Time Travel in Rome's Piazza Navona

On the day this blog is due I will be in Rome, being a writer-in-residence to kids at St Stephen's High School. So I thought I’d dig up a suitable post from my Roman Mysteries Travel Guide. When in Rome, try a little Time Travel. Here’s how to do it in Rome’s Piazza Navona! Caroline Lawrence

A Top Fan took my advice... and loved it!

Sit in at an outdoor table of the Tre Scanlini in Piazza Navona as the afternoon is cooling into evening. Order a tartuffo. Tartufo is Italian for ‘truffle’. But this is no fungus; it’s a triple chocolate ice-cream treat. It will be expensive. That doesn’t matter. You will never forget this experience. 

As you wait for your tartuffo to arrive, look at the shape of the

Piazza Navona. Does it remind you of anything? It used to be a race-course for chariots, like the Circus Maximus, only smaller. It was built by the Emperor Domitian, Titus’s younger brother. Where the people are walking (and where you are sitting!) used to be the race course, with chariots driving at breakneck speed. Imagine four-house chariots driving there now – from your left to your right, and trampling all the unsuspecting tourists! 

The central part of the Piazza Navona – with its obelisk and fountains – would have been much thinner in the first century AD, about the width of the base of the obelisk. That was the central barrier of the racecourse, called the ‘spina’ or the ‘euripus’. The fountains are too wide and wouldn’t have been there in Roman times, but parts of the euripus would have been filled with water for the sparsores, the boys who sprinkled the track with water to keep the dust down. Instead of the big fountains at either end, imagine bronze cones, each about as tall as a cypress tree. Those cones were called metae, and they were the turning posts. This is where all the worst crashes occurred, as charioteers made a 180 turn at great speed. 

The chariots weren’t wooden chariots like the ones in Ben-Hur. Those were ceremonial chariots, used for solemn processions. Racing chariots were probably not much more than a wicker basket on wheels, designed to be as light and fast as possible. Imagine driving a basket on wheels behind four powerful stallions going at breakneck speed.

You have the reins wrapped around your waist, to keep your hands free to use the whip or tweak a particular rein. But if you are thrown out of your chariot you will be pulled along the sandy racetrack. Charioteers were given a knife in their belt to cut themselves free of the reins if they were thrown out of the chariot. Imagine trying to cut through eight thick leather straps as you are dragged along the sandy track with horses thundering past on your right and left, their hooves only inches away! Whew!

Your tartuffo should have arrived by now. You deserve it. As you savour the triple chocolate, remind yourself that chocolate was unknown to the Romans. Poor Romans. But wait, they had chariot races and we don’t. Which would you rather have: chocolate or chariot races? 

Now look at some of the Roman men and women walking in the Piazza. Imagine them dressed in tunics and sandals. Imagine the women in stolas and pallas. You can easily see which Roman men would have been patricians or senators. And you can easily spot the rustic farmers and peasants. That beautiful female street-sweeper must be a slave from Germania. And that big muscular youth, showing off to his friends, is probably a gladiator. That man with the thinning hair and the wire-rimmed glasses is the spitting image of Cicero. 

One mystery I have never been able to solve is this: What did Italian men do with their hands before cigarettes and mobile phones were invented? 

Author of the million-selling Roman Mysteries, Caroline Lawrence is now writing the Roman Quests, a series set in Rome and Roman Britain in the final years of the volatile Emperor Domitian, who had a caffé named after him.

A New Ancient Roman Restaurant?

by Caroline Lawrence

Every History Girl (and History Boy) longs to travel back to the past, to see what it was really like. And those of us who time travel via fiction are always interested in food. After all, food is one of the author’s most powerful tools; it is sensory, specific and emotive. It always transports you to another place and time.

So when I heard  about a new restaurant in London that planned to serve ancient Roman cuisine, I was hugely excited. 

I wondered if it would be like a restaurant I used to visit in Rome a dozen or so years ago.

Magna Roma, Via Capo d'Africa, Rome in 2002

Magna Roma on via Capo d’Africa near the Colosseum was the brainchild of Etruscologist Franco Nicastro. Going there was an extraordinary experience. 

