range of activities. Snack bars (thermopolia), to appease one’s appetite during or after the bath, were often located near the entrances, while public toilets (latrinae) were also attached to the baths, using the waste waters of the pools as a continuous flush. The public baths thus offered a place to meet, eat, drink, and relax, while taking care of one’s body.

A visit to the baths Despite the abundant archaeological remains of Roman-style baths all over the Empire, our knowledge on the actual itinerary within a bathhouse depends on only a handful of written texts. A letter by Pliny the Younger (Epistula 5.6), a description of a fictitious bathhouse by Lucian (Hippias), some epigrams by Martial, and a textbook for students (Colloquia Monacensia) give us a rather fragmented picture of what went on inside the baths. One visited the baths preferably in the afternoon, when the sun ensured plenty of natural light and additional warmth, and in company of friends or family. You would pay a small entrance fee or a further sum for the use of a towel or olive oil. If you were in luck, a wealthy citizen had paid for all expenses, offering free bathing to the community in hope of gaining some political support.

After undressing in the apodyterium, you left your belongings in the care of a cloakroom attendant (capsarius) or your slave, because thieves were on the prowl! You sta tart rt wit ith h so some me phy

weightlifting, or ball games in the palaestra or you could directly enter the tepidarium not halting in the frigidarium acclimatizing d into the call darium your body in k wash at the basin (labrum salt was used n larger baths, ption of sweatbody in the sudatorium (wet heat) or um (dry heat). g down in the cold pools of the frigidarium, a necessary oman authors, ‘effeminizing’ efore returning d anoint your Besides actual vices were oflived above t the inim inrs; the playpilation; k and sausage vendors. Some graffiti left behind by bathers and some rather suggestive wall paintings in certain bathhouses remind us that prostitution and amorous encounters must have been frequent as well. By late antiquity (sixth century AD), there was even a law that enabled a man to divorce his wife if she bathed with another man (Codex Justinianus 5.17.11.2).

Dating to AD 69-96, this marble sculpture of Hercules was excavated in the remains f th Pantheon in Rome. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Erotic frescoes depicting a variety of activities in the dressing room (apodyterium) of the Suburban Baths of Pompeii. The numerals mark the locations of storage shelves where visitors were once able to deposit private belongings. © Sailko / Wikimedia Commons

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π THE CENTERFOLD

The Hadrianic Baths were one of the most splendid buildings in Leptis Magna (Libya). The complex opened in AD 137, and contained various baths, sweat, and changing rooms, a swimming pool and a palaestra. The complex was decorated with mosaics, statues and stone imported from various parts of the Roman Empire. © Rocío Espin

© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bathhouses as ‘social levellers’

(Top) The impressive ruins of the imperial baths (Kaiserthermen) at Trier (Augusta Treverorum), reveal that no costs were spared when it came to constructing public baths across the empire. © trabantos / Shutterstock

he Faustina Baths in Miletus, Turkey were built around AD 170 by Marcus Aurelius, who dedicated them to his wife. © Livius.org

While the popularity of the Roman bathhouse had less to do with health and appearance than with its social aspect, according to ancient literature, bathing was not only about washing your body but mainly about maintaining good health. The idea that the human body was composed of different bodily fluids that had to be in perfect balance had already been introduced by Greek-Hellenistic medicine and was willingly followed in Roman times. In order to maintain this balance or to cure an imbalance that caused disease, the body could be subjected to a treatment with cold or warm water. Sweating out the bad bodily fluids or, on the contrary, retaining all fluids by refraining from baths could

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Blue-green glass aryballos (oil bottle) attached to a bronze suspension chain, from Cologne, ca. first to third century AD.

also be prescribed. Besides a specific bathing regime, the physicians also prescribed an adapted diet, physical exercises, or rest and plenty of healthy air. The specific bathing routine could thus be adapted according to one’s health, but also according to age, sex, constitution, and sometimes even to the season. But keeping in good health or curing a disease were certainly not the only incentives for visiting a bathhouse.

It was also considered a social obligation for Roman citizens to have a neat appearance. Everyone partaking in public life should look clean and well-groomed, as opposed to the dirty and sweaty peasants or the wild ‘barbarians’. Roman bathing habits were thus firmly anchored in classical medicine and a Roman ‘civilized’ way of life. One went to the baths with family, friends, and colleagues to relax, eat, drink, and gossip.

If you were lucky, you could even land an invitation to a dinner party. Some scholars have argued that bathhouses acted as ‘social levellers’ within Roman society, offering a poor day labourer the chance to literally rub shoulders with the rich and famous. Even if public baths indeed seem to have been accessible to all layers of society, including women, children, and slaves, literary passages make it amply clear that some features of wealth, such as jewellery, an impeccably groomed body, or a horde of accompanying slaves were not left behind in the dressing rooms. Social stratification was still visible, even in one’s birthday suit. Certain top-end baths may even have kept out the less fortunate by charging high entrance fees.

A marker of Romanization conquest rovinces public bric in ummuld se

Ancient History 34

© The Metropol

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ls (scrapSilver Roman strigiing) which ers used while bathattached to are uniquely still From Lake . their carrying ring century BC. t rs fi Trasimene, mid itan Museum of Art

π DID YOU KNOW?

Little is known about the temperatures inside the baths or how often the bath water was changed.

It is estimated that temperatures in the caldarium could rise to up to 60°C. Water in the cold pools could be continuously renewed, while the water in the warm pools perhaps only once a day.

was absent. The pleasurable and state-of-theart public baths certainly had an appeal to the newly conquered people, who were probably encouraged to partake in such a civilized habit. Tacitus, writing in the first century AD, remarked how dinner parties and baths enticed local elites in Britain (Agricola 21.2), while in fact they were being enrolled in Roman servitude. Important cities such as Carthage, Merida, Trier, and Ephesus were equipped with large imperial baths that could rival their counterparts in Rome. Public baths in the provinces mainly followed the architectural examples of the Italian heartland, but local preferences for certain layouts or facilities were definitely present. In Asia Minor, the Greek-Hellenistic tradition of gymnasia survived in the layout of public baths, which had very large sporting areas attached to them. In the colder northern provinces such as Germania Inferior, a neat

preference for heated rooms can be observed.

Roman-style baths were also included in the villas of local rural elites, who adopted, and sometimes adapted, Roman bathing habits to present themselves to their peers as sophisticated and up to date with latest luxury, and in a sense, also as ‘Roman’. Building or visiting a Roman bathhouse certainly implied participation in a Roman way of life. The spread of Roman-style bathhouses throughout the provinces has hence been used by modern scholars etration of the Roman cing new ideas about dy, and n this place Rooman bathhou AH Sadi M toral re chaeolo His res Roman domest lar focu

The famous ‘Bikini Girls’ mosaic from the Villa Romana del Casale. The girls actually wear a strophium (breastband) and a subligaculum (a type of loincloth). They are shown engaging in the types of games and exercises that might have gone on in the palaestra of a bathing complex. © Ludvig14 / WIkimedia Commons

Terracotta sarcophagus for a child, Epaphra, a capsarius (bath attendant). From the Columbarium of the Statilii, Porta Maggiore, Rome, Italy. © Dan Diffendale / Flickr

stdocc an arr ersity. nclude y and articu.

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THEME: Ancient fun and games 500 AD 1 AD

HEALTHY MINDS AND BODIES IN ANTIQUITY

THEME

500 BC

ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME: ca. 600 BC – AD 100

A fourth-century BC marble slab from Piraeus, dedicated to a Thracian goddess called Bendis. She is being honoured by a procession of athletes.

By Nigel Spivey

MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO

Mens sana in corpore sano: “a sound mind in a healthy body”. It is one of the most-quoted phrases from Classical antiquity. What formula could be more simple to comprehend? Good mental health comes with good physical health, and vice versa: as easy as that. And yet it is not a straightforward equivalence, still less a necessary connection. ost of us will recognise from our own social circles people who are mentally agile but physically inept; conversely, there are individuals whose prowess at spor o t is harrdl dly ma m tccheed byy the tion tion ti on. So S wheere e did it come e from ness of miin ne nd d and bod dy are T e so Th ource c of the origi sho ould d warn us to be b Attic red-figure kylix showing the hoplitodromos (hoplite fo Otherwise with sh © The W

it. It was a poet, Juvenal, who in the course of describing everything that was corrupt and ridiculous about Roman society in the mid-first century AD, fixed his satirical eye upon the many dreams and aspirations underlying everyday action – “the vanity of human wishes”.

Juvenal’s advice was to limit your hopes to a simple minimum. Pray for just one blessing: a sound mind in a healthy body (Satires 10. 356).

The growth of sporting facilities So what, if anything, was the ancient notion of keeping fit? We know that people in the Greek and Roman world played all sorts of sports.

