using historical fiction to teach hisorical fact: getorixs world

Getorix’s World

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© 2008 Judith Geary & Sandra K. Horton

All rights reserved except as expressly granted herein. Materials may be reproduced for students in one educational unit, defined as one department or grade in one school, as long as each of those students has been provided with or has obtained on their own, a

copy of the novel: GETORIX: The Eagle and the Bull, by Judith Geary

For more information:www.judithgeary.com

ISBN: 9781932158281

Getorix’s World

Curriculum to accompany the novel:GETORIX: The Eagle and The Bull

by Judith Gearywith additional materials

for study of The Roman Republic

Created and compiled bySandra K. Horton & Judith Geary

AcknoWledGments

I have always thought differently from others. Growing up I learned to fit into the mold of education, but I constantly looked for what made learning exciting for me—the “Aha” moment: the opportunity to take knowledge and transcend it to a new understanding or awareness. As a teacher, I looked toward my own mentors, Jim Curry, Sandy Kaplan, Don Finkel, Howard Gardner and others, whose style of teaching and passion for learn-ing inspired me to go beyond.

-- Sandra K. Horton

In the novel, GETORIX: The Eagle and The Bull, I have acknowledged the assistance of many who inspired me and made the work possible. It’s a long list. Of those, I must again mention: Orson Scott Card, who, as a professor of literature and writing, inspired my love of the grand stories of history. The members of High Country Writers, who have provided support and valuable critiques along the way. Bob and Barbara Ingalls, as founders of High Country Publishers, who continue to provide support for writers whose work lies just be-yond the conventional catagories.

In addition, I thank those who have continued to contribute to the work on this com-panion body of curriculum: Irene Hahn and N.S. Gill, both of whom I met through the internet, who each contribute to providing a network and a forum for sharing ideas about the study of history. Schuyler Kaufman, scholar, editor and friend, who is always ready to provide a sounding board for ideas and who understands the importance of the fine points.

Thanks, of course, to Sandy Horton, who continues to provide inspiration and support to me and to everyone in her world on their creative efforts.

-- Judith Geary

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tAble of contentsIntroduction and Overview of Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 07Explanation of Study Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 08Note to the Teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 09Letter to the Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 10Historical Note and Pronunciation Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 11section one: the novel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 13Part One – Chapters I - V (pp. 13-70). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 15Explanation of the Roman Calendar (from the novel’s author’s notes) . . . . . . . . . . . p. 16Part One -- Synopsis, Plot Points & Historical Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 17 Part One – Chapters I - V (pp. 13-70) Factual Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 20 Answers to Factual Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 21 Discussion Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 22 Part Two – Chapters VI - XI (pp. 73- 133) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 23Part Two -- Synopsis, Plot Points & Historical Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 25Part Two – Chapters VI - XI (pp. 73- 133) Factual Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 27 Answers to Factual Question. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 28 Discussion Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 30Part Three – Chapters XII - XIX (pp. 136-191) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 31Part Three -- Synopsis, Plot Points & Historical Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 32Part Three – Chapters XII - XIX (pp. 136-191) Factual Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 35 Answers to Factual Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 36 Discussion Questions s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 38Part Four – Chapters XX - XXVI (pp. 194-249). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 39Part Four -- Synopsis, Plot Points & Historical Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 40 Part Four – Chapters XX - XXVI (pp. 194-249) Factual Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 43 Answers to Factual Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 44 Discussion Questionss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 46More Activites Across the Novel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 47 Powerful Passages Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 49 Character Monologues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 50 Become an Expert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 51section tWo: the historicAl erA -- Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 53Dress Like a Roman The tunic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 54 Draping a toga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 55 Women’s clothing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 57 Finishing touches (shoes, hairstyles & ornaments) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 59

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Sandra K. Horton & Judith Geary

Eat Like a Roman Staging a Banquet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p 60 Recipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 63 “Certified Substitutes” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 67Study Like a Roman Education, Literature and Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 71section three: Additional Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 75Timeline of the Roman Republic and Empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 76Map of the Roman World in 101 B.C.E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 78The Constitution of the Roman Republic (essay) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 79The Roman Military in the Republic (essay). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 81Buiding Construction in Republican Rome (essay) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 86Roman Names (essay) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 91Springboard of Ideas for Interdisciplinary Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 94Author Biographies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 96Contents of the enclosed CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 98

*Complete text of the curriculum as a .pdf file*Study questions only as a .pdf file*Study questions only an editable document in MS Word*Author’s Notes from the original hardcover edition*Questions for the Accelerated Reader Program as an editable document in MS Word*Information about the author as a speaker *Image of the book jacket as a .jpg file

If you have obtained a copy of this curriculum without the CD, contact author Judith Geary at [email protected] to arrange for CD content to be delivered without charge.

Visit author Judith Geary’s website for updates, new activies and resources and materials to accompany the second book in the

series: Getorix: Games of the Underworldwww.judithgeary.com

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Getorix’s WorldIntroduction and Overview of Materials

Welcome“History shows you a window into our past; historical fiction takes you by the hand and leads you there.” – Judith Geary

Getorix’s World is a collection of noteworthy materials that connects the novel, GETORIX:The Eagle and the Bull, with an exploration of historical and societal structures of the time period. By exploring the historical period through facts, documents, primary sources and interdisciplin-ary activities, the students can observe how time and place affect individuals in the novel and, in a broader context, the real world. The information and activities included will allow students to make connections and gain insights that go beyond the novel, so that they can recognize the im-pact of various forces on the choices an individual makes. The contents of this curriculum will enable you and your students to join Getorix on his journey and better understand the world of the Roman Republic. These materials provide the es-sentials to investigate the political, cultural, and societal facets of this time period. Presented with a focus on the multi-disciplinary, the information and activities offered here equip your students to explore an historical period that established the fundamentals of western culture.

Overview of MaterialsThe goal of this program is to enable students to construct meaning from various sources and to develop critical thinking skills. This curriculum allows for the linking of ideas through interdisci-plinary study. Through this exploration, students will gain expertise in communicating their ideas and independence in self-assessment. The activities and exercises of this curriculum are reproducible, by photocopying or from the files on the included CD. The materials fall into three main categories: the novel, activities relevant to the historical era, and additional resources.

The NovelThese resources illuminate the meaning of the novel by combining knowledge of the text with the reader’s own experiences and ideas. These activities introduce students to the historical and cultural dimensions of the novel.

The Historical Era These resources illuminate the culture and environment of this era. These activities introduce students to scholars’ research and documentation, events and the life of the people of the Roman Republic.

Additional ResourcesThe author’s notes in the novel, essays in section three and the author’s website provide additional resources. Links to articles, contact with the author and the novel’s characters and additional activities will be posted on the website: www.judithgeary.com

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Study Questions -- Formulated by Sandra Horton

Types of Questions Fact

What does the author say?

Factual questions require recall and have a correct answer that can be found in the reading.

EvaluativeHow does the reader feel about what the author says? Does the reader agree with what the author says?

Evaluative questions involve the reader’s evaluation of the work. The reader is asked to draw a conclusion. How the reader understands the story and the reader’s own experiences, values, and knowledge come into play with evaluative questions.

InterpretiveWhat does the author mean by what he or she says?

Interpretive questions ask the reader to analyze what the author’s intentions are. They have more than one reasonable answer. Details and excerpts from the story can be used to defend the reader’s answer to an interpretive question. Interpretive questions are designed for discussion. They require in-depth analysis and documentation within the text to support the reader’s answer.

What Makes a Suitable Interpretive Question?*The question should be worthy of public attention and worth discussing. *The person asking the question should care about the question.*The person asking the question should not already know the answer. The purpose of an inter-pretive question is to discover and understand more clearly what the author meant by examining different viewpoints and evidence. There is not just one answer to the question.*The question should be one that closer reading of the text does not provide an answer. It should go beyond the facts. *The question should be clear.*The question should be specific and focused. *The question should send others to the text to find details to support their thoughts on the question. The text should provide clues to the answer.

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A Note to the Teacher: Adult Readers of historical fiction approach the experience with eager anticipation of being led into a world different from the familiar “everyday” life around us. Middle school students may be familiar with a variety of fantasy worlds -- super-heroes, wizards and witches and celebrities -- yet lack an understanding of how life has changed through history. The main characters of the novel, Getorix and Lucius, idolize the heroes of their own cul-tural mythologies just as young people do today. Asking students to suspend their need for the comfort of the familiar in the same way they do every time they watch a fantasy on television or a movie, or read a fantasy story, may help them approach the novel with appropriate openness.

* The next two pages may be photocopied as a handout for students before they begin reading the novel: GETORIX: The Eagle and The Bull.