You entered rooms painted in Pompeian red and saffron yellow, with pilasters, frescoes and replica oil-lamps hanging from the wall. Candles flickered in a small lararium — a shrine to the household gods — and a serving-girl in a tunic ladled mulsum (honey-sweetened wine) from a jar sunk in the counter, just like many found in Pompeii. The creators also sourced shiny orange crockery like the famous ancient Roman pottery called terra sigillata. Nicastro even made an attempt at authenticity with the cutlery, using cleaver-like knives and big spoons with points at the end for spearing morsels. And not a fork in sight. 

After your beaker of warm spiced wine you were offered a gustaticium, an ancient Roman amuse bouche. Small squares of libum, a cheese bread flavoured with bay leaves, spread with moretum, a soft cheese mixed with a pungent mixture of herbs and garlic. Moretum was eulogised by Virgil and Columella. Professor Nicastro encouraged his guests to scatter a few crumbs and sprinkle some drops as an offering to the gods.

For the gustatio (first course) you could try authentic dishes like chicken liver pate moulded into fish shapes and served ‘on lettuce waves’; fig-flavoured ham on bread spread with grape must; bread salad with cheese, egg, mint, honey and garlic. 

The menu was a scholarly booklet in six languages, one of which was that strange breed of English you get from an educated but non-native speaker. The menu was beautifully illustrated and included a literary reference for almost every dish. 

For example, a casserole of fava beans cooked with fish, leeks, vinegar and garum was accompanied by a reference to a poem by Horace who wrote about a bean casserole, joking that he feared he was eating the relatives of Pythagoras. (The Pythagoreans were vegetarians who believed the human soul was eternal and could migrate into any animal after death and even into beans.) 

The notorious fish-sauce was present in many dishes served at Magna Roma. Although people call it garum, the world liquamen is probably more accurate. (For an excellent explanation read this post by Neill George at Pass the Garum) Made of fermented fish parts, garum was never meant to be splashed on food like Worcestershire sauce. Just a few drops were added — mostly during the cooking process — to bring out the subtleties of the tastes, like Thai fish sauce. Nicastro served garum with a melon salad, with roasted octopus and memorably with cuttlefish salad in cold egg sauce with laserpicium. Laserpicium was Nicastro’s attempt at reproducing the elusive silphium. 

A sample meal might be a gustatio of mushroom and lentil soup seasoned with cumin, honey, mint and garum followed by mensa prima of partridge with grapes ‘to be eaten with the hands’ and for mensa secunda a patina of pears with caraway seeds. Or you could have bread mash salad with vinegar, honey, mint and egg for starter, Parthian goat with salted plums for main, chard with mustard for your veg and sweet celery for pud! 

One desert was inspired by art rather than literature. The archeo-gastronomes recreated a kind of cheesecake based on a fresco from the villa at Oplontis, thought by many to belong to Nero’s wife Poppaea. A base of cottage cheese and honey was topped with candied fruit and encircled with a ribbon of almond paste, or marzipan. 

The food at Magna Roma was strange and wonderful, unlike anything I had ever tasted before. 

Nicastro would wander from table to table, chatting in Italian and English. He once stood over our table telling an anecdote about one of his teachers who had dug near the Colosseum in Mussolini’s time. When the excavators reached the Flavian level, the stench made them recoil. Hundreds of animals had been buried in a pit so tightly that the decomposition had not completed. They were exotic beasts from the opening games of the Flavian amphitheatre in the spring of AD 80.  

When I tweeted about the new restaurant in London, many people responded with mentions of dormice, flamingo tongues, sows udders and fish sauce. If only!  

Sadly, the new restaurant in London does not have the slightest feel of ancient Rome. Their main approach is ‘hay cooked meat’ as ‘from Apicius’, but I can find no reference to hay (faenum, fenum or foenum) or straw (culmus) in Apicius. Only faenum graecum which is fenugreek, a sweet herb often used in cooking to reduce bitterness and enhance flavour. (Apicius De Re Coq V.7) 

The venue of Roma London is totally modern with some fun wallpaper and prints on the wall (and misleading images of two of the Greek muses on the toilet doors!) Foods unknown to ancient Romans such as tomato and potato are happily served and the emphasis seems to be on inspiration rather than authenticity.

So while there is nothing authentically ancient about Roma London, that might be good for its success. Nicastro’s Magna Roma Restaurant opened in 2002 but closed down after only a few years. 

The taste of ancient Roman food is just too strange for most people today.

Caroline Lawrence is obsessed with Ancient Rome and is currently writing The Roman Quests, a short series for kids 9+ set in Roman Britain in the final years of the Emperor Domitian. 

