Home school visit to the Roman temple - February
Helensville home school visited for a crash course in Roman history. We started with a Roman temple tour, a study of the Peutinger Map tracing travel routes across the empire, and everyday-life objects including writing on wax tablets and playing the board game Latrunculi "Little Robbers" that the kids were really good at. We dressed Dad as an army legionary and practiced with the gladius, scutum, pilum, spear, sling, plumbata, recurve bow and bullwhip. The younger kids were kept busy shooting manuballista darts to pop the barbarian balloon-head, while the teens practiced archery and firing the powerful ballista bolts. Two gladiator fights between Dad and William ended in victories for each, but it was a close call for the losers begging "missio" mercy as half the crowd howled for blood thumbs-down "Death!" but fortunately the Empress had the deciding vote thumbs-up for life. The fights were accompanied by raucous music played on the cornu, tuba, tibia, drums and cymbals, but some of the girls were actually quite melodic. The littlies also had a wild beast fight against the stuffed animals, and if you look at the pics below closely notice the gladiatrix and tiger became good friends.
All too soon the day was over, and one tired little girl needed her nap - however, as leaving when she saw the Boca Veritas "Mouth of Truth" in the front garden she suddenly got her second wind, and ran over to put her hand in its mouth. Legend has it that you must always tell the truth or the mouth will bite your hand off. She demanded to be asked a question, so cunning Mum asked "Will you help with the cleaning up tonight?" "YES!" And her hand didn't get bit off, so it looks like she will be doing chores tonight, lol. But then she demanded "Ask me another question!" and was quite reluctant to leave - kids! too funny.