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Students’ introduction to GETORIX: The Eagle and The Bull, a Celtic adventure in ancient Romeby Judith Geary

Dear Reader, I invite you to join me on a journey to a land long ago and far away. In many ways it will be like reading a fantasy novel; some things will be familiar, while others will seem strange. But ancient Rome really existed, as did many of the people of the novel. In most cases, unfamiliar words and strange customs will be explained as you read farther. Before you begin reading the novel, you may want to look through the maps and notes at the beginning and the end. You may want to read and study them carefully, or you may want to just look through to see what’s included so you know where to look when you have questions that are not answered in your reading. Getorix, the novel’s hero, is the son of a Celtic chief. The Celts organized themselves as tribes with different tribal names, and sometimes made war against each other, but the languages they spoke were similar enough that they could make themselves understood to each other. Celtic tribes who lived in Scandinavia migrated south when storms and floods made their homeland inhabitable, looking for new places to live. They came up against the people already living in Europe, and against Roman legions protecting their trading interests in the region. The Romans were also afraid that the Celts would migrate over the Alps into the beautiful lands of the Italian peninsula. Italy was not yet united into one country, but the tribes there were allies, and the leaders of Rome felt they were protecting their home from invasion. The Romans had been at war with tribes of the Celts for many years. The Celts had won many battles and destroyed several legions. When the Romans, led by Gaius Marius and Quintus Lutatius Catulus, finally won a decisive battle, it was cause for great celebration. The triumph pa-rade, depicted in the opening scene of the novel, is this celebration. The novel opens at the end of the Roman triumph parade. Getorix and his father Claodicos have been marched through the streets of Rome as part of the captured booty displayed for the Roman people. The parade also included wagons, much like parade floats today, decorated with paintings of battle scenes (showing the Romans winning, of course), captured cattle and horses, slaves (marched in rows chained together as if they were cattle) and the victorious legions. Getorix and his father believe that the Roman triumph will end with a human sacrifice to the Roman god Jupiter. Celts had a strong belief in a world after death. They believed that those who died heroically in battle had a special place of honor in this Otherworld. Defeated warriors might gain honor in the Otherworld by dying as a sacrifice – as a “messenger” to the gods. Celtic customs also included a trial of courage and strength as a ritual that marked the pas-sage of a boy into manhood. Getorix missed out on the ritual ordeal of manhood, so he is technically still a boy. Getorix believes that facing death as a human sacrifice to the Roman god will serve as his ritual ordeal of manhood and enable him to enter the Otherworld as a hero beside his father. As you will see, he faces entirely different challenges.

Enjoy the adventure! Judith Geary

This page may be copied and distributed to the students

11This page may be copied and distributed to the students

Historical Notes for the Reader: Roman civilization lasted over a thousand years, from 753 B.C. (according to our calendar) to the fifth century A.D. (or C.E.) This novel is set at about the middle of that time in 101 B.C.E. (or B.C.) You can find the date and some of the other events in Roman history on the timeline in the back of your book or on a timeline your teacher provides. At this time, the Roman government consisted mostly of elected leaders. They had a Sen-ate and magistrates in charge of everything from coinage to the “grain dole”. At the head of the government were two consuls, elected every year. They also served as generals in the legion, and might continue as a general after their term of office as consul ended. In the novel, Gaius Marius is consul for the year and Quintus Lutatius Catulus is a general who was consul the previous year. People who identified themselves as Celts lived all through Europe from Asia Minor to the tip of the Iberian Peninsula and from Scandinavia to the Alps. You may check the map in your book or a modern map to see this land. Some of the tribes were considered “friends of Rome.” Others, as you see, were not. Some of the names in the book may be unfamiliar to you. Most of them are pronounced differently today than they would have been two thousand years ago, so if giving them modern “nicknames” helps, feel free to do that. However, the list below may help:

Notes: All “Cs” are pronounced like “K”. “A” is usually broad like in cat.

Aedui -- Ah dwee’Atlas – At’ las Aurelia – Awe ree’ lee a Boiorix – Boy or’ rix Brosch – Brosh (like the “o” in pond.) Caesar – Use the modern pronunciation here – See’ zar Cardeus – Car day’ us Catulus – Kah too luss (cub)Chrysogonus – Chrys sah’ go nus Cimbri -- Kim’ breeClaodicos – Kla o’ de cose Cornelius – Kor nee’ lee us Eumaios – U may’ ose Gaius – Guy’ uss Getorix – Geh tor ix Idios – (like idiot – at least that’s how Getorix would pronounce it.) Julius – Joo’ lee us Keltus – Kel’ tus Leia – Lay’ a (like the princess in Star Wars) Lucius – Loo’ shus (It would have been pronounced: “Loo key’ uss” at the time.) Lutatius – Loo tah’ tee uss Malumpus – Mah lum’ pus Marius – Mah’ ree uss

Olav – Oh’ lavPellia – Pee’ lee ah Quintus – Kwin’ tuss Selia – See’ lee ah Senius – Sin’ e us Servilia – Sir vee’ lee ah Starkaos – Star’ kay ose Teutobod – Two’ toe bod Theano – Tea ah’ no Thorvaldt – Thor’ vault

section one

the novel

The “Synopses” give a narrative summary of the novel’s action. “Plot Points” give a bulleted outline of the progression of the novel’s plot. “Historical Points” give background material on the Roman era relevant to references in the novel; they give the teacher an opportunity to introduce additional material with confidence. They are intended as “secret communication” be-tween the author and the teacher, as they are not written on the students’ reading level. The “Study Questions,” “Powerful Passages” and other activities in Section One provide an outline for direct study of the novel; the teachers are invited to select from the materials given and add others of their own design. “Character Mono-logues” provide the students with an opportunity to share their perceptions with other students as well as the teacher. In addition, the activites in Section Two: The Historical Era are tied in to the characters and events of the novel and up-dated activites are available on the author’s website:

www.judithgeary.com

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This map shows the Roman Forum of 101 B.C.E. and the Temple of Jupiter on top of the Capi-toline Hill. The key indicates the routes of various parts of the Triumph Parade, entering the Forum from the top, traveling down the Via Sacra to the Temple of Concord and Temple of Saturn at the base of the hill and up the clivus, or stepped road, to the hilltop. It marks the route taken by the remainder of the parade back out to the Campus Martius and the Tullianum where Getorix and Claodicos were taken.

The gray strip at the upper right is a calendar representing the month of December. An ex-planation of the codes on this particular calendar is in the author’s notes in the novel and on the back of this page. The highlighted part of the calendar represents the days covered by this part of the novel. So, everything in the first part takes place on the first day of December in the year 101 B.C.E. (in our Gregorian calendar.) Romans commonly referred to years by who held the rank of consul that year, but might have considered this the year 652 auc (ab urbe condita, or 652 years since the founding of Rome.

Part One

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the cAlendAr At the end of the republic: By the first century B.C.E., the time of the events in the novel, Getorix: The Eagle and The Bull, the Roman calendar was hopelessly confused. The year, based on a combination of the phases of the moon and the solar seasons, totaled 355 days, about 10 1/4 days shorter than the solar year. The occasional intercalation of an extra month of Mercedonius, was intended to keep the calendar roughly in step with the seasons. However, the offices of the priests, the Pontifices, were politically connected, and the length of the months and years might be altered to extend or cut short the offices of particular magistrates. The calendar for December, 101 B.C.E. which appears on the part pages in the novel is a projection based on the earliest Roman calendars we have. (See the author’s website for a more complete explanation and links to other materials.) Therefore, it may not be an absolutely accurate depiction of the calendar for that year, but is as close a representation as I could create using the materials available to me at the time.

reAdinG the cAlendAr:The calendar was arranged in vertical bars with each bar representing a month. The calendar on the part pages of the novel is for the month of December. Each line represents a day. The first day of each year was designated “A” and continued through “H” before beginning again. The Nundinae, the market day, rotated through the first eight days. The final letters identify the day for the purposes of legal business, religious observances or commerce.C = “dies comitiales,” days when assemblies of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.F = “dies fasti,”days on which legal action was permitted.N = “dies nefasti,” days on which no legal action or public voting was permitted.NP = days set aside for some form of religious observance. They seem to be connected with holidays, but the precise definition has been lost.

holidAys:The calendar used as a pattern for this one also included abbreviations for holidays and religious observances. k = Kalends, the first day of the month.AGON = Agonalia Indigeti, a festival celebrated four times a year in which the main feature was the public sacrifice of a ram. The origins are unclear.IDVS = Idus or ides, the 13th of the month of December.CONS = Festival of Consus, a god of the lower world, or of secret deliberations. It was celebrated with horse races and gladiatorial games in the circus.SATVN = Saturnalia the celebration of the Feast of the god Saturn. The celebration grew in magnitude and length until it continued until December 24th. Even though our calendar does not indicate it, we may assume the celebration continued.OPA = Opalia was said to be the wife of Saturn, so this relatively minor holiday was celebrated on the third day of the Saturnalia.DIVAL = Divalia, the day of the true winter solstice (division of the year?)LARE = Larentalia. This festival is variously attributed as a celebration of the wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus, of their human nurse, named Acca Larentia, or of the household gods (Lares). The date is also a celebration of Sol Invictus (unconquered), and a festival of the goddess of death, Dea Tacita (the silent goddess.)

the hours:Romans of the Republic counted 24 hours in the day as we do. However, their count started at dawn rather than midnight, and they assigned twelve hours to the day and twelve to the night. This meant that during the summer months, the daylight hours were longer than the night, and in winter the hours of darkness were longer. Only two days of the year saw 24 hours of equal length: the spring, or vernal equinox, around March 21, and the autumnal equinox, around September 21. I have chosen to leave the hours of darkness unnumbered. The Romans could count them using marked candles, water clocks and other mechanical devices, but Getorix would not have commonly had use for these devices. A chart, adapted from Daily Life in Ancient Rome, by Jerome Carcopino, pp.167-8, was used to translate the mid-winter hours.