Caroline Lawrence's Top Roman Sites in London

A few days ago, a fan of my Roman Mysteries books emailed to ask which places I would recommend for a visit to the nation’s capital. It’s a good question. London has been almost continuously occupied since the paleolithic period and is crammed with history including a myriad of goodies from the four centuries of Roman occupation. There is history everywhere, especially in the City of London, the square mile that is now the financial district but once housed the Roman fort and port. These are my top half dozen Roman-related sites. Incidentally, they are all free of charge! 

1. The British Museum 
If you only have time for one stop, make it this one. I use it as a kind of club to meet overseas visitors. I go there at least once a month and take fans to the Roman Life Room (69) and also room 70. If you have time, check out the Roman Britain room (49) & the Enlightenment Gallery, where you can touch an exact replica of the Rosetta Stone.
Tip: Go in the back way, via Montague Place; they are now doing bag searches and you will avoid the worst queues. 
Related blog: The Riddle of the Roman Vase

2. Museum of London 
London’s other great museum will soon be moving to Old Smithfields Market and might have a train passing through it. At the time of writing it is near St Paul’s tube station in the Barbican. There is a wonderful section devoted to Roman London. 
Tip: Look out for bits of London’s Roman wall outside and indeed, all over the City of London. 
Related blog: Visualising Roman London

3. The Victorian & Albert 
Did you know you can see Trajan’s column in London? It’s a plaster cast, but still gives you a good view and lovely detail. Go up to the viewing gallery while they are refurbishing the cast gallery. Michelangelo’s David is also there. Yes, it’s Renaissance not Roman, but still worth visiting.
Tip: Visit the tea rooms across the courtyard and marvel at their beauty. 
Related blog: Trajans Column at the V&A

4. Petrie Museum 
Not far from the British Museum in the maze of UCL (University College London) is this delightful gem of a museum. Egypt was important in Roman times and you can see many Roman era artefacts on display. Look out for ancient fabric, palm leaf sandals, charms for turning away evil and portraits of some Romans who lived there. It is open from 1-5 on Tuesdays through Saturdays.
Tip: combine this with a visit to the British Museum nearby. 
Related blog: Roman Egypt at the Petrie

5. The Thames Foreshore
If you are brave, descend steep steps on the north side of the Thames beside the Millennium Bridge. Wear Wellingtons or sturdy boots and gloves. Go at low tide and you will be amazed at the artefacts literally covering the foreshore, including lots of Roman brick. If you are very lucky you might find a Roman hairpin, votive figurine or coin. You can keep anything you see on the surface. This is called ‘Mudlarking’
Tip: Don’t touch anything you pick up with bare hands until you’ve washed it. 
Related blog: Mudlarks on the Foreshore

6. The Roman Amphitheatre 
Like most of Roman London, the amphitheatre is underground, below street level. Access is free via a lift in London’s Guildhall Gallery. If you look across the guildhall courtyard you can see the location of the amphitheatre marked out in different coloured paving stones, like an intentional urban crop mark. Down below, only a few fragments remain of the stone amphitheatre that replaced the wooden one, but there is a stylised indication of seating and competitors.
Tip: Plan your visit to coincide with the next re-enactment of Roman games.  
Related blog: Gladiator Fun Facts

P.S. A new restaurant serving ancient Roman food is due to open later this month near Fenchurch Street. I will report on Roma’s ambience and cuisine on 9 October 2016. 

If YOU have a fave London site with a Roman or Classical association, please leave it in the comments section below... 

Caroline Lawrence’s book The Roman Quests: Escape from Rome, is partly set in Roman London, AKA Londinium. 

Leeches, Lepers & Anal Surgery by Caroline Lawrence

You wait for ages for an exhibition on Ancient Medicine and then two come along at once, both in Chester, no less. It started when I decided to make a flash visit to Chester, AKA Roman Deva, site of some scenes in Death in the Arena, the latest in my Roman Quests series of books for kids set in Roman Britain.  

I tweeted about my planned day trip and a Chester historian named Emma Stringfellow tweeted back, offering to be my guide for the day so that she could show me her town. Why such generosity towards an author she has never met? Because Emma loves history, archaeology and Chester. She even coaxed the usually manically busy Dean Paton into giving up a few hours of his precious Saturday morning to show me In Good Humour, a Roman medicine exhibition mounted by his organisation Big Heritage, as well as his exhibition of Medieval Medicine called Sick to Death. 

