Roman Living History - School temple visit - July 2016
A school group visited the Roman temple in Grafton to participate in some Roman Living History. The children tried on Roman armour, fought with swords and shields, blew the tuba and cornu Roman musical instruments, read Latin scrolls and practiced writing on wax tablets in Latin (after a Latina-lingua crash course intro), and had all their questions answered.
A Roman feast reclining on couches in the triclinium eating period foods was followed by two debates, the first being "How should the Senate respond to Julius Caesar, who has his army at the Rubicon?" The Senate were persuaded by cranky old Cato to declare Caesar an outlaw, but this was vetoed by the tribune Marc Antony, so the senators gave him a beating and booted him out of the temple to head back to Caesar with his tail between his legs. Unfortunately, it seems that this rash act prompted Caesar to immediately declare war on the grounds that the Senate was clearly being run by out-of-control madmen.
The second debate was "Should all mothers be banned from Rome?" and was initiated by the emperor Nero because he was sick of his mother Agrippina continually bossing him around. The philosopher Seneca, who was one of Nero's principal advisers, was keen to keep his mother around as she was a good moderating influence on his wild behaviour, even though she was admittedly not the most ideal of role-models. It was finally decided that "mothers with small babies could stay" but the rest had to go! (That's ungrateful kids for ya!)
The children finished the day by reciting Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome that they had learned by heart. It was a fantastic learning experience.
A Roman feast reclining on couches in the triclinium eating period foods was followed by two debates, the first being "How should the Senate respond to Julius Caesar, who has his army at the Rubicon?" The Senate were persuaded by cranky old Cato to declare Caesar an outlaw, but this was vetoed by the tribune Marc Antony, so the senators gave him a beating and booted him out of the temple to head back to Caesar with his tail between his legs. Unfortunately, it seems that this rash act prompted Caesar to immediately declare war on the grounds that the Senate was clearly being run by out-of-control madmen.
The second debate was "Should all mothers be banned from Rome?" and was initiated by the emperor Nero because he was sick of his mother Agrippina continually bossing him around. The philosopher Seneca, who was one of Nero's principal advisers, was keen to keep his mother around as she was a good moderating influence on his wild behaviour, even though she was admittedly not the most ideal of role-models. It was finally decided that "mothers with small babies could stay" but the rest had to go! (That's ungrateful kids for ya!)
The children finished the day by reciting Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome that they had learned by heart. It was a fantastic learning experience.