We know that they had running tracks, swimming pools, and designated spaces where physical activity and competition could take place – the stadium, the gymnasium, and the palaestra (literally, ‘wrestling area’). By the time of the Roman Empire, a town was not considered to be a proper city if it lacked a gymnasium. Visitors to Pompeii are shown two

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© Credit this

A pair of early Greek jumping weights with one curved side, made from river stone, sixth to fifth century BC.

© Lauren van Zoonen

official places for recreational exercise: the older so-called ‘Samnite Gymnasium’, which was decorated with the classic image of a ‘fit’ male body, and a much more commodious ‘Large Gymnasium’ next to the amphitheatre.

As the city of Pompeii expanded in the late Republic, evidently its inhabitants needed better sports facilities. The implication is that a major proportion of citizens were using such facilities. But why were they using them?

We are obliged to ask this question because there is remarkably little comment in ancient literary sources about the benefits of physical exercise. The so-called Hippocratic Corpus of medical expertise contains scant evidence that Greek doctors prescribed sporting activity for the sake of good health and longevity. On the contrary, it seems from the writings of Galen, the Greek surgeon who became personal physician to the emperor Marcus Aurelius, that athletics were regarded as unnatural, dangerous, and likely to lead to premature death. Since Galen’s first practice was attending to gladiators at Pergamon, and gladiators were considered athletes, this may be a somewhat distorted perspective: Galen did also produce a short treatise entitled On Exercise with a Small Ball, in which he appears to approve of games that involve mind–body coordination and so ‘delight the soul’. Generally, however, there was no clinical consensus about the value of sport for personal well-being.

Classical scholars used to suppose that the gymnasium, as an institution, came into being in the Greek city-states of the sixth century BC for the purpose of maintaining citizens ready and able for military service.

Sparta was epitome of the polis that made physical exercise a form of combat preparation, ‘hardening’ young men for the rigours of hoplite warfare. But there are some good reasons to doubt this theory. Hoplite battles were conducted by soldiers clad in cumbersome armour; the gymnasium is literally a place frequented by people ‘stripped’ of any covering. Even the sporting challenge known as the hoplitodromos, the ‘race in armour’, was performed in a state of near-nudity. Wrestling, boxing, throwing the discus, jumping for distance – as contests, these may indeed have seemed like analogues of battle, with all the attendant terminology of ‘victory’ and ‘defeat’; yet they hardly transferred as skills

required for infantry ente n the gymnasium about individual effort and self-motivation.

This is not to deny a broad civic justification to the concept of ‘keeping fit’. A passage in Xenophon’s Memorabilia of Socrates (3.12) tells how the Athenian philosopher upbraided one of his youthful followers for being negligent about his physique. For Socrates, to neglect physical fitness is ‘idiotic’ – in the original sense of being eccentric, or in some way detached from reality. Here the reality is that of

(Top) Aristotle's Lyceum, The Peripatetic school in Athens. Originally a sports training ground, it included a covered walkway (peripatos) after which the school was named. © Ad Meskens / Wikimedia Commons

(Bottom) A gouache painting after an Attic black-figure vase in the Berlin Museum depicting women bathing at a public gymnasium. © The Wellcome Collection

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Located on the eastern side of the city, the gymnasium at Pompeii was used for training and exercise before bathing.

Athenian black-figure amphora, ca. 530 BC. The high knees, extended arms and open palms suggest a sprint race. The vase, containing olive oil, would have been part of a prize awarded at the Panathenaic Games. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Self It is of b A p f a scholê, in Gr lish school) in their days: the leisure, therefore, t ics as the m the ba

Ancient History 34

© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

g track, wrestling ch-bags. The lecture halls and classrooms were additional.

Socrates wrestled with his pupils; as for Plato, his broad shoulders legendarily earned him youthful honours at the Isthmian Games.

Plato’s hypothetical outline of an ideal state makes ‘physical training’ (gymnastikê) an indispensable part of the qualification for the ‘guardians’ of such a state (Republic 410b).

Though ‘Platonism’ as a philosophy tends to make a division between ‘body’ and ‘soul’, there is no doubt that Plato himself regarded physical fitness as integral to the development of a person’s psyche. ‘Working out’ was not merely a metaphor for the hard ‘effort’ (ponos) of achieving virtue.

Whether many ‘gym bunnies’ in Classito this high minded routines is open to doctors and philosomoderation, the con-

after those A gold wreath modelled s athletes. awarded to victoriou it was Dating to 300-100 BC, at a ion at dic probably used as a de rary gift. sanctuary or as a fune Museum © The J. Paul Getty

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A bronze strigil and aryballos. Olive oil was used for skin care and applied to the body, after which it was scraped off. These two objects are often associated with athletes in Greek art.

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© FABRIZIO CONTE / Shutterstock

being drafted for active service, and then finding oneself in a situation where being fit or unfit means the difference between life and death, or if not death, then dishonour or captivity. It is not a matter of reckless bravery. Socrates, much admired for his own conspicuous fortitude while undertaking military service, at one point seems to suggest that the ability to run away fast may be enough to save a citizen from perils on the gest cond flicti desp

cept of pushing one’s body to its limits is well attested, and not only among those athletes striving for victory at the Olympic and other regular festival games. Self-disciplinary ‘practice’ (askêsis) was germane to ideals of physical and mental fortitude. Weight training as such did not exist. However, the physiology of progressive resistance was understood – if mingled with various pseudo-scientific theories about diet, massage, and muscle tone.

S T h m A wi mad mois cise, d join th strigil, to scrape theminstrum selves It is n resem down Not ev honor the gy is, to appea Greco Such an ideal appearance is so ubiquitous in Classical imagery that it hardly needs describing. For males, broad shoulders, a taut waist with well-defined abdominal muscles, and muscular thighs; ting breasts, broad hips, and all-over firmness.

Both somatotypes were literally enshrined when used to represent certain deities – in particular, the male for Apollo, the female for Aphrodite – and so mortals could aspire to be ‘god-like’ by keeping fit. Bodies of heroes or demi-gods conformed to similar expectations.

inscriphe sixth ear that charged nt. Pose of exficantly, ulture of ns forms. Apart history dern asappeal, the eviment of s as pevic duty: the Ros of hehe sees staging ( (Aeneid ubmit to 6. 642–3). Nobody is making do. This nown to the Greeks as terpsis n aristoizens of equired tely the aim of keeping fit consists in being gloriously aimless: a pleasure for its own sake. AH Nigel Spivey is Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Classics, Cambridge University, and a Fellow of Emmanuel College. His latest book is The Sarpedon Krater: Life and Afterlife of a Greek Vase (Head of Zeus, 2018).

This Roman marble statue of an ideal youthful athlete is copied from a Greek original dated to 430 BC. It is thought to represent Kyniskos, the winner of a boys' boxing tournament held at Olympia in 460 BC. © Sandra Alvarez

A marble base for a funerary kouros with youths playing a ball game, ca. 510 BC. Built into the Themistocleian Wall at Kerameikos, Athens. © Zde / Wikimedia Commons

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THEME: Ancient fun and games 500 AD 1 AD 500 BC

THE ANCIENT GREEK AND HELLENISTIC WORLD: ca. 700 BC – AD 100

THEME

A DEEP DIVE INTO DRINKING PARTIES

THE SYMPOSIUM

At the ancient symposium (translating roughly to ‘communal drinking’), Xenophanes tells readers of his poetry that “song and festivity pervade the room”. Indeed, the stereotypical image that is most commonly associated with the event is that of a jovial and luxurious drinking party, complete with music, dance, and convivial conversation. However, to scholars of ‘sympotic’ events and literature, its reality and its conceptualization is far more varied and complex.

S

By Daniel Kershaw

ymposia varied significantly, from friendly gatherings to political events and venues of intrigue. They also became sites for self-positioning and self-identification.

Depictions and retellings of symposia developed into a rich literary and philosophical tradition.

Traditionally, they have been seen as Greek events, particularly in Athenian and later Hellenistic culture; however, they had many precursors and variants in the Near East, such as the Judaic ‘marzeah’ or the banquets represented in Lydian, Median, Persian, and Phoenician sources and material remains. At its core, the symposium was a gathering of men (initially aristocratic, although it was later adopted by lower socio-political groups) who would come together in a specific room of an individual’s home or palace, named the andron (literally "men’s room”), to drink wine, sometimes eat food, listen to music, play games, have sex, and engage in serious or playful conversation. However, symposia did not always contain all of these elements at once. On many occasions, it would be followed by the Komos, where the revelry and drinking would take to the streets. Symposia, or closely related drinking parties ti e , coul uld also o be inco orp por o at ated e i su uch h as paalati t al banquets

Th he symposium in action In aristtoc o ra atic Gree eece, th he an drones eess see eem ee m to havee beeen e in spired by se s ques esteereed sq es squa u r ua room o s in the h bacck off an c ent Greek teemp ci mple lees, s da The exterior of an Attic redfigure kylixx may depict a Komos, the continuation of a symposium, where men and youths played musical instruments, drank, conversed and danced. © The J. Paul Getty Museum

ing from as early as the seventh century BC. We know that from the fifth century BC they had become a common component of an aristocratic Greek’s home and were used primarily for sympotic events.