Emma was waiting for me bright and early at Chester Rail staton at 8.45 on Saturday 23 July 2016. We walked into town, and she helped me find my bearings, pointing out Wales to the west and the road towards Northwich that my characters would be taking on their road trip. On my request we stopped at the partially-excavated amphitheatre with its modern mural and replica of an ancient tethering block for criminals or beasts. 

As we walked on, Emma gave me an idea of the layout of the town and the three-dimensionality, something you can only get from being there. She showed me the (modern) Roman garden and took me up onto the ramparts of the Saxon Wall. Chester, known as Deva in Roman times, boasted one of the three big legionary fortresses in Roman Britain. Built on a sandstone plateau, the fortress and area behind the amphitheatre would have overlooked the river Dee, which Emma said was carved out by glacial ice-melt. I was impressed by her knowledge of Chester. 

After a walk along the ramparts to get a feel for the shape of the fortress – the city streets still reflect its basic layout – we met Dean Paton at the Watergate Deli. He generously bought me tea and a croissant and told me about himself. Dean is the director of a company called Big Heritage which gets grants from organisations like the Wellcome Institute to put on historical and educational exhibits.  A man after my own heart, he wants to get families interested in history and does this by making exhibitions that are informative and fun.

Refreshed and briefed, I followed them to the Grosvenor Museum for its permanent Roman exhibition including one of the biggest collection of Roman tombstones, all recovered by the Victorians while repairing a later Medieval wall. One tombstone of a centurion Marcus Aurelius Nepos, was erected by his wife, but her own epitaph is missing. It’s a mystery! 

Big Heritage’s Roman medicine exhibition – In Good Humour – strongly references the four humours, the most important aspect of Graeco-Roman Medicine and one that is ignored by almost all authors of historical fiction. I love that the introduction to the exhibit shows the four humours (Latin for ‘liquids’) that each manifest qualities of the four elements. The coloured tubes represent red blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm (mucus). 

The ancients believed that everyone had one (or two) dominant elements and that these determined a person’s temperament. E.g. Someone with too much yellow bile is ‘choleric’ HOT & DRY. They might be hot tempered but decisive and often need cooling foods and environments. A doctor aimed to help his patients find a balance of the humours. At the simplest level you could treat a fever by prescribing cool cucumber and cure a cold with hot peppers. 

I have blogged elsewhere about the humours and cupping and I’ve even posted a test for kids – Which Temperament Are You – so I was thrilled to see not only a mention of cupping vessels, but some live leeches. Dean put his hand on a wire grill above a tank of water and within moments skinny black leeches sensed the heat and began to curl up to the surface in the hopes of gorging on warm, sweet blood. They offered an alternative to wet cupping which involved cutting the arm (in the crook of the elbow) or hand (between the fingers) and letting blood flow into the cup. 

The exhibition boasts some marvellous skeletons showing examples of Schmorl’s node. This is a growth on the spine of someone who has been working too hard, probably – but not necessarily – a slave. More bones offered clues: a badly broken leg, an amputated arm bone and a skull with a hole in it from trepanning, some of which showed signs of healing and therefore indicated that the patients survived.  

There was a wooden toilet seat (Oh joy!) which reminded me that another method of balancing the humours was the clyster (enema). This might possibly be the oldest Roman loo seat from Britannia. Dean and I posed on replica toilets nearby. Just the sort of thing to grab the interest of a child. Some other notable items in the exhibition were amulets to keep away evil, various herbs to be smelled and a fine inscription in Greek by a doctor from Asia Minor to Asclepius, the god of healing.

Emma and Dean then took me along the ramparts of the upper walls to Big Heritage’s second exhibition on ancient medicine. Still in preparation the day I went, Sick to Death is now open. As you enter the spooky 14th century Water Tower, you pass the lifelike model of a medieval dysentery sufferer sitting on the loo and suffering a bad case of ‘the runs’. Just the sort of thing to delight children and make their parents go Ewww! 

But what’s inside is even more gruesome: a realistic leper begging for alms, a partly dissected criminal with his organs in bowls below him, and a life-sized placard of The Wound Man. A creepy plague doctor with his beak-like nose to be filled with aromatic herbs looks like something out of Star Wars. The exhibition is interactive so you can smell bowls of herbs and touch replica skulls showing the pockmarks of syphilis or the hole made by an arrow. 