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GEtorix: The Eagle and The Bullby Judith Geary

Synopsis: Part One – Chapters I - V (pp. 13-70)(December 1-2)

*** Note: These materials -- the synopses, plot points and historical points -- are intended for the teacher’s use. They are not written on the students’ reading level and the Historical Points may contain references to issues you would choose not to discuss in your classroom.

Getorix is the son of a Celtic leader defeated by the Romans at the battle of Vercellae in 101 B.C.E. He believes he and his father are to be sacrificed to the Roman god Jupiter during the cel-ebration of the Roman’s triumph. At “almost fifteen-winters-old” he sees himself as on the verge of manhood. Denied the rituals of initiation by circumstances of the conflict, he seizes on his father’s characterization of the ordeal of sacrifice as his “man-making.” Getorix has had a dream, painting a vivid picture of his expectation of what the sacrifice was to be like. He has doubted his courage, has seen himself as a continuing failure, but his courage in facing death as a sacrifice will be his redemption, his final opportunity to win his father’s regard and be welcomed into the Celtic Otherworld as a hero beside his father. The reality proves very different. Instead of being praised and honored before the Temple of Jupiter at the top of the Capitoline hill, Getorix and Claodicos, his father, are jeered by the crowds. Gaius Marius, the senior consul and hero of the people, seems to ignore them entirely. The excep-tion is the young son of Lutatius Catulus, who is the obvious second, or junior, of the victorious generals. The boy has watched the two captives throughout the parade from his vantage point in the chariot beside his father, and continues to stare as the parade reorganizes at the base of the Capitoline. To Getorix’s dismay, the boy waves in greeting. As Getorix and Claodicos are dragged off to be executed according to the Roman custom, and the Roman elite ascend the hill to the temple, the boy continues to stare over his shoulder and tug on his father’s toga. The reality of the ignominious execution dawns. Getorix faces his fear at this unexpected turn and recognizes his father’s pride in his courage. At that moment, however, Keltus, a Celtic slave of Lutatius Catulus, arrives with a message that his master has sent him to get the boy. The execution-ers and Claodicos believe that Getorix is to be taken to the generals’ celebratory feast, perhaps to be tortured for the Romans’ entertainment. Claodicos defines this prospect as an honor and charges Getorix to die with courage before the Romans. He vows to wait in the Otherworld, after his own easy death, and to welcome Getorix among the heros. Instead, Keltus takes Getorix to the domus Lutatius, the Lutatius home. Getorix discovers he has been spared at the urging of Lucius, the Roman boy from the triumph. He is expected to be a servant to the boy – and to be grateful for the opportunity! Getorix would literally rather be “hon-orably” dead than servant to a Roman “toad,” and says so. This “rebellion” would ordinarily lead to harsh treatment, perhaps to sale to a chained labor gang. However, the Roman generals have laid a wager over whether Getorix will be in Lucius’ service by the new year – less than a month away. At stake is ownership of the life-sized bronze bull captured at the

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battle, assorted gold captured at Aquae Sullis (an earlier battle), and Getorix himself. Sulla wants to make the boy a gift to the Aedui – as a diplomatic token of friendship. (The Aedui are a Celtic tribe conquered about 20 years earlier who have become a client state to the Romans.) For Getorix, this would be a familiar road to death, as the Aedui would likely use him as a sacrifice, but it would not fulfill his father’s charge to die bravely before the Romans. The wager means, in Keltus’ words, that Getorix can do about anything and they’ll keep him in the household for the month. That night, chained in a converted storage room beneath a courtyard in the domus Lutatius, Getorix overhears a conversation between Keltus and Brosch, a Teutone girl who is also a slave in the household. (The Teutone Tribe was among those conquered by Garius Marius the previous year at the Battle of Aquae Sullis.) The servants were given a day off for the master’s triumph cel-ebration, and Brosch had watched the parade with some of the others. In it, she spotted her two brothers, whom she had believed dead in battle. She had followed them to the barracks on the Campus Martius, so knew where they were being held. She was overjoyed to learn they were alive and wanted to rescue them from their more difficult situation. More pressing, however, was gos-sip that, now that the triumph was over and the enslaved Celts paraded before the populace, the surplus were to be sent to Sicily to replace slaves killed in a recent uprising. Getorix listens, curious, but feigns sleep when Brosch comes close to the window of the cell. As real sleep overtakes him, he dreams of his past and what he has lost. Keltus has said they will begin training the next morning, using a Celtic word that means to break a beast to harness. What will this mean for Getorix?

Plot Points:* The eagle is the symbol of the power of Rome. Marius had abolished the variety of standards the early Roman legions fought under, so that now all legionaries fought “under the eagle.” The bull is symbolic of the Celtic Cimbri in this story – specifically, it was the signet of King Claodicos, and manifested in the bull’s head brooch that appears on Getorix’s shoulder in the triumph parade, and later in Marius’ possession, and by the life-sized bronze bull that is the major prize in the Romans’ wager.* Getorix’s dreams are a recurring plot point. They illustrate images from his Celtic world view, what he expects and hopes or fears will happen, and his drive to predict and prepare for his fate.* Getorix hates the Aedui almost more than the Romans, because they’re Celts he sees as betraying their own people by allying with the Romans. Also, the Averni, tribe of his druid teacher Starkaos were particular enemies of the Aedui. Claodicos charged Getorix to die bravely before the Romans, and being sent with the Aedui will not satisfy his geis, his charge.

Historical Points:* Among the Celts, evidence of ritual deaths (including the “triple death” of strangulation, a blow to the head, and cutting the throat) are found among the “bog bodies” discovered in the peat bogs of northern Europe. This indicates that some Celts practiced human sacrifice.* Accounts appear in the literature of the time (written by Roman writers), that defeated warriors were sacrificed by women. The defeated warriors were offered the option of a relatively painless and honorable death in exchange for a vow to speak well of the victors before the gods of the Other-world. They were induced to step up on a ladder at the side of a huge cauldron, pulled across it by one or more women and their throats cut. * The Roman triumph celebration was a tradition in both the Republic and Empire. In order to

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Curriculum: Getorix’s World

be awarded a triumph by the Senate, a victorious general had to have won an engagement over a foreign enemy resulting in a minimum number of dead on the other side. The parade included wagons painted with scenes from the battle and heaped with captured arms and treasure, legionar-ies (who were ordinarily not allowed to carry their weapons inside the city walls, but may have in this instance), as many of the defeated people as could be rounded up (They might have been sold to agents, or slave dealers, right after the battle, so not all might be available.), and either the leader of the defeated people or someone garbed to represent him. This symbolic leader was marched only as far as the steps up the Capitoline hill. At that point the victorious general and his entourage would continue up the hill to the Temple of Jupiter for animal sacrifices. The rest of the parade would continue out to the Campus Martius. The defeated leader would be taken to the Tullianum, a converted water cistern at the base of the Capitoline that was used as an execution cell. There, he might be strangled, or he might simply be thrown down the hole that was the cell’s only entrance in Roman times and left to starve.* There are a couple of references to this execution as a “sacrifice to Mars” (the Roman god of war), but no evidence there was a ritual attached — this may be considered irony, rather than a serious view of it as a religious ritual. * That Marius and Lutatius Catulus celebrated a joint triumph is part of the historical record. That Marius initiated the idea because he had already distributed the spoils and slaves from his victory over the “Germans” at Aqua Sullis the previous year, and therefore, didn’t have enough to put on a good show, is supposition. We have no record of who was executed at the end of this triumph, but the record says Boiorix died in the battle and custom dictated someone must fulfill this role. Claodicos and Getorix are names that appear as a Celtic leaders of the time. * The bronze bull captured at the battle of Vercellae appears in the historical record, as does the fact that Catulus was in possession of it and built a portico to house it and the captured battle standards. The Romans’ assumption was that it was a cult statue – that the Celts worshiped the bull statue as a god. We don’t have documentation of this from Celtic source, so I’ve chosen to make this another point of misunderstanding between them. * History records a slave uprising in Sicily at about this time, put down by the junior consul for the year, Manius Aquillius. It is also mentioned that the Roman victories at Aquae Sullis and Ver-cellae netted them many more slaves than could be put to use in Rome. I have fudged the date of Manius Aquillius’ victory a bit, and made an assumption that “extra” slaves from Rome were sent as replacement labor. * An “ergastulum,” or prison for confining unruly slaves, would likely have been part of a rural villa, but not an urban domus. Rebellious slaves would have been disciplined and sold or “sent to the farm,” not tolerated within the household. That’s why I have made Getorix’s place of confine-ment a converted storeroom and recognized that it was an unusual event.