These rooms usually would be bordered (especially in the domestic examples) with seven to eleven couches (klinai) on three sides, with a gap for the entrance and a table in the middle. On these klinai, each person attending the event would recline and experience the symposium as it unfolded before him. Each event could be completely different to the next, and it was usually the responsibility of the host, or symposiarch, to lead proceedings and keep the party entertained.

Although some symposia would entail more raucous drinking and conversation complemented by dancing, music, and sex, the literary sources suggest they could also be more serious and intellectually stimulating events, where politics, philosophy, oratory, and related subjects might be discussed. The host’s role was to provide entertainment, but he was also supposed to be a speaker of gnomai ("deliv-

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erer of wisdom"). However, the drinking of wine was perhaps the primary touchstone of such events, and some form of discussion between participants was expected, while attendees might be joined by flute-girls (aulotrides) or hetairai as well.

There is also another curious and important aspect of the symposium – especially represented in poetry – that imbued the event with a performative and self-reflective aspect. In the poetry of Theognis, Xenophanes, and Alcaeus, there is what has been called a ‘meta-sympotic’ element, which helped construct not only the poets’, but also the symposiasts’, image and understanding of themselves and the symposium they attended.

These poems would be performed at the event itself and would portray ‘good behaviour’ while disparaging ‘bad behaviour’. They would narrate the proceedings of the event, celebrating the mixing of wine, engaging conversation, and pleasant music. In listening to these poems being performed, each symposiast would have been instructed how to behave as the event unfolded. Rather than a disorganized or

improvisational endeavour, the literature suggested that many symposia followed a certain structure, portrayed in real-time by these songs and poems.

Similarly, the drinking paraphernalia at the symposia would have had a self-reflective and instructive element as well. Drinking scenes were displayed on the amphorae, kraters, and bowls the symposiasts would use. Often these types of objects would also contain lewd messages or mythological scenes at the bottom of each vessel.

As each attendee proceeded to empty his cup, messages of encouragement, caution, or instruction would be revealed to him. Like the poems, these scenes would show participants how to act or what to engage in at the symposium, with many of the scenes containing a sexual element.

The event was also a popular subject for artistic representation in wall paintings, mosaics, and friezes. As such, despite its private nature, the event was also on public display through its representations in texts and images.

The culture of symposia extended to Magna Graecia as well; evidence of the practice has been discovered in Etruscan and Italic sites across southern Italy.

The fifth-century Tomb of the Diver near Paestum, Italy contains a particularly well-preserved fresco showing a group of men enjoying this pastime. Participants are shown reclining on couches, playing instruments and drinking-games, and flirting with each other. © Miguel Hermoso Cuesta / Wikimedia Commons

A terracotta figurine — Hellenistic or Roman— depicting a young man and a hetaira. These female entertainers were skilled in many areas, providing not just physical but also intellectual stimulation for the guests. Now in the Altes Museum, Berlin, Germany. © Zde / WIkimedia Commons

Two bronze statuettes of reclining male banquete taking part in a sympo-rs sium, ca. 550-525 BC.

© The J. Paul Getty Mus eum

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Thi flute-girl (aulêtris) between two reclining male figures (one of whom has a lyre) in a symposium-scene, mid-fifth century BC. Note the men’s boots on the floor beneath the couches. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The lion hunt mosaic from the House of Dionysus in ancient Pella once decorated the floor of the andron — the men's room — located in the northwest part of the house, which was built between 325-300 BC. © Julianna Lees / Wikimedia Commons

Ancient History 34

ry A fourth- to third-centufor ed us le, BC silver lad deep lin lad g the wine out of ers). at kr containers (such as eum © The Walters Mus

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Although at first glance the symposium appears to be a harmless and convivial event fo fered self-fash promine was the a tors of sym tion of symp cent to becom and wild than o while some seem moted such beha Overall, ho a more mat r he could handle his alcohol, not embarrass himself, or reveal his secrets (which seems to have been a concern at such events). In Plato’s Symposium, it is Socrates who represents this mature and self-controlled attendant, whereas Alcibiades, who interrupts proceedings, embodies an unruly symposiast.

Additionally, symposia were an opportunity to demonstrate one’s knowledge or intellectual insight into a topic that was being discussed, just as the poetry performed offered the chance for the speaker or poet to demonstrate his oratory eloquence and proficiency.

The ability to play an instrument at such events also invested the musically talented symposiast with considerable cultural capital.

As a result, the representation of the symposium that has come down to us has been primarily an aristocratic and patriarchal one. The event signalled each participant’s social status and was a primary venue for him to demonstrate his learning and culture. Moreover, the symposium and its elite male performative setting has been seen as a microcosm of contemporary society, where events and issues were played out through collective discussion. Unsurprisingly then, symposia were also the venues of important political and military decision-making throughout the ancient world.

This self-posturing was also demonstrated through literature and art more broadly, as ‘foreign’ practices or norms were set against Greek ones – which were usually seen as superior or more ‘civilized’. These included accusations that foreign peoples did not mix their wine with water, and because of this, their symposia descended into madness, violence, or licentiousness.

In terms of simple practice, ethnographic or cultural differences in the activities of symposia (for example, comparisons to the Roman convivium, having food after drinking, and including women) could be a marker of contrast between different peoples.

For the Greeks, foreign symposia and feasts were often accused of being more ribald and ostentatious, although such accusations were also labelled by contemporary

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A wine strainer was essential to the symposium, as it was used to remove sediment or wine additives. This finely detailed example was found in an Etruscan tomb.

© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

commentators as hypocritical and baseless. There were a number of similar tensions around the cultural propriety of symposia in the Graeco-Roman world. While a pretence was often maintained about the relative austerity of their symposia, the reality was that they exuded luxury similar to that of their foreign counterparts.

Tensions as to how a ‘Greek’ or ‘Roman’ should behave at symposia were given serious consideration by contemporary writers, through the depiction of other peoples and their customs at banquets and drinking parties throughout the ancient world. Herodotus was a major early source for this comparative ethnography, where the Lydians and Persians were depicted as overindulgent drinkers, including their leader Cambyses. Later, writers such as Theopompus wrote a number of polemics against the Etruscans, Chalcideans, and Illyrians about their drinking and dining habits. Plato also

used stereotypes of Thracians as examples of how not to act at a symposium.

Such posturing at the symposium, and the use of the event as an interpretive framework, was expanded to political themes and issues, where participants personified contemporary or past regimes and figures.

For example, in Ion’s Epidemiai, Sophocles and Cimon both represent aspects of Athenian imperialism and expansionism via their greedy and unbecoming conduct at the symposium they both attend.

Similarly, in the law court oration On the False Embassy, delivered by Demosthenes against Aeschines, the latter is presented as a corrupting force to the Athenian demos because of his greedy and treasonous conduct at a feast hosted

by Philip II of Macedon. In each instance, the behaviour of these individuals at these events reflected their inner natures and the outlooks each symposiast possessed towards their states and societies.

Conduct at the symposium therefore reflected political conduct and attitude.

The ruins of Collytus Street in Athens, named for the Collytus district, which was one of the wealthiest demoi of the city where many aristocrats lived. It was no doubt the site of many a symposia and their aftermath. © George E. Koronaios / Wikimedia Commons

A famous example of a banquet gone wrong — the Centauromachy (from the Parthenon) where centaurs were invited to a Lapith wedding, but could not hold their alcohol, which led to a fight with the human guests.

For the ancient Greeks, centaurs represented the barbarian and uncivilized. Various writers complained how those outside 'proper' Greek society did not know how to behave correctly at a symposium. © Peter O'Connor / Flickr

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Symposia also had religious associations. For Greeks, Dionysus was the god of wine and festivities, and as such, symposiasts would sometimes dress up in Bacchic garb in order to honour the god. They also sometimes acted out roles as Bacchic worshippers such as the Bassara, often in feminine dress and appearance, which would have imbued the event with considerably more drama and gusto.

The symposium as a site of intrigue An Attic red-figure skyphos, which depicts Odysseus using a bow and arrow to slaughter the suitors who were competing for his wife Penelope's hand in marriage.