More serendipity: a roving Roman doctor arrived when I was there. He showed me his bag of Roman instruments, so beautifully made that it would be hard for an expert to tell them from the real thing. Dean pulled out a Roman doctor’s probe and told me how the second century doctor Galen could tell by tapping what was going on under the skin. 

Surgery was a tricky proposition back in Roman times, and only used as a last resort. So I hesitated when the doctor invited me to try out a little anal surgery. In the end I agreed. He handed me a finely balanced replica scalpel and watched as I bent over a man’s (thankfully) replica backside and excised a bright red fistula (Latin for ‘ulcer’). The fistula looked a lot like one of those maraschino cherries they put in cocktails. I won’t be drinking one of those for a while. 

At the end of a satisfyingly squirmy morning I offered to treat Emma and Dean to lunch. To my surprise, Dean suggested Spud-U-Like at 39 Bridge St. He wasn’t just being considerate of my wallet; he knew that in their basement dining room you can sit next to sandstone hypocausts from the huge Roman bathhouse in the 2nd century fortress. After our jacket potatoes Dean said goodbye but Emma took me to the Dewa Roman Experience and then dropped me at the Chester Tourist Centre so I could buy a copy of Roman Chester, the book she had been brandishing like a talisman all day. As I travelled home from Chester, my mind was buzzing with ideas and my heart was full of gratitude, thanks to the generosity of two of its most passionate resident historians.

Thank you, Emma and Dean! 

In Good Humour at the Grosvenor Museum is on until 6 November 2016. 
Sick to Death at The Water Tower, Chester Walls, is on open every day in August 2016 from 10.30 to 4.30pm

Death in the Arena, book 3 of the Roman Quests, will be published in 2017. Escape from Rome, book 1, is out now. 

The Best Historical Novel Ever Written?

by Caroline Lawrence

‘Be careful what you read; a book can change your life.’

That is how I often start my presentation when I talk to schoolchildren about my historical novels set in Ancient Rome.  

For some people, the inciting incident of their life – the moment that set them on their life’s journey – was an inspirational teacher. For others it might be a field trip to a place that inspired them. Or watching a documentary on TV. 

For me it was a book read on my gap year. 

Mary Renault’s historical novel The Last of the Wine didn’t just spark my interest in Classical Greece, it captured my imagination. It made me long with all my heart to travel back in a time machine to see if the ancient world really was like that. 

But I didn’t need a time machine. 

The book was a time machine. 

Because of this book, I majored in Classics at U.C. Berkeley.

Because of this book, I came to England to study Classical Archaeology and ended up making my life here. 

Because of this book, I have spent the past twenty years writing books set in the ancient world, trying to do for others what Mary Renault did for me.

That’s how this book changed my life. 

I have praised this masterpiece of historical fiction elsewhere, but as the History Girls have been asked to write about a favourite historical novel for our five year anniversary, I thought I would put down half a dozen short excerpts from it, just for the joy of sharing them. 

In the past I would have grabbed my battered copy and opened anywhere to find a passage of brilliance, but today I have been listening to the long-awaited audiobook. These are a few of the passages jumped out at me as I walked the streets of London. They illustrate the way Renault uses her scholarship, her imagination and the five senses to put you right in the world of fifth century Greece. 

The wind from the north blew our hair from our brows, and streamed our garments out behind us. The air was clear, keen and filled with light. It seemed to us that at our command the wind would have lifted us like eagles, that our home was the sky. We joined our hands; they were cold, so that in clasping them we felt the bone within the flesh. 

(Chapter 10)

On this he paused and drew his brows together, as if trying to recall what it was he had omitted. When his forehead wrinkled, the legs of the horse which was branded on it seemed to move. 

It had been a way of mine since childhood to throw back my head when I was angry. I did this now, and felt a strangeness; I was used to the weight of my hair and it had gone. It was as if a hand had been laid on me as if to say Remember you are a man. 

At home I had found laid out on my bed my man’s mantle which my mother had woven ready a long time back. It smelt of the sweet herbs she kept her dresses in. 

(chapter 16)

There is still a good way to climb on Acrocorinth after you have passed the walls. Being so high, the place is not so thronged as our own High City; it was quiet: so that one could hear the bees in the asphodel, the little clappers of the mountain goats and a shepherd piping.

At last voices approached; Sostratos stood in the doorway, speaking to someone over his shoulder. The ribbons tied on him made him look like a bull going to sacrifice. 