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GEtorix: The Eagle and The Bull

Factual Questions Part One: Chapters I—V pages 11—70

1. Getorix has prepared to die on the day of the Roman triumph. How does he rationalize that death as worthwhile?

2. “The difference between the hero and the coward is not how the death comes, but how he meets it. And we will meet it with courage, the way heroes always have.” (65) With these words, what is Claodicos telling Getorix he expects from him as they face the triumph together?

3. Getorix expects for him and his father to die in a(n)______________ in the __________________. Instead, the Roman plan is for his father to die in a(n) __________________ in the ____________________.

4. Who or what is sacrificed at the Temple of Jupiter?

5. Where does Keltus take Getorix when they leave the Forum? Where does he take Getorix later that same night?

6. Where was Claodicos’ body dumped after his execution?

7. Why was Getorix brought to the domus of Lutatius Catulus?

8. Who is the servant who seems to be in charge of Lucius? Who is Lucius?

9. What is the wager between Lutatius Catulus and Marius? What will Sulla gain if Marius wins?

10. What problem does Brosch bring to Keltus? What advice does he give her?

This page may be copied and distributed to the studentsFormulated by Sandra Horton

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Answers to Factual Questions Part One: Chapters I—V pages 11—70

1. Getorix has prepared to die on the day of the Roman triumph. How does he rationalize his death as worthwhile?Answer: He feels if he cannot die in battle, better this than an old man’s death before the hearth. He will meet his death with courage and join his father in the Otherworld. (16)

2. “The difference between the hero and the coward is not how the death comes, but how he meets it. And we will meet it with courage, the way heroes always have.” (65) With these words, what is Claodicos telling Getorix he expects from him as they face the triumph together?Answer: Claodicos sees Getorix and himself as heroes and that together they can face what comes bravely. Getorix would be the one to accompany Claodicos on his journey to the Otherworld where gods and heroes would surround them. (65)

3. Getorix expects for him and his father to die in a(n)______________ in the __________________. Instead, the Roman plan is for his father to die in a(n) ________________ in the ______________.Answer: a sacrifice in the Temple of Jupiter (17; 19; 43) an execution in the Tullanium (sewers) (19; 37)

4. Who or what is sacrificed at the Temple of Jupiter?Answer: A pair of bullocks (young bulls,) a pair of rams, and a pair of pigs

5. Where does Keltus take Getorix when they leave the Forum? Where does he take Getorix later that same night?Answer: The Domus Lutatius (house of Lutatius) and later that night to the Roman’ ‘feast at the Temple of Jupiter to see Lutatis Catulus (27; 41; 49)

6. Where was Claodicos’ body dumped after his execution?Answer: Into the sewers of Rome (21)

7. Why was Getorix brought to the domus of Lutatius Catulus?Answer: Lucius has asked his father, a Roman general who helped defeat the Celts, to spare Getorix and bring him into his household to be Lucius’ servant (36—37)

8. Who is the servant who seems to be in charge of Lucius? Who is Lucius?Answer: Pellia (30); Lucius, Lutatius Catulus’ son, is the boy from the triumph who raised his hand to Getorix. (43)

9. What is the wager between Lutatius Catulus and Marius? What will Sulla gain if Marius wins?Answer: If Getorix is in attendance to Lucius at the investiture of the new consuls in one month, Ca-tulus wins Claodicos’ brooch and a few pounds of valuables taken at Aquae Sullis. If Getorix is not in attendance, Marius wins the bronze bull statue that had been Claodicos’ talisman and Getorix will be Sulla’s to give to the Aedui who will probably kill him. (55—56)

10. What problem does Brosch bring to Keltus? What advice does he give her?Answer: Brosch has seen her brothers, slaves with the legionaries, and fears they will be sent to Sic-ily. Keltus advises her to seek help from Mistress Selia. (59—60)

Formulated by Sandra Horton

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Discussion Questions: Evaluative and InterpretivePart One: Chapters I—V pages 11—70

1. “But it has not been given to me to show the Romans the heart of our people in facing death. That honor is given to you. Take courage from who you are and what comes after. We must only get through this ordeal to the other side.” (21) With these words, Getorix feels that his father has placed upon him a sacred duty or geis. In your own words, what do you think Claodi-cos is saying to Getorix?

2. When Getorix asked Keltus if he was taking him to be tortured, Keltus replied, “It pleased the Roman weasels to think I took you to such a fate—and your father also, in his own, sad way.” (23) What did Keltus mean when he said Claodicos was pleased in his own, sad way?

3. Getorix thinks denying himself will shame his Roman captors. How do you think the Ro-mans or Keltus would react if Getorix died by denying himself food or water? How does Getorix think they would react?

4. “Starkaos’ Greek had said it was civilized to battle with words.” (53) Getorix feels verbal ridi-cule merited a fight to the death, yet Lutatius Catulus does not react to Marius’ gibes. What does this reveal about Lutatius Catulus and his culture?

5. Does loyalty to a master mean a loss of identity for a slave? Why or why not?

6. After his father’s death, Getorix’s life is turned upside down. Instead of being killed in the Tullanium, a Celt has arrived to take him to the domus of Lutatius Catulus. In explanation, the Celt tells Getorix, “Soon enough fate overtakes you ... We don’t choose our fate, little one ... You’ll accept your own with time ... You can’t go back ... The world you have known is gone. You must understand. I am taking you to your new life.” (23-24) Why can’t Getorix heed this advice?

7. Why do you think Getorix considers “the ordeal of sacrifice would be his man-making”? (65)

8. Claodicos leapt with the infant Getorix in his arms from a high palisade into the lake that surrounded their home “... to give the infant courage as an adult, to cleanse his heart of fear.” (66) What are some rites of passage from your culture that signify courage or confirm manhood in a young boy?

9. Do you have anything in your culture that is the equivalent of a geis?


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Part Two

The illustration for Part Two represents Getorix locked in the converted storeroom that serves as his cell. He is both comforted and tormented by memories of his former life and by vi-sions of the heros of Celtic myth. He concentrates on these stories trying to draw the courage and strength he needs to fulfill the geis he believes his father has laid upon him -- to face death bravely before the Romans.

The highlighted days on the calendar strip in the upper right represent the three days during which the action in this section takes place.

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Synopsis: Part Two – Chapters VI - XI (pp. 73-133)(December 2-4)


Keltus retrieves Getorix in the morning and lays the groundwork for what will become a rou-tine: a trip to the small courtyard that contains the stairs to the underground cell and to the space that serves as a latrine, a wash under the relatively fresh water that flows into the drain, and a few precious moments outside. Getorix does not mindlessly rebel – his curiosity is too great for that – but picks his battles. He cannot bring himself to dump his own waste down the drain, because he knows his father’s body was dumped into the sewer after his execution, and he sees it as Cla-odicos’ tomb. Keltus interprets this as a lack of understanding and demonstrates what is required as if Getorix is a small child. Pellia directs the setup of a table and basket-work chairs. She directs that Getorix be dressed in a tunic that resembles the russet-trimmed one worn by Idios the messenger. Getorix refuses. Keltus takes him down to the cell and demonstrates a scourge against the wall. Keltus points out that Getorix may have sworn to his father to show courage before the Romans but that he is not a Roman and “there’s no courage in taking a slave’s beating.” Getorix recognizes that Keltus has a point and relents. The “manners lesson” does not go well for Getorix. He makes an enemy of Idios by causing Leia, his sister, to be punished. Lucius, who has been watching through an open gate into the peristyle garden, sweeps in and interrupts, by intentionally eating without manners, and walks off with a chicken leg wrapped in a napkin. Keltus returns Getorix to the cell and goes off to other duties. Lucius appears at the window with a comment about saving Getorix’s ass another time and tosses in the chicken leg, but Getorix rejects Lucius’ overture. Getorix eats the chicken and shares the bones with a white-footed mouse whom he calls Moos, the Roman word for mouse, because of his audacity. Another napkin-wrapped package drops through the window. This time it is a flaming dog turd – Idios’ revenge. Idios is caught and the slaves assembled to watch his punishment. Getorix proposes that he and Idios settle their dispute by combat, but Idios turns away. Eumaios, the steward, says such is not allowed – that infractions bring specific punishment. The slaves are required to watch Idios being beaten, but Getorix watches the others’ responses instead. Afterward, he questions Keltus about the meaning of the event. Keltus answers, but not to Getorix’s satisfaction. He announces that Getorix is to be taken before the master in the morning. Getorix vows to fulfill his charge and prays for guidance in how to cause the Romans to give him an honorable death. Getorix and Keltus encounter Lucius in the atrium the next morning. In their exchange, Lu-cius asserts that Getorix should make good on his plea from the triumph – puzzling since Getorix’s only plea was to the gods for courage in facing death. Getorix stumbles into a shelf of cabinets and