While Odysseus was away and presumed dead, these men used his house as a non-stop party venue. © ArchaiOptix / Wikimedia Commons

While kottabos could be played with items that were already on hand — like bowls and lamp stands — sometimes purpose-made targets were also created, like this elaborate third-century BC bronze Etruscan example. © The Cleveland Museum of Art

Ancient History 34

Symposia as a format for philosophising Modern ‘symposia’, where academics come together to discuss the latest developments in their fields of study, derive directly from their Greek antecedents. The idea of intellectuals coming together to discuss and debate

Kottabos – the original drinking game

By Murray Dahm

The ancient Greek drinking game of kottabos was immensely popular from the sixth to the fourth centuries BC. It involved holding a kylix drinking cup with the index finger through one of the handles and spinning the cup so that the dregs (or lees) of wine would fly out, usually at a target (plastinx) or bowl (or targets within the bowl). The thrown wine had to make a noise when it struck – both the wine and noise were called the latax. You had to recline as you threw, leaning on one elbow. Players competed for rewards, and the game was usually played at symposia. Surviving cups show wear on the handles, telling us they have been used in kottabos. The game is also depicted g o s s

spread throughout Greece and into Italy. It was possibly played by both men and women; we have depictions of hetairai playing (this may be humorous or scandalous). However, there are even depictions of the gods playing. There were different forms of the game involving different vessels and types of target. Each throw was preceded by a toast, usually dedicated to a male lover and perhaps asking a question – the answer was in some ways provided by the outcome of the throw. The game was, therefore, always playful and linked to various types of amorous pursuit. This isn't to say the game wasn't competitive or didn't involve high stakes – Gambling has been linked to this type of game. Kottabos n the Roman period.

d-figure Fragment of an Attic re perhaps ll, ro sc cup; a youth reads a siod. An containing a poem by Heeducation k's aristocratic young Gree could later provided knowledge that symposium. be flaunted at the

eum © The J. Paul Getty Mus

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Symposia were often tied into important political and cultural events. In plays, such as the Ion by Euripides, a drinking banquet is one of the central sites for the dramatic events that unfold, just as the Odyssey famously climaxes at the banquet of the suitors. Naturally then, symposia could also be exploited as venues for conspiracies, assassinations, and murders, where opponents would be easy targets. To this effect, the protagonist Hiero in Xenophon’s play of the same name constantly frets over the loyalty and reliability of his guards at banquets and symposia, fearing for his own safety at such events.

In Thucydides, it was at a symposium that revolutionaries decided to deface sacred sculptures throughout Athens, just as in Xenophon’s Hellenica participants at a symposium killed the would-be tyrant Alexander.

Such duplicity had precedents in early Greek

myth as well, with the infamous ‘cannibal feasts’, where gods or famous heroes were fed human flesh (usually that of their kin) at banquets and feasts.

Yet, it could also be the conduct of those attending symposia that might lead to murder, rather than some pre-meditated conspiracy. In Herodotus, there are a number of different examples where poor etiquette or bad behaviour leads to the death of symposiasts or banqueters. A particularly famous one is at a banquet between Medians and Macedonians, where the former mistake the wives of the latter for hetairai and make sexual advances towards them. The offended Macedonians disguise themselves as these women in an interlude of the proceedings, and after seducing the Medians, they murder each and every one of them.

Symposia were, therefore, far from playful or harmless events where embarrassment or being overly intoxicated represented the worst one had to fear. At royal or divine events, where the social dynamics were not necessarily equal, bad etiquette or conduct could lead to somebody’s death or suffering.

a topic was perhaps most famously immortalised through Plato’s Symposium. In it, a new way of ‘doing philosophy’ crystallised as well, with ‘the dialectic’ as its framework.

This framework is constituted by a participant putting forward an initial stance on a given topic, which is then rejected, reevaluated, or redefined by fellow symposiasts as each participant takes turns weighing in. The topic in Plato’s work is eros (love): how it manifests and is conceptualised by each symposiast. Through the dialectical exchange that each participant expresses, exploring the nuances and complexity of eros, Plato’s Symposium became a foundational philosophical text that was later repeatedly mimicked and reformulated.

Imitations, such as Xenophon’s, Plutarch’s, and Lucian’s, helped establish a highly competitive literary art form, where intellectuals attempted to best their predecessors. Symposia were therefore transformed from a convivial gathering to a framework for discussing a complex topic, which had the capacity to promote the intellectual capabilities of its writers.

Yet the tradition itself also had its detractors and critics, as The Cynics’ Symposium of Parmeniscus demonstrates. Attending symposiasts debate banal, meaningless topics

and indulge in extremely primitive dining.

Similarly, Lucian’s Symposium (or The Lapiths) has a satirical element, and it scrutinises the usefulness of the dialectical method in ascertaining a single, reliable ‘truth’ in the midst of competing philosophical schools.

Like the event itself, tension, controversy, and critique were always part of it.

Regardless of any critiques or censures that the symposium may have received, whether as a philosophical format or as a raucous event, it has remained a fascinating and multifaceted phenomenon that can tell us much about the aristocratic life of ancient Greece and beyond. For this reason, it has stimulated a prodigious amount of scholarship and research, which is still being intensely discussed, debated, and refined in modern symposia throughout the world. AH

Painted in the 1760s by artist Augustin Dahlsteen, this watercolour copies the image on a Greek bell-krater (which was used for wine mixing). It shows participants in a symposium; the boy in the foreground serves the guests using a jug and wine strainer. © The Wellcome Collection

The interest some wealthy Greeks had in philosophy and its study is demonstrated by this first-century BC tombstone, which seems to be dedicated to a 'house philosopher,' that is, a thinker that was in the private employ of a high-status family. The seated man is believed to be the philosopher; The Greek 'psi' character at the top may be a reference to the psyche. © Gary Todd / Flickr

Daniel Kershaw is an independent scholar specializing in Roman Imperial History. He works in academic publishing.

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THEME: Ancient fun and games 500 AD

THEME

A Roman game counter showing an Egyptian temple and Obelisk. The reverse bears the number four, letter delta, and the name Nikopolis. © The J. Paul Getty Museum

W – on duty: patrolling frontier areas, building roads, or manufacturing military equipm hiis board games and dice games – perhaps not what we would at first associate with a Roman soldier at leisure. Yet there is plenty of archaeological evidence to suggest that playing games was a popular pursuit for Roman soldiers in their spare time.

G

1 AD

ame boards, counters, and dice are common finds at military sites. Games were popular among the wider population – the emperor Claudius was such a fan of one dice game that he wrote a book about it (it hasn’t survived) and fit a gaming board into his carriage so he could play on the move – it seems soldiers were no exception.

500 BC

The ludis Latrunculorum board from Corbridge, United Kingdom. As this was a game of strategy, it is little surprise that game boards and pieces havee bee hav een foun nd at military sit mili sites. © Jo Ball

By Jo Ball

A GAME OF SOLDIERS

Roman board games

1000 BC

THE ROMAN EMPIRE: ca. AD 1 – 200

BOARD AND DICE GAMES IN THE ROMAN MILITARY

A wide range of board and dice games were played in the Roman world; they have been documented in the historical record and discovered in archaeological finds. Several were what might be thought of as the ‘classic’ games – these are the ones discussed by Roman writers, giving us more insight than we might otherwise have into the rules (although even then, the exact way that these games were played is often unclear). Games were part of the general leisure scene – many civilian examples are found in places associated with free time, such as public spaces, particularly bath-houses.

Ludus Latrunculi (or Latrunculorum – ‘Little Brigands’) was a strategy game played on a board much like that of a modern chess game, y how ma any per player is

uncertain, but modern estimates suggest 16– 24 each. Players would try to ‘trap’ one of their opponent’s pieces by surrounding it on two sides – it was considered a game of great skill.

Ludus Latrunculi could also be used, probably with more counters, to play a game of ‘five in a row’, on a straight or diagonal run.

Ludus Duodecima Scripta (or XII Scripta – ‘twelve lines/markings’) was played between two players with fifteen counters each, on a board with three rows with twelve markings each. The aim was to throw dice and move your counters along the rows and off the board, but the exact rules are uncertain. Tabula (‘board’) was played in almost exactly the same way, but with two rows instead of three – much like modern backgammon, for which it is said to be a predecessor.

A throw of the dice In addition to these games, there were several popular dice games. Tesserae (literally ‘tiles’, but used to mean ‘dice’) was played with three small dice, which were thrown, and the highest score won. Another dice game was known as alea (‘dice’ – known later as tali), which adapted a game already popular in the Greek world.

It originally but later the including m with val To redu games oft terfering with or switching the dice.