(chapter 17)

Reading passages like these inspire me to put myself in the world I’m creating: to go to that creative, meditative, inspirational place deep within, and let my subconscious tell me what is happening. 

This is the magic of writing historical fiction.

This is the closest I will ever get to time travel. 

Caroline Lawrence’s newest series is The Roman Quests, set in Roman Britain at the end of the first century A.D. 

Romano-British Cloaks by Caroline Lawrence

Hooded cloak like my mother's

When I left California to study Classics at Cambridge, my mother gave me her fine hooded cloak of charcoal grey wool that she had bought in Chamonix on her honeymoon. Stylish as well as warm, the cloak protected me from the biting winds and frequent drizzle of East Anglia. I would cycle from Newnham College to my lectures with it billowing out behind me. One day I trustingly left it on a hook with other coats in the vestibule outside a lecture room. When I came out it was gone. I think it was the first time I have ever been robbed. At that moment I felt shock and a deep sadness. A precious link to my mother had been lost forever. I went to the police and put up notices but I never saw it again.

If I’d lived two thousand years earlier in Roman Britain, I would have been more than sad; I would have been mad.

replica Roman loom with "loom sword" at Fishbourne

In chilly provinces during Roman times, the theft of the cloak was not just a nuisance; it could often mean the difference between life and death. A person's cloak often doubled as their blanket at night. If you caught a chill through lack of adequate covering, you might die. And in those days you couldn’t just wander down to Marcus et Spencerius to buy a new one. Someone had to collect the wool, spin it into yarn, weave the yarn into cloth, then sew that cloth. That took time and skill, and a woollen cloak might cost perhaps a month’s salary. The purchase of a new or even second-hand cloak might have meant a trip to the nearest town on market day. 

a bardocucullus from the Roman Mysteries

In Roman Britain, cloaks were very popular. Some were short, others were long. Some were impregnated with lanolin, the smelly oil that made them waterproof. Some had hoods, others didn’t. Some were popular with soldiers, others with civilians. One thing Roman cloaks didn’t have were pockets, but the Romans didn’t miss them because they hadn’t been invented yet. The poet Martial wrote a two-line gift tag for the Saturnalia gift of a bardocucullus, which was just a hood that you could wear under a cloak. He also wrote about a hooded cape called a paenula: ‘Even if you go on a journey with clear skies, don't forget a paenula made of leather, in case of sudden showers!’

Here’s part of a lead curse tablet found in the famous hot springs of Bath Spa:

drawing of lead curse tablet by Richard Lawrence

From Docilianus, son of Brucerus, to the most holy goddess Sulis: I curse the person who stole my hooded cloak, whether man or woman, whether slave or free, and I ask that you not allow him a moment’s sleep until he has returned my hooded cloak to your temple.

Docilianus of Bath Spa was angry, but not as angry as the man who wrote this curse from Caerleon in Wales:

To the goddess Nemesis, I give you my stolen cloak and a pair of boots; let the man who is wearing them now pay for them with his life and blood!

What a contrast to hear the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:40, And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. Or his words in Luke: ...from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. 

Looking at the gospel passages, I remembered the story of a young Roman soldier named Martin who became a saint after he took pity on a freezing and naked beggar by the town gate of Amiens, (in what is now Northwest France), and gave him half his cloak. In fact, the word chapel comes from one of the Latin words for cloak: cappa, because the very first chapel held the remaining half of St Martin’s cloak, now a holy relic.

Hooded cloaks have long been associated with Druids and other mysterious figures. The hood and voluminous silhouette of the garment can hide the wearer’s identity, age and gender.

terra cotta figure and bronze figure with hidden phallus

The most mysterious hooded cloaks in Roman Britain were those worn by curious figures known as the genii culcullati or ‘hooded spirits’. Some archaeologists have argued that they might be fertility spirits. Some of these ‘hooded spirits’ appear with a mother goddess. Others carry objects resembling eggs. Still others have an almost phallic appearance so that it is only one step from this to that. (above)

A relief from Corinium (modern Cirencester)

To the best of my knowledge, no inscriptions have ever been found with these mysterious hooded characters. Maybe one day we will find an inscription and solve the mystery. In the meantime the three mysterious hooded figures are providing inspiration for my new Roman Quests series. Who are the three mysterious figures? And where are they going? Watch this space to find out.