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knocks off two – revealing what appear to be lifelike heads, another puzzling development. The encounter with the Romans doesn’t go as Getorix planned – once again. His demands are not understood or taken seriously. In his despair over his repeated failure, Getorix attempts to kill himself with Keltus’ dagger – and fails, once again. Getorix and Keltus have what proves a pivotal conversation. Keltus relates his capture twenty years before, his reasons for his loyalty to Catulus and his regard for Lucius. Keltus reveals his hope that Getorix can help Lucius toward manhood. However, when Keltus takes Getorix to the courtyard to empty his chamber pot, Lucius is waiting. A momentary distraction gives Getorix his long-awaited opportunity to physically confront the “Roman toad.” Brosch attempts to approach Selia about her brothers’ situation, but fails to draw her attention from preparations for the Bona Dea, the festival of the “good goddess,” which involves festivities primarily for the aristocratic women. She is sent to the slaves courtyard, and arrives in time to see Keltus snatch Getorix off of Lucius and hustle him down to the cell for a beating. Lucius approaches Brosch the next morning as she weaves in his mother’s sitting room. He is seeking advice on how to win Getorix’s loyalty, and believes Brosch will have some knowledge since she’s a Celt as well. She protests that she doesn’t: “He’s a boy and from another tribe.” Lucius can see Brosch is upset, assumes at first that it’s about Getorix, but questions her and learns about her broth-ers. He vows to help her, earning her gratitude. In the conversation, Lucius gains insight in how the Celts view honor. Lucius visits Getorix in the cell and they have their first “civil” conversation. Getorix learns that Lucius interpreted some gesture of his as a plea for mercy and acted on it. Getorix blames himself for his situation, his past failures, but vows to be faithful to his vow in the future.

Plot Points:* Romans would not have used a fearsome scourge on a slave for simple stubbornness. (See the expla-nation below in Historical Points.) Keltus is trying to intimidate Getorix to avoid punishing him.* The reader gets Brosch’s point of view – that of a slave who has accommodated to her situation, is even finding some satisfaction and sense of success, and is grateful that the gods have not sent her to worse. She also feels responsibility to use her “good fortune” to aid her brothers and resentment toward Getorix for what she sees as unreasonable rebellion – and for creating a barrier to accomplish-ing her goals. * In his treatment of Brosch, Lucius is revealed as a Roman with his own sense of honor and a con-cern for others as people – even slaves. * The reader gets a bit of Getorix’s personal history in his musings.

Historical Points:* Maps of the sewer system do not show a spur off a major line on the Palatine Hill where the domus Lutatius was located. However, the sewers originated as natural streams, and one originated some-where on the Palatine. I’ve given the house a natural spring, and a system to drain extra water to the sewer is plausible, given the technology of the time. * Chairs of basketwork are shown in paintings of the time. The table service – napkins, individual bowls, spoons; no plates, forks or knives – is consistent with what is known. The rules of “manners” are imagined.

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* The Romans debated the use of corporal punishment, particularly with slaves, but it was part of their system and their culture. There were many different types of implements used, from a rod which was considered the mildest. According to law, the rod might be used on the clothing of an adult Roman citizen. Even assuming the Roman was wearing the clothing, considering how many layers a toga involved, this was surely a symbolic act meant to humiliate. The ferula was a strap with a handle. The scutia a many tailed whip of parchment. The scourge was a fear-some weapon of braided leather that might have bits of bone or sharp points of metal braided in. It could kill. The Roman idea of “fitting the punishment to the crime” included using an implement de-signed to cause a measured amount of damage.* Slaves did not regularly wear a “uniform” or mark identifying them as slaves unless they were prone to run away, in which case they were collared and tagged with their owner’s name and ad-dress (location). One theory is that the Romans didn’t want slaves to instantly identify another slave, so that it would not be clear how many in a crowded market, for example, were free labor and how many slaves. They seem to have been concerned about a rebellion, if it was clear how many slaves there were. However, they might wear “fancy” outfits to serve, and I have chosen to make this a particular design, which is consistent with the Roman tendency to standardize things for large groups. * Romans might recline at banquets, but ate upright much of the time. Some Roman furniture was lightweight or folding, so a room might be set up with furniture for a particular occasion or event and changed later. * The Gaesatae were Celtic warriors. As with most details about Celtic culture, scholars debate details such as whether they were identified with a specific tribe or were mercenaries. Reports are that they fought naked and their prowess was legendary. There is no report of their having played a significant role in these battles, but the myth is too good to ignore. * The basic outline of the Celts migration is consistent with the historical record. * A slave revolt in Sicily at this time resulted in the rebellious slaves being massacred. That more would be needed as replacement and that a surplus of labor existed in Rome as a result of the final defeat of the Celts are both historical. Branding of slaves was not common among the Ro-mans, but was practiced in Sicily as slaves were used as herdsmen and might be in the mountains for many months. * The Bona Dea, or festival of the Good Goddess, was celebrated twice a year, in May and De-cember, hosted by the presiding consul’s wife. Since the senior consul (the one who polled the most votes) presided in January and alternate months, his wife hosted in May and the junior consul’s wife in December. So, Marius’ wife Julia would have hosted in May, and, since Marius was consul a total of seven times (He was in his fifth at this time) she hosted one each term as long as he was consul. Manius Aquillius was the junior consul for this term and, as I couldn’t find a record of a wife’s name, I’ve made his sister the hostess for December. The exact rituals performed were very secret (and have remained so), but the record says the Vestal Virgins played a part as did the sacrifice of a pig. * Slaves with valuable skills might achieve a measure of independence, be allowed to earn wages, and even purchase their freedom. They might continue to work in the same jobs or even in the same household as free people. For example, Marcus Tullius Cicero, in the next generation, is reported to have freed all the slaves of his household except one (an elderly man who was appar-ently mentally handicapped) and they continued in his employ.

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Factual QuestionsPart Two: Chapters VI—XI pages 71—133

1. What is Getorix’s response to Keltus when he says he will get a clean tunic?

2. Why can’t Getorix dump the waste jar into the opening that led to the sewer?

3. What does Leia do that brings punishment to her when she is with Getorix?

4. What does Idios do to Getorix for bringing shame on his sister?

5. Why did all the slaves have to watch Idios’ punishment?

6. Where does Lutatius Catulus say Getorix was discovered at the end of the battle?

7. What is Keltus’ comment when Getorix asks him, “Then why choose slavery?” What does Keltus mean by this comment?

8. Why has Keltus remained faithful to Lutatius Catulus?

9. According to Keltus, what is the gift the gods have given to the Romans?

10. Why did Lucius’ parents spoil him?

11. Why does Getorix attack Lucius?

12. What will Lucius need to do to purchase Brosch’s brothers?

13. What was in the boxes in the cabinets in the lararium? Whom did they represent? How were they used?


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Answers to Factual QuestionsPart Two: Chapters VI—XI pages 71—133

1. What is Getorix’s response to Keltus when he says he will get a clean tunic?Answer: “ . . .I’ll go naked as a warrior before I will wear just a shirt like a baby or a Roman. If I’m to dress, bring me trousers.” (75)

2. Why can’t Getorix dump the waste jar into the well that led to the sewer? Answer: It is sacrilege to dump his own waste on his father’s resting place (76)

3. What does Leia do that brings punishment to her when she is with Getorix?Answer: Leia laughed out loud when Getorix had difficulty holding the spoon and it tipped the fruit onto the napkin. (78)

4. What does Idios do to Getorix for bringing shame on his sister?Answer: Idios throws a flaming dog turd wrapped in a napkin into Getorix’s cell. (82)

5. Why did all the slaves have to watch Idios’ punishment?Answer: “It’s supposed to be instructive.” (84-86) The punishments served as a deterrent to the other servants.