These ranged from simple cups to

Roman soldiers had plenty of time to kill, and many game boards and game pieces have been found at military sites. This game of tabula is getting quite heated… © Zvonimir Grbasic

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A Roman board game made from brick, which dates to between the first and fourth centuries AD. From Scitarjevo, now in the Archaeological Museum, Zagreb, Croatia. © Livius.org

A fresco from the osteria on the Via di Mercurio, in Pompeii, depicting men playing dice using dice shakers.

On the move: portable games One of the things all these games had in common was that they were readily accessible to almost anyone – no complicated equipment was needed to play them, and the items that were needed could be cheaply and readily accessed, or easily improvised.

Although custom-made, portable Roman game boards have been found in the archaeological record, there is also evidence of more ad-hoc examples. Boards could be scratched onto almost any smooth object – a spare slate or a piece of broken pottery – or even onto pavement surfaces, as evidenced by game boards scratched into the steps of numerous public buildings in the Roman world, including the Basilica Julia in the Forum in Rome and the Antonine Baths in Carthage. For this reason,

they are known as ‘graffiti games’ or ‘pavement games’ by some. The counters could equally be improvised relatively easily. Although specialised counters were available, made of glass, metal, or ivory, more informal pieces – fragments of broken pottery or glass – would do the same job, provided they could be distinguished between each player. However, any money players saved on gaming materials they may well have spent gambling on the outcome!

Not every game was equally popular across the Empire – Merellus/merrills boards are common in many provinces but rare in Britain, for example, suggesting that the game was not as popular here as in other areas. Evidence for Mancala-type boards, a strategy game with counters and cup-shaped holes still played in the modern world, has been found at several sites in the eastern and North African provinces. Boards were found carved into the floors of houses, theatre steps, and even in temples – but the game seems to be much less popular in the western provinces, with limited archaeological evidence for it being played.

Board and dice games at military sites Archaeology provides a significant range of evidence for Roman soldiers indulging in board and dice games during their leisure hours, ct, d and mes the boards they played on. They are common finds from military installations on the frontiers of the Empire, from Britain to Egypt, and everywhere in between. Gaming boards, counters, and dice as an overall artefact category are common on military sites of all types (fortresses, forts, fortlets, and watchtowers/turrets), almost an essential of daily life alongside kitchen- and tableware and military kit. They suggest that there was a strong connection between Roman military communities and gaming – wherever there were soldiers, there were board games.

Although complete gaming boards are fairly rare from military sites, fragments of them are relatively common, particularly on the Empire’s frontiers. Sixteen fragmentary Ludus Latrunculi boards have been found at Vindolanda (Britain), suggesting that this was a popular game amo – so mu uch so tha

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© WolfgangRieger / Wikimedia Commons

complic towers Froitzh Germa the m LIX V live warn ness anyone l weighted dice have also been discovered across the Empire.

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Ancient History 34

An assortment of Roman dice from Syria, Italy, and Egypt. They are made from a variety of materials, including glass, bone, and ivory.

© Yale University Art Gallery / Rijks museum van Oudheden / Sailko (Wiki)

© The Portable Antiquities Scheme

board gam altho suggests that some other games were played. Twenty boards for various games were found at the fort of Abu Sha’ar on Egypt’s Red Sea coast, all produced from local stone – several of which had been used so much the incised lines wore away, at which point they were turned over and a new board carved.

Gaming counters and dice are more common finds than boards and attest to the widespread nature of gaming in the Roman military.

Thousands have been recovered from Roman military sites across the Empire, from northern areas such as Britain and Germany, through the Mediterranean heartlands of the Empire, and into the Middle East and North Africa. Many of these were the ad-hoc type of counters recycled from broken pottery or glass, such as a number of pieces made from broken Samian ware found in the garrison area of Corbridge on Hadrian’s Wall. An ornate gaming piece made from polished bone was found near the military garrison at Chester in Britain, the home base of the have b e e n e arr

chaeological record also shows us that Roman soldiers did not always play fair in games using dice – a trick die, with no number 6 face, but two showing 1, was found at Corbridge, one of many that have been recovered from the Roman world. Many of the gaming boards recovered are fairly lightweight, suggesting that they were portable enough to be moved around the fort to play with different people.

A Roman board game engraved on a stone in the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Ephesus (modern-day Turkey) reveals how popular and widespread some games were across the empire.

A life of boredom?

© Carole Raddato / Flickr

© MehmetO / Shutterstock

A fourth-century AD Roman dice tower (pyrgus or turricula) from Vettweiss-Froitzheim, Germany, now in the LVR-LandesMuseum Bonn, Germany. By removing the players' ability to roll dice directly, such devices could help to reduce cheating.

The numerous finds of board game elements at Roman military sites have been taken to suggest that most of soldiers’ daily life was fairly dull, leaving them in need of any entertainment that would help them pass the time. Playing board games may not have been only a leisure activity for their hours off each day – the portability of many boards suggests they may even have been played by soldiers while on duty, allowing them to pass the long and boring hours more easily. The popularity of board and dice games among the Roman military may demonstrate the dullness of life in a military installation, in areas under watch but largely at peace. In these circumstances, it is unsurprising that simple entertainments became hugely popular. AH Archaeologist Dr Jo Ball sp archaeology and the

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Two views of a Roman copper alloy gaming piece or die, perhaps a rare ‘rod-dice’(Stabwuerfel), firs tfourth centuries AD.

Sherd of a ceramic Roman gaming board, found in Northumberland, United Kingdom, dated to ca. AD 122-410.

© The Portable Antiquities Scheme

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ANCIENT COOKING

ROMAN BREAD IN THE NETHERLANDS

A TRAIL OF

With the arrival of the Romans in the Netherlands in the first century BC, our diet and daily bread changed drastically and forever. The Roman army settled in various fortresses along the Limes Germanicus, the northern border of the Roman Empire that ran right through the Netherlands. Camp villages with craftsmen and merchants rose around these fortresses, and large cities were founded.

500 BC

AD 1

By Manon Henzen

1000 BC

THE ANCIENT LOW COUNTRIES: ca. 200 BC – AD 100

AD 500

CRUMBS

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Ancient History 34

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n Germania Inferior, an exchange of cultures, eating habits, and ingredients took place. For the first time in our history, new ingredients were introduced. A society emerged in which people were no longer self-sufficient and many mouths had to be fed.

Bread played a central role.

Grain trade Cereals were the most important staple in the ancient world. In the south of the Netherlands, grain merchants and large country villas (villae rusticae) on the fertile loess soils provided the production, trade, and supply of the necessary cereals to feed soldiers, camp villagers, and city dwellers. Enormous grain fields must have been located around the Roman villa at Voerendaal-Ten Hove, where a large threshing floor in the courtyard and a grain storage room of no less than 380 square meters was found.

Although Dutch grain production (especially spelt) was huge, it was insufficient to feed everybody. Grain was therefore also imported from abroad.

In the Dutch city of Woerden, pieces of a grain ship that sank at the

end of the second century AD remain.

The ship, some 30 metres long, was loaded with emmer wheat from northern France. The gravestone of Marcus Liberius Victor proves that grain traders outside the present-day Netherlands were active in the region: To the mother goddesses, the Mopates, to himself, Marcus Liberius Victor, member of the Nervian family, grain merchant, gladly fulfilled his vow and with good reason.

Roman baking In cities, most households did not have their own kitchen and there was certainly no oven. Most of the townspeople and residents of the camp villages bought their bread from bakeries. These were usually production companies with a grain mill, bakery, and shop in one.

In Roman fortresses along the limes, soldiers lived with eight men in a barrack and had to provide their own food.

They received about 800 to 1000 grams of grain per person per day. With thousands of soldiers in a camp, a lot of grain was needed. Granaries were built in

fortresses, like at the Kops Plateau in Nijmegen. Soldiers had to grind grain and bake bread themselves. They had their own cooking place where flatbreads could be baked. Bread ovens were located along the inner walls of the fort. In the Netherlands, a clay oven has been found just inside the camp's walls at the Roman marching camp in Ermelo.

Brewer's yeast and sourdough Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79) mentions the making and use of sourdough in his Naturalis Historia. Pliny describes the making of beer, and the leavening agent he mentions is brewer’s yeast. It bakes nice, fluffy loaves, he says. It does indeed. Both sourdough and brewer’s yeast were known in the northern region in ancient times. In the Netherlands we have our own piece of charred ‘Pompeian’ bread. In the temple of Westeraam in Elst, chunks of charred leavened bread, probably made of emmer wheat and/or barley, were found. AH Manon Henzen is a historian and writer who regularly contributes to Ancient History. Visit her at: eat-history.com

Panis Germaniae Inferioris This trail of crumbs of information gives us an idea of which types of bread were eaten 2000 years ago in the Netherlands. I have therefore attempted to reconstruct a Roman bread from Germania Inferior for you.

Ingredients » 300 g spelt flour » 100 g emmer wheat flour (or wheat flour) » 100 g barley flour » 150 g active sourdough starter* » 8 g sea salt » 300 ml tepid water » 1 tbsp crushed coriander seeds » 2 tbsp poppy seeds » ½ tsp dill seeds Put the spelt, emmer, and barley flours into a bowl with the sourdough (or yeast), salt, and tepid water. Mix well with your hand until the dough comes

together. Add coriander, poppy, and dill seeds and mix. Turn the dough out of the bowl and knead for ten to fifteen minutes until smooth.

SOURDOUGH: Put the dough in a well-oiled bowl. Cover and let it rise in a warm place for 1 hour. Form the dough into a firm ball and let it rise again for about 1 hour. Degas (punch down) the dough and form into a ball again. Place the dough in a proofing basket or floured bowl.

Cover and allow to rise for 12 hours in a cool place.

YEAST: Form the dough into a firm ball and put it in a well-oiled bowl. Cover and let it rise in a warm place for 30 minutes. Form a firm ball again and let it rise for another 30 minutes. Degas (punch down) the dough and form into a ball again. Place the dough in a well-

floured proofing basket or bowl. Cover and allow to rise for about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 220C/428F. Put a sheet of parchment paper on a baking tray and carefully drop the bread upside down from the proofing basket onto the baking tray. Put the bread into the oven and turn the temperature to 200C/392F. Bake the bread for about 30 minutes until done and brown.

* SOURDOUGH ALTERNATIVE

Do you prefer yeast over sour dough? Instead of the sourdough, you can use:

» »

7 g dried yeast 325–350 ml tepid water (instead of 300 ml water)

Follow the alternate instructions in the recipe for a normal yeast bread.

Ancient History 34

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the King” (Evagoras

us that torm, rom xes ed.

Minnows of the Mediterranean At the outbreak of the Corinthian War between Athens and Sparta in 395 BC, Evagoras allied himself with the Achaemenid-backed Athenian coalition to stamp out Sparta’s bid for maritime hegemony. Isocrates tells us that his financial and material contributions to the Battle of Knidos were pivotal. In gratitude, the Athenians erected a statue in his honour. This conspicuous commemoration surely obscured the fact that this was a Persian-backed victory, wrapped in a Hellenic veneer. By 395 BC, Salamis was a burgeoning player in the Mediterranean.

Evagoras had revealed himself as a shrewd tactician. Isocrates alleges that Evagoras only ever acted in “self-defence and never to be the aggressor” (Evagoras 9.28). However, the historian Diodorus Siculus suggests otherwise. He writes that “at first [Evagoras] was king only of Salamis … [but] he set out to make the whole island his own” (Diod.

Gold Cypriot coin of Evagoras I, 14.98.1–4). It was ca. 391-380 BC, around this time that showing Heracles in lion skin and a Evagoras laid siege to goat's head. other city-kingdoms © www.cngcoins.com across Cyprus. By demonstrating loyalty to Persia in the Corinthian War, Evagoras sought to justify his own territorial expansion on Cyprus. But these terrta ner to Persian suzerainty. d Ruzicka ( dthe Persian Empire d o y. e o e we see Evagoras’ Machiavellian brilliance. By forging this alliance, Evagoras leveraged his position – and Egyptian support – to ravage the Levantine coast, wresting even more cities

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© sadullahkisi / Shutterstock

diately, he took to courting Athens, providing grain shipments during the waning years of the Peloponnesian War. This act alone earned him honorary Athenian citizenship in 407 BC.

The threads unravel and us that these 200 ships were outfitted in a way to cause terror — though he does not say in exactly what s. he sing to prise attack e coastline. sians almost revolted from a lack of food due to Evagoras’ brilliant strategy of harrying their supply lines.

In 385 BC, a decisive sea battle was fought off the Salaminian coast and Evagoras, facing overwhelming odds, was soundly defeated.

Even in defeat he remained defiant. Artaxerxes’ general Tiribazus forced Cyprus to reinstitute tribute, but Evagoras boldly rejected the ratification of the treaty, refusing to kowtow to the third article, which would have forced him to obey the king’s orders “as slave to master” (Diod. 15.8). Evagoras again played a brilliant hand. The historian Theopompus suggests that Evagoras conspired with Orontes, the satrap of Armenia, to have Tiribazus arrested for treason.

Orontes then (perhaps in collusion?) conceded to Evagoras’ terms. Isocrates claims Artaxerxes g d y made peace, [and] undisturbed the authority of Evagoras” (Evagoras 9.63).

Dating to ca. 497 BC, this Corinthian-type helmet was discovered in the remains of a siege ramp built by the Persians during an attack on Paleopaphos, Cyprus during the Ionian Revolt. Though this event transpired decades before the reign of Evagoras, it illustrates well the complex and ever-changing relationship between Cyprus and the Persian Empire during this period. © Livius.org

Cast of the Lenormant relief depicting an Athenian trireme, ca. 410 BC, found on the Acropolis, Athens. Evagoras' fleet of 200 ships would have required many thousands of well-trained rowers. © Gary Todd / Flickr

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Terracotta statue of horse and rider from Cyprus, made during Evagoras' reign in the early fourth century BC. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cypriot bronze arrowhead, ca.

480–330 BC, it is thought that archers made up an important part of the crew on Cypriot triremes. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

(Top) Ruins of what was once the harbour of Knidos, Turkey. Evagoras provided material support for an important sea battle that happened near this site during the Corinthian War. © Louisa Mac / Flickr

(Bottom) The Altikulaç Sarcophagus, painted marble from the Troad, Turkey. It shows a mounted Persian warrior chasing down his enemy. Achaemenid satraps could call on substantial resources.

The Evagoras is one of our principal sources for the period. For Isocrates, Evagoras was the model ruler. It depicts the king through the lens of Isocrates’ personal beliefs, which need to be critically analyzed. Evangelos Alexiou argues that Isocrates engaged in the outward manipulation of history to fit his rhetorical style. Isocrates was a rhetorician and a sophist, and his personal philosophy is well established in his Panegyric. Ostensibly, Isocrates wanted there to be unity between Spartans and Athenians -but under Athenian hegemony. For Isocrates, to truly be a Hellene one must learn to think and live as a Hellene, i.e., possess Athenian education. Athens to Isocrates was, of course,

great debt was owed. e Isocrateee what ppealhe is not a stereotypical king..

According to Isocrates, Evat but by the principles of his life” (Isoc.. Evagoras oras ifically phil-Athenian e ”, “the liberal arts”, and “[Greek] education” (Isoc. Evagoras ). dds, “that … h ]” (Isoc. Evagoras 9.50). And, to a degree, the archaeology bears this out: he was the first king in Cyprus to mint coins in both the Cypriot syllabary and the Greek script. He possessed all the qualities that made him a philosopher king in his own right, but most importantly, in the view of Isocrates, he was a true philhellene.

We must be cautious, though: the Evagoras was written as an encomium (a eulogy) and, according to Plutarch, was commissioned by his son and heir, Nicocles. Evagoras’ qualities are shown as unparalleled, if not divinely bestowed -- inherited from his ancestors, endowed by nature, and willed

by Zeus himself. It presents a romanticized -- and idealized -- philhellenic king.

Evagoras’ sudden death in 374 BC is shrouded in mystery. Isocrates does not mention the nature of his death in his eulogy, the Evagoras. Theopompus, however, offers us a lurid tale: a court eunuch had been secretly arranging sexual liaisons with his master’s daughter for both King Evagoras and his son. The same eunuch arranged their murder. Sources, however, differ. Aristotle tells us that the murder was “caused by insult … since the son of Evagoras had taken [a] eunuch’s wife” (Arist. Politics 1311b). Diodorus is even more ambiguous. He claims that “Nicocles the eunuch assassinated the king and possessed h power ov ver e the Salim implying that son and he committed th

x

© Dan Diffendale / Flickr

ulture to which a

Isocrates and the Evagoras

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Ancient History 34

Fragment of a seal impression with the birth and throne name of pharaoh Acoris, who ruled Egypt between ca.

392 and 380 BC.

© Los Angeles County Museum of Art

15 47 8) In any event it is a sensational tale -- and questioned by many scholars.

Death and legacy Evagoras was certainly remarkable. There is no doubt that he introduced a policy of ‘hellenizing’ Cyprus. He likely promoted Greek mores and refinement and certainly adopted the Greek script in his coinage. As king, we know that he skilfully courted Athens during the Corinthian War and played a pivotal role in the Battle of Knidos. And in spite of being soundly defeated by the Persians, he still leveraged his weakened position with Artaxerxes and retained the crown of Salamis until his death.