6. Where does Lutatius Catulus say Getorix was discovered at the end of the battle? Answer: A centurion pulled him from his hiding place under a baggage cart after the battle. (96)

7. What is Keltus’ comment when Getorix asks him, “Then why choose slavery?” What does Keltus mean by this comment?Answer: “You must howl with the wolves around you.” (107) Student interpretation

8. Why has Keltus remained faithful to Lutatius Catulus? Answer: “Lutatius Catulus spared my life on the battlefield and I owed him service . . . He honored my word that I would serve him” Keltus had respect for Lutatius and the way he handled defeat. Keltus also had a desire to better understand the Roman’s way and learn from them. (107-108)

9. According to Keltus, what is the gift the gods have given to the Romans?Answer: “If the gods have given the Romans a gift denied to us, it’s to have many men working together as one, so that each man gives up some of his freedom for the good of the group.” (108)

10. Why did Lucius’ parents spoil him? Answer: “Lucius was ill for a long time as a child… It was pitiful to see a small child suffer so hard just to live, so his parents spoiled him, as we all did, I suppose.” (110)

11. Why does Getorix attack Lucius?Answer: When Getorix says “I’m determined to join my father.” Lucius makes the comment, “Well, at least something of you joins him” as he refers to Getorix’s waste jar. (117) Getorix considered this an insult and sacrilege to his father and himself. Formulated by Sandra Horton

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12. What will Lucius need to do to purchase Brosch’s brothers?Answer: Have Eumaios give him the money he needs and then use the identity plate with his father’s seal, held by Keltus. (123—124)

13. What was in the boxes in the cabinets in the lararium? Whom did they represent? How were they used?Answer: Wax masks of ancestors. “Any time a man achieves the rank of consul or even senator, or is honored for his part in a vic-tory, he can have a wax mask made. It’s a great honor to have ancestors worthy of being immortal-ized with a mask.” ... “When a man dies, actors are hired to wear the masks at his funeral, so it will appear that his honored ancestors have come to welcome him among their ranks.” (128)


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Discussion Questions: Evaluative and InterpretivePart Two: Chapters VI—XI pages 71—133 1. The steward Eumaios tells Idios he is being punished for willfully destroying the master’s property, a napkin. (84-85) What does Idios’ public punishment reveal about the way Lutatius Catulus’ household is run?

2. Is there more shameful pain in being beaten or in having others watch the beating? Explain your answer.

3. Why can’t Getorix “be grateful to the ones who spared his life”?

4. Keltus and Brosch have acclimated themselves to their new Roman life. What about Getorix makes it so difficult for him to accept his fate?

5. Keltus offers Getorix advice and seems to be his guide in accepting his new life. (105-111) Why does Keltus take such an interest in this unruly captive? Why does he care whether or not Getorix accepts his situation?

6. In your opinion which takes the most courage, “living with what the gods leave in your bowl” (111) or dying to fulfill your geis? Why?

7. Why is Keltus loyal to his Roman masters? Why can’t Getorix accept his fate as Keltus has accepted his?

8. When Lucius finds Brosch crying in his mother’s sitting room, “[H]e raised his hand to touch her face and stopped. She was a slave. He could touch her as freely as he could his cat, but he didn’t.” (122) Why didn’t he?

9. “The gods have placed it on your shoulder, even if they used Roman hands to do it.” (67) Claodicos refers to his personal signet, the brooch of a bull’s head that Getorix has been given to wear in the triumph. By the end of Part Two, what else have the gods used Roman hands to place on Getorix’s shoulders?


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Part Three

The illustration for Part Three represents the master’s tablinum or office. We might notice chairs, tables and draperies much like we would see in a similar space to-day. The lamp on a tall stand, bust on a pedestal and various decorative objects, includ-ing what may be a drum or gong for summoning a servant, are recognizable as well. On the floor beneath the chair appear two small tablets and in front of it a “book bucket,” a round leather case with a top and straps for carrying collections of scrolls. Similar cases might house collections of related texts in the master’s library.

The calendar strip is highlighted with the five days of this part of the story.

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Synopsis: Part Three Chapters XII - XIX (pp. 136-191)December 17- 22)

By Saturnalia, the days have fallen into a routine. Lucius has persisted in visiting Getorix in the cell with gifts of nuts and sweets and tales, mostly from the Odyssey. Getorix has refused to respond, though the temptation is great to debate details of familiar stories. The morning before the celebration begins, Getorix lingers in the courtyard over his “chores” watching the slaves of the household as they prepare, taken by how they remind him of the people he has known – how they seem so “normal” -- not beasts at all, even though they are slaves. Keltus calls him back into the confinement of the service courtyard. Lucius is waiting at the top of the stairs. He speaks as if he expects Getorix to respond to his salutation, tells Getorix of the customs of the festivities – the custom of the masters serving their slaves and a slave as “Saturnalia King” ordering the master to entertain. He says Getorix could be present if only he’d submit. Getorix turns away, sure Lucius is trying to trick him. When Keltus finally brings his dinner that night, however, he is dressed in a Roman tunic, obviously drunk, and bearing a tray of treats from a banquet. Saturnalia celebrations included horse races and games, and the household was essentially empty during much of the day. Lucius appears at the cell door in the morning; he has used the key hanging by the door. He offers Getorix a worn scroll, bearing the label “Homer”, and finally shoves it into his arms when the captive doesn’t respond. When Getorix says, “Thank you,” he explodes, “Great Jupiter! I give you your life, and you curse me. I try to spare you a beating and you spit on my clemency. I come every afternoon to tell you stories and bring you sweets, and you never give me the courtesy of a word. Now I give you an old book, and you thank me!” The boys share a few words before Lucius is called away, and Getorix settles down to read. He hears the cheers of the crowd from the games in the Circus Maximus and is reminded of the final battle between his people and the Romans – and of what came after. He vows to resist the seduc-tion of the Roman’s gifts. When Lucius next appears, Getorix returns the scroll. They debate the fairness of the situation Getorix finds himself in. They debate the details of the invasion of Brennus(os), three centuries before. Lucius admits that the people of Rome were afraid they would be overrun once again by the Celtic tribes. He says that his father might have spared Getorix’s father if Claodicos had plead for mercy. Of course, Getorix knows he never would have, but still the possibility draws him. Lucius offers to take Getorix out – if he promises to behave. He points out that the shackle is loose, and that if Getorix had wanted to escape he would have by now. Getorix is disarmed by Lucius’ candor and gives in to the temptation to lay down the burden of his honor – for just a little while. He is very aware the burden Lucius’ trust lays on him.


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The boys explore the empty house. They fix a substantial snack in the kitchen and eat it in the plane tree (sycamore) that centers the servants’ courtyard. Lucius asks Getorix what he thinks of one of the stories in the Odyssey – where Odysseus tricks the Cyclops. When he answers, Lucius makes the point that this story was not in the scrolls he had lent and asks how Getorix is familiar with it. Getorix reveals more than he intends about his history in the druids’ house – to Lucius’ delight. So ensnared, and as a “payback,” Getorix shares the Norse story of Fafnir. He is surprised that Lucius understands the point of the story. The servants return and Lucius and Getorix run to return Getorix to the cell without being discovered. Another day, Lucius takes Getorix to see the Saturnalia decorations in the atrium. The decora-tions include the bronze bull that was Claodicos’ symbol. They visit Catulus’ tablinum, his office, and examine the trophies displayed there – including a cedar box of Celtic design that contains a hair braid and torc that Getorix recognizes as relics of his father. Getorix feels reverence for the rel-ics and wants to imagine that Catulus honors them – though he doubts it. At a joke from Lucius, Getorix threatens to destroy the display. Lucius has an asthma attack, and Getorix discovers he can help Lucius by “talking him through it.” The Romans return: Catulus, Selia and Sulla. Lucius and Getorix leave through the win-dow, but find themselves trapped in the peristyle garden. They overhear the Romans’ conversation about the new year’s festivities and the installation of the new consuls. Selia sees the boys through the window, but excuses herself without revealing their presence. Lucius insists they go to his mother’s sitting room as things will go easier for them if they do. The gentle Selia demonstrates how firm she can be with a lecture about the importance of obedience to the pater familias – the father of the household. Lucius structures the exchange so his mother sees Getorix as having agreed to serve him – even to faking an asthma attack to dem-onstrate that Getorix will jump to his aid. By being honest about not wanting to be given to the Aedui, Getorix unwittingly goes along. Selia orders that Getorix be bathed and returned to the cell to await Catulus’ convenience. They find that the cell has been cleaned and the spare blanket replaced with a mattress, soft shawl and Lucius outgrown tunic and shoes; the scroll remains. Keltus comments that Getorix will be sleeping in Lucius’ room next. Getorix insists that he must make a sacrifice. Over Keltus’ protests that the moon is wrong, Getorix gathers symbolic items from the cell’s contents and arranges them by the drain opening; it’s the closest he can come to his father’s tomb. He prays for guidance, but feels no sense of an answer. Keltus is called away and Atlas returns Getorix to the cell. Getorix is in crisis. He awakes from a dream, surrounded in the cell by evidence of his failure to keep his vow. He strips off the tunic and shoes, piles everything in a corner of the cell. Then a tongue of flame appears – a sure sign of the gods’ favor. Unfortunately, it’s Lucius bringing Getorix an oil lamp like the one he keeps by his bed. The next day, Lucius appears once again. Selia ordered Keltus to hide the key, but Lucius found it under Keltus’ mattress. Getorix uses the opportunity to return to Catulus’ tablinum and seek guidance from his father’s relics. He feels nothing, but blames himself. Lucius reveals that he needs Getorix because only Getorix doesn’t treat him like a baby. The lack of a clear message – though he has tried meditation, dreams, sacrifice and prayer – allows Getorix to think that maybe he and Lucius can reach some sort of alliance. It wouldn’t be friendship, as friends must be equals, but an accommodation of some sort. Another day, and Getorix is once again wandering the house with Lucius. Lucius’ cat begins