The question must also be asked: was Evagoras such an absolute philhellene? Rather than being anti-Persian from the outset, he pivoted when he needed to. He initially allied with Persia, only then to use this alliance as a pretext to pursue his own interests and consolidate his authority across all of Cyprus – we see him wage war on other pro-Greek and pro-Persian citystates in Cyprus alike. Isocrates presents him as altruistic, just, and the model philhellene, and although his policies occasionally aligned with Athens’, Evagoras understood the need for political posturing and realpolitik. Yes, Isocrates’ version of events is highly exaggerated but this

does not detract from his achievements. Historically, Cyprus has, by and large, lamentably lacked political and military capital. But it was Evagoras who elevated Salamis, and arguably all of Cyprus, to a place of prestige. AH

Andreas Charalambous currently teaches history in Toronto, Canada and continues to pursue his passion for history and Cypriot studies.

FURTHER READING x

Alexiou, Evangelos. “The Rhetoric of Isocrates’ Evagoras: History, Ethrhetoics and Politics.” In rique et enjeux politiques, edited by C. Bouchet and P. Giovanelli-Jouanna, 47–61.

Lyon: Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3, 2015.

x

Hill, George Francis. A History of Cyprus: Volume I, To the Conquest by Richard Lion e Heart University Press, 2010.

x

Ruzicka, Stephen.

A nineteenth-century drawing of Artaxerxes II's tomb near Persepolis, in modernday Iran. Following a formula common on other Achaemenid royal tombs, the king is depicted with soldiers in his army that represent the diverse nations and cultures serving the Persian Empire. Artaxerxes' reign was a long one — he stayed in power between 404 and 358 BC — long outlasting Evagoras. © Public domain

Tombstone of a Thracian hoplite named Dionysius of Cardia, ca. 400 BC, from Lysi, northern Cyprus. Now in the Cyprus Museum, Nicosia, Cyprus. © Livius.org

he mpire, 525–332 BCE. New York: Oxford University Press¸ 2012

Ancient History 34

53

THE ANCIENT WORLD IN POP CULTURE

This bird's eye view of Rome was created by Flyover Zone Productions. It depicts the city as it would have likely appeared around the year 320.

PENCILS, PAINT, PLASTER, AND PIXELS

By Lindsay Powell

REBUILDING ANCIENT ROME Recreating “the grandeur that was Rome” has been the dream of artists ever since the ancient city fell into ruin. While traditional artistic techniques can produce images in two dimensions and physical models can add a missing third dimension, even the best of these fall short in allowing the viewer to explore the buildings inside, as well as out. Advances in computer-based modelling software and graphic processing technologies, however, are making that possible. Several organizations have created digital models of Rome that let us explore the ancient city in new and unexpected ways.

T

here is something deeply appealing about going back to the capital of the Roman Empire and exploring the city in its heyday. One of the first books that inspired my interest was F.R. Cowell’s Everyday Life

in Ancient Rome (Batsford, 1961). What enthralled me A massi and 21 mans' fragm © Ca

Forma Urbis Romae represents the ancient Ro-

were four illustrations by architect Josef Bühlman and historical painter Alexander von Wagner. ‘Illustrations’ does not do the Germans’ work justice. They had the quality of photographs.

The original source of the images was the book Das alte Rom mit dem Triumphzuge Kaiser Constantins im Jahre 312 n. Chr., published in 1890. It accompanied a special exhibition. From meticulously drawn pencil sketches, Bühlman and Wagner created a painted wrap-around 360° Rompanorama seen from the Capitoline Hill. Unlike the others I had seen, there was a compelling actuality and lived-in feel about Bühlman’s and Wagner’s work.

Yet, for all their exquisite artistry, the near hyper-realistic images were static and two dimensional. What you saw was what you got.

Fast forward to the mid-1990s when I discovered SPQR: The Empire’s Darkest Hour. An immersive Myst-

5544

Ancien An cien ci nt H Hiistorry 34

© www.coinarchives.com

x

This sestertius of Nero shows the Temple of Janus with latticed windows and elaborate doors.

x

Virtual Rome

A restored portico from the Temple of Peace (Templum Pacis).

At the University of Reading, Dr Matthew Nicholls also created his digital model as a teaching tool but, he told me, “I have to say that part of the motivation was that I found it interesting and fun!”

Nicholls explained that the model became increasingly useful for his research work, either directly or as a background to understanding Roman urbanism and the layout of private and public spaces in the city around AD 315.

As for sources, Nicholls said, “One thing I have taken particular care to do is make and incorporate models based on all the identified pieces of the Forma Urbis, an ancient marble map of Rome: that is my favourite single source.”

Nicholls models in SketchUp on Macs. Assembly, entourage, lighting, and

© www.coinarchives.com

View over the Campus Martius towards the Palatine Hill.

x

The main entrance of the Forum of Trajan with decorative architectural details and statues shown on an aureus of Trajan.

© History in 3D

Pioneering the creation of a digital Rome was Dr Bernard Frischer, Professor of Informatics at Indiana University. “I got the idea to create something like ‘Rome Reborn’ in the fall of 1974,” he told me. Upon arriving at the American Academy in Rome, his first trip was to see Gismondi’s Plastico: “Like most people who see this enormous recreation of the Rome of the year AD 320, I was stunned by the beauty of the model and was impressed by its usefulness as an instructional tool.”

Rome Reborn has gone through three iterations. ‘1.0’ was a proof of concept. It was developed with UCLA’s Architecture School – then one of the centres for computer-aided design (CAD) – with Diane Favro, Professor of Architecture. By 1996, they had started the project. At its official launch in 2007, at Rome’s city hall, Frischer was called by Google. They asked if he would like to collaborate with the company to port it to Google Earth. He agreed. Two years later, Rome Reborn was overhauled as version ‘2.0’ by digitizing the Plastico.

For a while, it garnered critical acclaim and media attention. Users could study a Google map of Rome today and ‘view’ it as it was in AD 320. However, the parties did not agree on terms for updating the ‘Ancient Rome 3D Layer’; it was later removed from Google Earth and has not been available since.

The interior of the Pantheon, with painted ceilings and statues. © History in 3D

Rome Reborn

The current version is ‘3.0’. Largely finished in 2018, the team drew on deep scholarship. “Roman topography is the oldest branch of western archaeology going back to the classic book of papal secretary Flavio Biondo, Roma Instaurata, written in the 1440s,” said Frischer. “So, as you can imagine, the number of studies to be taken into account is enormous.” The team consulted Eva Margareta Steinby’s six-volume Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae (1993–2000) and the new two-volume Atlas of Ancient Rome (2017) edited by a team led by Andrea Carandini. Other scholars provided insights too.

The improvements in 3.0 are already evident. Statues now gleam with gold or paint, inscriptions and reliefs are picked out in colour, and moving people inhabit the public spaces and buildings. “We’re still refining details and expect to do so for many years to come,” said Frischer.

It is a major production. To build the model, the Rome Reborn team uses Autocad, Blender, RealityCapture, Metashape, 3D Studio Max, VRay, and Zbrush. The workstations run on Windows 10. They render on the Chaos Cloud.

© Flyover Zone Productions

© Flyover Zone Productions

style game, it was originally conceived for the web, but slow Internet access speeds led producer CyberSites to make a version with GT Interactive Software for standalone personal computers.

Solving complex puzzles led the gamer to uncover clues in a mystery set in and around the Roman Forum of the imperial city on a night in AD 205.

Sestertius of Trajan The buildings of the city showing the Circus were believably recreMaximus with its interior obelisk and ated. I was convinced turning markers. of the great educational © www.coinarchives.com and entertainment possibilities of a digital Rome.

Ancient History 34

55

A TIMELINE OF EVENTS ( CA .1200 – 2000)

1200

1400

1800

Classical architecture heavily influenced many buildings constructed during the 18th century. The multitalented Giovanni Piranesi made both depictions of ruined buildings in Rome, and elaborate fantasies (like this one from 1750) inspired by ancient architecture.

have been experimenting with, with the VR (virtual reality) team at Oxford University”. He has a gaming PC for Lumion and to drive his VR headset. © History in 3D

The Forum Romanum by History in 3D incorporates realistic marble and stone finishes, and trees.

During the late 19th century, giant, wraparound panorama views became a popular way to experience history. Opening in 1889, the Rompanorama, created by German architect Josef Bühlman and artist Alexander von Wagner, did just this for ancient Rome. Today, only black and white photos of the giant painting survive.

Virtual Rome went public as a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for FutureLearn in 2017. Over 60,000 people – me being one of them – have taken the five-week course, which included images and animations. The popular FutureLearn course is still running.

Rome in 3D

© Flyover Zone Productions

The Forum Romanum in Rome Reborn 3.0 now features colourized reliefs, statues, and people.

The latest developer of a digital Rome is ‘History in 3D’ led by Danila Loginov in Serbia. “Our team aims to create the most complete, detailed, and accurate 3D reconstruction of the ancient city, using the most modern available capabilities,” Loginov told me.

A programmer by training, Loginov had done 3D modelling for eleven years, but for the last five, ‘Rome in 3D’ has been his main focus. “I have always wanted to be able to walk the streets of this city, see the forums, palaces, and baths as they were, and enter the famous buildings.”

Accuracy is high on the team’s agenda. “In our work, we rely on all of the available modern scientific literature, both on the Roman topography in

π MORE ONLINE

ROME REBORN Take a tour of the ancient capital city in this video: https://bit.ly/3vEy6NJ VIRTUAL ROME View a trailer explaining the Virtual Rome project: https://bit.ly/3fYH7ul ROME 3D Tour the Campus Martius, home of the Praetorian Guard: https://bit.ly/2TvPkyG

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Ancient History 34

2000 © The Library of Congress

© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

rendering are done in Cinema 4D. Increasingly he has been using Lumion for architectural rendering. He wants “to get properly into Unity, which I

© Bibliothèque de Genève, Ms. fr. 80

During the Middle Ages, the city of Rome was frequently depicted like any other contemporary city, as in this scene from a 1470 manuscript showing Caesar portioning out the treasury of Rome to his soldiers.

1600

© seier+seier / Flickr

VISUALIZING ANCIENT ROME

In 1933, Benito Mussolini had Italo Gismondi make a 1:250th scale model of Rome (Plastico di Roma Imperiale) for his Museum of Roman Civilisation. It followed a 1:400th scale model (Plan de Rome) made by Paul Bigot for Brussel's Art and History Museum.

© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

With the Renaissance came a heightened interest in Roman art and architecture; many artists tried to reconstruct buildings and sites in the ancient city. This 16th-century engraving of the Colosseum from Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae is a prime example.

general and for individual objects,” he said. “We regularly seek advice from specialists in ancient architecture, culture, and archaeology.”

Loginov’s team uses a variety of commercially available software packages for 3D modelling, sculpting, and creating virtual applications.

“We give preference to free software to reduce our costs at this stage of project development.”

Loginov has big ambitions for Rome in 3D. Currently, it presents the city as it may have looked in AD 320. The plan is to take the project in several directions.

Virtual tours based on the 3D model will come first. The streets of Rome will be filled with life and interactive applications. Visitors will be able to participate in a real historical event, such as the triumphal procession of a Roman emperor. At a later stage, the model will be adapted for other eras, such as the time of Augustus, or the Middle Ages. As technical capabilities improve, so will the visual components.

ing cutaway sections to explain how a building was constructed. Crucially, they can be reproduced in books and magazines, such as Ancient History.

Digital technologies bring additional benefits. France’s CIREVE, Italy’s Altair4, Spain’s PAR, and Turkey’s Roof Stacks produce bespoke augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) content for museums. Their apps on mobile phones and tablets allow visitors on location to tour archaeological sites with mixed VR (MVR) and to see 360° restorations in real time. Darius Arya hosts an Ancient Rome Live course about engineering and architecture featuring digital models by Andrea Troiani. Flyover Zone Productions, founded by Bernard Frischer, has published a flight over Rome in a virtual hot air balloon and a historical game set

Back to the future 2D drawings still have great value as educational aids – for example, allow-

©

Ma tt

he w

lls

x

Nicholls' model of the Theatre of Pompeius Magnus (Theatrum Pompeii) and its gardens is based on a fragment of the Forma Urbis Romae.

Nic ho

in the Circus Maximus called ‘Chariot Racing’. Now well over eighty years old, even Paul Bigot’s plaster Plan de Rome has been enhanced with digital content accessible with VR headsets.

Exquisite as they are, the buildings in these virtual Romes look just a little too perfect. They lack the patina of everyday life: the painted art and graffiti on the walls, the detritus and weeds in the streets, that aura of decaying splendour so successfully evoked in Bühlman’s and Wagner’s Rompanorama. Yet, the digital models are becoming more lifelike with each new iteration. Soon virtual and real life will become indistinguishable. The future of the past has never been more exciting. AH Lindsay Powell is news editor of Ancient History and Ancient Warfare.

He loves reconstructions of the ancient world.

© Matthew Nicholls

The Colosseum (AKA Amphitheatrum Flavium) shown complete with awning masts and statues.

FURTHER READING

to learn what the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans did READINGS: ANCIENT FUN TIME Want to have a good time? Here are some books to check out.

THE SYMPOSION IN ANCIENT GREEK SOCIETY AND THOUGHT

ANCIENT EGYPTIANS AT PLAY: BOARD GAMES ACROSS BORDERS

By Fiona Hobden Cambridge University Press, 2013 ISBN: 978-1316613733

By Walter Crist, Anne-Elizabeth DunnVaturi, and Alex de Voogt Bloomsbury, 2016 ISBN: 978-1474221177

Hobden explores the symposion as a key cultural phenomenon in ancient Greece. She investigates its place in society and thought by exploring the rhetorical dynamics of its representations in literature and art. Investigating the symposion's discursive potential enhances our understanding of how the Greeks experienced and conceptualized the symposion and demonstrates its contribution to the Greek thought world.

This is the first volume on Ancient Egyptian games of its kind and a much-needed contribution to the field of both Egyptology and board games studies. It starts with an introduction to board games and instruments of chance and goes on to trace the history and distribution of games in both Egypt and its international context. This book explores the role of Egypt in accepting and disseminating games during its long history.

BATHING IN PUBLIC IN THE ROMAN WORLD

MUSIC IN ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME

By Garrett G. Fagan University of Michigan Press, 1999 ISBN: 978-0472088652 Fagan explores the Roman public bathing experience primarily as a historical, social, and cultural phenomenon rather than a technological or architectural one. He reconstructs what a trip to a Roman bath was like and asks when and why the baths became popular in Rome, who built and maintained the abundant bathing establishments, and what sociological function the baths played in Rome's rigid social order.

By John G. Landels Routledge, 1999 ISBN: 978-0415248433

Landels provides a comprehensive introduction to the history of music from Homeric times to the Roman emperor Hadrian, presented in a concise and user-friendly way. He explores the contexts in which music played a role, a detailed discussion of instruments, scales, intervals and tuning, the types of rhythm used and an exploration of theories of harmony and acoustics. Numerous examples and illustrations are included.

ADDITIONAL BOOKS AND ARTICLES Gaming the Egyptian afterlife (Colleen Darnell) • Darnell, John Coleman. Egypt and the Deserts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.

• Piccione, Peter. “Mehen Mysteries, and Resurrection from the Coiled Serpent,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 27 (1990): 43-52.

• Piccione, Peter. “In Search of the Meaning of Senet,” Archaeology 33/34 (1980): 55-58.

A Game of Soldiers (Jo Ball) • Austin, R.G. “Roman Board Games I”. Greece & Rome 4, 1934: 24–34.

• Finkel, I.L. Ancient Board Games in Perspective. London: British Museum Press, 2007.

• Hall, Mark A., and Katherine Forsyth. “Roman rules? The introduction of board games to Britain and Ireland” Antiquity 85, 2011: 1325–1338.

• Parlett, David. The Oxford History of Board Games. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Ancient symposia (Daniel Kershaw) • Hunter, R. Plato’s Symposium. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

• Sowerby, R. The Greeks, An Introduction to their Culture.

3rd Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Beyond washing (Sadi Maréchal) • Brödner, Erika. Römische Thermen und das antike Badewesen. Darmstadt: Primus Verlag GmbH, 1983.

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Ancient History 34

• • • •

de Bonneville, Françoise The Book of the Bath. New York: Rizzoli, 1988.

Heinz, Werner. Römische Thermen: Badewesen und Badeluxus im Römischen Reich. Munich: Hirmer, 1983.

Künzl, Ernst. Die Thermen der Römer. Darmstadt: wbg Theiss, 2013.

Yegül, F. Bathing in the Roman world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Music for the people (Sonja Maurer-Dass) • Greene, Ellen, ed. Women Poets in Ancient Greece and Rome. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005.

• Karanika, Andromache. Voices at Work: Women, Performance, and Labor in Ancient Greece. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.

• Lynch, Tosca A.C., and Eleonora Rocconi, eds. A Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Music. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2020.

• Rutherford, Ian. “Apollo in Ivy: The Tragic Paean.” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics 3 (1994-1995): 112–135.

Mens sana in corpore sano (Nigel Spivey) • Filser, Wolfgang. Die Elite Athens auf dem attischen Luxuskeramik. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017.

• Spivey, Nigel. The Ancient Olympics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

• Squire, Michael. The Art of the Body: Antiquity and its Legacy. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011.

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