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to chase a mouse – a mouse that Getorix recognizes because of distinctive white markings. Getorix attempts to block the cat – to give the mouse a chance at escape. Lucius believes Getorix is hurting the cat and grabs a whip from among the blacksmith’s tools, and strikes Getorix. A contest with tool handles as cudgels ensues. Getorix finds himself coaching Lucius and gaining respect for his determination. However, a slip finds both of them on the ground, Lucius unconscious, just as the household slaves return. Ajax grabs Getorix and vows to take him down to the cell and punish him.”Surely even the mistress would not blame me now ... if I punished him a little too severely.” Getorix escapes over the wall and into the city. Plot Points: * Getorix begins to respond to Lucius as a person. He begins to see some validity in what Keltus said about there being more than one way to interpret his father’s admonition to him. * Getorix responds to Lucius’ asthma attack by wanting to help him rather than wanting to see him die. He draws on his druid training to help Lucius stay calm and get through it. * Lucius offers Getorix a taste of the medicine, which Getorix has seen has a good effect on Lucius. It’s a minor plot point, but an opportunity to discuss similar situations in the students’ lives. * Selia’s kindness, especially since she accidentally uses a pet name his mother had used, appeals to Getorix. He can hear what she says about the Roman culture. For the first time, he has the op-portunity to confront a Roman and demand death, and lets it pass. * When Getorix tells Lucius the story of Fafnir, it’s the first time they’ve related as equals.* Getorix makes a sacrifice, and the reader learns more of his cultural world view.* Getorix’s dream (Chapter XVII) clarifies for Getorix the truth of his situation, if not what he’s to do about it. * Lucius and Getorix spar with tool handles and we see Getorix actually rooting for Lucius to do well. * Then, Lucius spoils it all with the speech about a slave submitting. * When Getorix escapes over the wall, his story opens up to the larger world.

Historical Points:*Saturnalia was the most popular of the Roman festivals. It began on December 17, and the celebration gradually grew to 13+ days. Customs included the “turnabout” described, though, of course, the wise slave was careful not to do anything that might lead to retribution when the holiday was over. * The most likely site of the Lutatius household (based on records from a generation later) is on the Palatine, close enough that the noise from the Circus Maximus would have been plain. * The conversation among the Romans about the consulship is consistent with the historical re-cord, as is Selia’s lecture about the importance of the pater familias.

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Factual QuestionsPart III: Chapters XII—XIX pages 135—191

1. What happens at the celebration of Saturnalia in the Lutatius household?

2. What does Lucius give to Getorix that produces a “Thank you”?

3. What was Getorix’s task during the battle with the Romans?

4. What did Getorix learn when he became Starkaos’ apprentice?

5. What did Lutatius Catulus tell Lucius about Getorix’s capture?

6. What about Moos makes Getorix think he could be a messenger from the gods?

7. Why does mistletoe symbolize human life? What was the legend of the thrush carrying a sprig of mistletoe over a battlefield?

8. Why are all Roman doormen chained?

9. How does Lucius react when Getorix considers destroying objects in the trophy room to bal-ance the scales for Lucius’ words? What is Getorix’s response?

10. What is in the Celtic box that Lucius opens in his father’s trophy room?

11. What does Lucius tell his mother Selia to explain why Getorix is out of his cell?

12. A fter Getorix’s meeting with Lady Selia in Chapter XVI, she believed Getorix was ready to serve Lucius. What does Getorix do to make her believe this?

13. What improvements does Getorix discover when he returned to his cell?

14. What does Getorix offer to his father in prayer at the sewer drain? What does Keltus add to the offerings?

15. Why does Atlas restrain Getorix?

16. How does Getorix get away from Atlas?


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GEtorix: The Eagle and The BullAnswers to Factual QuestionsPart III: Chapters XII—XIX pages 135—191

1. What happens at the celebration of Saturnalia in the Lutatius household? Answer: All of Lutatius’ personal servants will be served; Keltus will be Saturnalia king and he will share the center couch with Quintipor, Catulus’ personal servant and Eumaios, the steward, even the new grammaticus, though he will be freed at the new year. The other servants will bring in the food and take their places on the side couches. They will serve themselves, but Catulus and Lucius will serve the guests of honor. After dinner, Keltus gets to order his master to do something to entertain. (140)

2. What does Lucius give to Getorix that produces a “Thank you”? Answer: A scroll in a worn leather case with a tag stating “HOMER” (143—144)

3. What was Getorix’s task during the battle with the Romans? Answer: His task is to trudge beside a cart bearing the bronze bull, Claodicos’ talisman, and stay with the bronze bull behind the lines driving the cart in the warriors’ wake. (147)

4. What did Getorix learn when he became Starkaos’ apprentice? Answer: Getorix learned to memorize heroic stories to preserve and safeguard Celtic wisdom (157)He also learned to read from a Greek captive.

5. What did Lutatius tell Lucius about Getorix’s capture? Answer: Lutatius told Lucius of Getorix’s courage. “He said you [Getorix] fought the legionaries who took you, even though you had no weapons.” (160)

6. What about Moos made Getorix think he could be a messenger from the gods? Answer: His white markings (161)

7. Why did mistletoe symbolize human life? What was the legend of the thrush carrying a sprig of mistletoe over a battlefield?Answer: “Mistletoe carried the heart and the life of the oak tree through the barren days of winter, and so symbolized human life carried through desolate times.” ... “Its power was so great that if a thrush carried a sprig of mistletoe over a battlefield at the height of the conflict the warriors would throw down their arms and embrace as friends.” (163)

8. Why are all Roman doormen chained? Answer: “It’s so they can’t run away without raising the alarm if there’s a threat to the household” (157)

9. How does Lucius react when Getorix considers destroying objects in the trophy room to balance the scales for Lucius’ words? What is Getorix’s response? Answer: Lucius has an attack and has difficulty with his breathing.Getorix shouts, “No!” and rushes to Lucius’ aid. He does not want Lucius to die. He helps him over-come the terror. (165—166)

10. What is in the Celtic box that Lucius opens in his father’s trophy room?Answer: Battle trophies taken from Getorix’s father. “The long braid of gray-gold hair coiled in a nest around Claodicos’ golden torc, the ruby eyes in the bulls’ heads on the ends winked in the light.” (167)


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11. What does Lucius tell his mother Selia to explain why Getorix is out of his cell?Answer: He tells her that Getorix promised to behave and that he will pour Lucius’ wine or carry his cloak—that he would behave and not make trouble. (171-173)

12. After Getorix’s meeting with Lady Selia in Chapter XVI, she believed Getorix was ready to serve Lucius. What does Getorix do to make her believe this? Answer: Getorix led Selia to believe Lucius’ words that Getorix was ready to accept Lucius as his mas-ter. “‘And did you mean what you said Getus,’ Selia asked . . . ‘I did not lie . . .’ Getorix said, and he hadn’t exactly. There was more truth to be told surely, but he was having trouble getting it out.” When Lucius collapsed, Getorix came to his aid and helped him recover from his attack. (173)

13. What improvements does Getorix discover when he returns to his cell?Answer: “The cell had been burned out and washed down. A leather mattress and soft woolen shawl had replaced the straw and coarse blanket in the cell. Real shoes, not a peasant’s wooden clogs or folded boots given to slaves, a leather belt and a heavy tunic of soft, brown wool waited on the mat-tress beside a covered basket and a pottery jug.” (177)

14. What does Getorix offer to his father in prayer at the sewer drain? What does Keltus add to the offerings? Answer: The flower, one perfect blossom, blood red with a night-black throat from the captive plants; the baldric; the bit of strangler’s cord concealed in the case; a piece of the scroll, a part to represent the whole; and wheaten cake and nuts Keltus added the belt he had been working on, a baldric with the figures of the god Cernunnos holding the goat-headed snake and his powerful club (178—179)

15. Why does Atlas restrain Getorix? Answer: When Getorix fell while sparring with Lucius, his staff hit Lucius leaving him “flat on the paving stones, his legs splayed and his hands cupped at his side as one whose spirit was flown before he left his feet.” (190) Atlas thinks Getorix has attacked Lucius and will do so again if he is not restrained and stopped.

16. How does Getorix get away from Atlas and escape?Answer: Getorix went limp as one insensible. At the right time as Atlas descended the stairs to Getorix’s cell, Getorix kicked out, connected with the stone wall and sent the smith reeling down the steps. Running through the courtyard, Getorix sprang to the lowest branch of the plane tree and scrambled to the roof and over the colonnade and the wall. (191)


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GEtorix: The Eagle and The BullDiscussion Questions: Evaluative and InterpretivePart III: Chapters XII—XIX pages 134—191

1. Why does Lutatius Catulus serve his own slaves and do their bidding during the feast of Sat-urnalia? Why do you think this tradition existed in the time of the Roman Republic?

2. Getorix is caught between two worlds—the Celtic and the Roman. What does he value as he survives his captivity? Why?

3. Getorix sense of failure as Claodicos’ son plays into the choices he makes as a Roman captive? How and why?

4. “Every man is slave to something. . . . That’s what the Stoics say, anyway.” (150) What is Getorix a slave to? Why? Is Lucius a slave to something? What? Is Lutatius Catulus a slave to something? What?

5. Lucius’ Roman version of Brennus’ conquest of Rome differs greatly from the Celtic version. Why?

6. “ . . . [T]he victors write the histories.” (152) Discuss examples in history where the facts may have been misconstrued to construct a victor’s history.

7. Why had Getorix not thought of escaping? (153)

8. Getorix and Lucius are developing a relationship. Can one friend be another friend’s slave? Why or why not?

9. In Chapter XIV, Lucius unwarily leaves a knife on the hearth as he and Getorix explore the kitchen. (155) Why does Getorix replace the blade into the wooden block?

10. I n Lucius’ eyes, Getorix is courageous. Getorix sees himself as a failure. How can two views of the same person be so different?

11. Lucius recovers from his attack of asthma with Getorix’s assistance, and a dose of medicine from his green vial. (166) He offers Getorix a taste and Getorix refuses. What would you do in a similar situation? Why?

12. Why would the Romans continue to keep doormen chained in their position when there was no danger of invasion?

13. Define “honor”. What does “acting honorably” mean to Getorix?

14. When Getorix receives no sign from the gods or his father, why does he blame himself?

15. Lucius cannot understand Getorix’s inability to accept his captivity. Why?


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Part Four

The illustration for Part Four, a bull’s head drawing by Caroline Garrett, repre-sents more than the bronze bull that played such a part in the plot of the story. The bronze bull symbolizes the power of the Celtic people. Since the Romans believe the statue is intended to represent a god, they have symbolically captured that god’s power for themselves. A wager over ownership of the bronze bull kept a rebellious Getorix in the Lutatius household for long enough for a relationship to form with Lucius. To Getorix, the bronze bull is only a good luck charm captured from the Greeks. The bull’s head is his father’s totem, or signet, however, and in Getorix’s dreams, his father is often symbolized by a bull. In the final chapters, the significance of all these symbols comes together.

The calendar strip is highlighted with the December days covered by the story. The final chapters carry the reader over to the first day of the following year. The Roman numeral XXIX at the bottom represents the number of days in the month.

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Synopsis: Part Four Chapters XX - XXVI (pp. 194-249)December 22 – January 1)


Getorix escapes over the back wall of the Lutatius domus and lands in the alley – and runs. He finds a temporary hiding place to pass the day, then seeks out the Tullianum in search of his father’s spirit. His thoughts give the reader insight into the cultural parallels with the Celtic culture, the Romans’ and our own. Getorix is attacked by street children and confronted by a veteran legion-ary; in his flight for escape, we see the underside of Rome at night. Finally, he returns to the Tul-lanium, vowing to wait for his father’s spirit there. Instead, he is caught up in a legionary sweep of “blond boys” and herded to a barn on the Campus Martius. In the crowd, he encounters Boiorix, son of the “high king” of the Celtic Confederacy, defeated at Vercellae. The father was killed in battle, and the son taken prisoner. Boiorix tells his story of his escape and hiding in the Roman sewers. He is a bully and a braggart, but ends up being Getorix’s salvation. Getorix convinces Boiorix that his best chance is to act as the “Celtic Prince” presented as a dip-lomatic gift to the Aedui. He uses the diversion Boiorix creates to escape through a hole in the barn wall and down to the river. There, he finds the sewer opening and avoids capture by hiding inside. Getorix adjusts quickly to life on the Roman streets, sleeping under bridges, trapping rats and gathering herbs for food. He catches sight of Brosch, who has been lent to Aurelia, and is now liv-ing in the Julius insula in the Subura. He waits for Brosch to come to the public fountain for water. In an encounter that quickly becomes a confrontation, Getorix learns that Lucius will recover, that his parents believe Getorix dead, and that Lucius has indeed arranged for Brosch’s brothers to be part of the crew working on Catulus’ monument. The eve of the new year finally dawns. Getorix prepares himself to wait at the Tullianum for his father’s spirit. He is watching in the Forum when Lucius and Keltus pass; he has imagined Lucius as a companion in his exploits, but this is real. He follows them to the Campus Martius. While Keltus is arranging for a practice space, Lucius spots Getorix and they talk. Lucius is harassed by bullies and Getorix comes to his aid. Lucius tries to persuade Getorix to return to the household with him, to be his companion – but still his slave. Keltus returns, and Getorix drops his cloak and runs. His flight takes him into the Roman legionary camp. It is almost deserted at this time, and Getorix takes the opportunity to investigate the Principia – the headquarters – with the fantasy of staging a raid. Through a window, he sees into Marius’ office and goes in after a trophy. A sound causes him to grab something at random and run. Only later does he realize he has snatched his father’s signet cloak brooch. He is certain “the gods surely guided [his] hand.” He seeks out Brosch at the building site of Catulus’ monument, as someone he can show his prize, and she finally prais-es him for his courage. An accident with the crane hoisting blocks of stone ends the encounter. Getorix finally returns to the Tullianum just as the sun sets. He gains entrance and prepares

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to watch through the night. Instead, he sleeps and dreams that the bronze bull, personifying his father, walks in procession up the Capitoline and then sweeps Getorix up on his horns and flies away from Rome. He is awakened by a skeletal old man (Senias) who seems almost childlike – or mad – in enthusiastic urging of Getorix to rise. Since crones can be gods’ messengers, Getorix is afraid not to respond. Getorix and Senias watch from a temple base in the Forum as the Romans gather. Getorix sees Lucius, Selia and Keltus across the way. The Romans make speeches, and Getorix muses on their meanings. Getorix believes Sulla has seen him, perhaps recognized him, and bolts up the hillside to the Capitoline. He climbs a tree, but is called down by Senias, who beckons him to the sacrifice, “You came all this way for the sacrifice, did you not?” As Getorix watches, a sacrificial bull breaks away, gores his handler, and charges. Getorix be-lieves this is the meaning of his dream in the Tullianum, and that the bull will take him through death into the Otherworld. Lucius appears from the crowd, and puts himself in danger. Getorix throws himself over Lucius; the bull leaps them both and falls over the cliff to its death. In the confusion that follows, Getorix is praised for saving Lucius, and Lucius insists that the courage he has shown fulfills his geis to his father. Selia appears and instructs Keltus to return Lu-cius and Getorix to the Lutatius household to await discipline. Aa the crowd returns to the temple, Getorix drops the signet brooch and Lucius sees it before he can hide it again. Lucius first insists Getorix give it to him to hide, then asks what he will do with it. In the question, Getorix hears a new respect from Lucius and realizes they may indeed be friends – whatever his role in the Roman culture. Someone else has seen the brooch drop, however, and a band of Romans, led by Sulla, is coming across the hilltop. Getorix breaks away to run but is caught by Keltus who – instead of holding him – presses his own dagger into Getorix’s hand and sends him on his way with a blessing. Getorix flashes the brooch in the sunlight – in case there’s any doubt he has it – and dashes down the hillside to the Forum. There, Senias, now robed as a druid, and Cu the dog wait amid a vision of the hills of Getorix’s home. The vision disappears and Getorix vows to return home with his father’s signet to once again jump into the lake from the palisade of his home village. Plot Points:* Getorix is loose on the Roman streets. He now has to be proactive instead of simply reacting to what the gods send. * Brosch defines the position of the slave who accepts her fate, makes the best of it, and is grateful it isn’t any worse. She retains her ability to make judgments and evaluate situations for herself. * Getorix vows to seek his father’s spirit at the Tullianum on the night of the eve of the new year. * Getorix follows Lucius and Keltus to the Campus Martius and there defends Lucius from Bullies. He struggles with what he feels as conflicting responsibilities.* Almost by accident, Getorix retrieves his father’s signet brooch from Marius’ headquarters. This is the first clear sign he’s had of communion with his father’s spirit. * Getorix continues to seek the will of the gods and vows to fulfill it – though he now realizes that the rational thing to do is to return his father’s brooch to his homeland, perform a ritual dedication and get on with his life.* Faced with the possibility of standing by and seeing Lucius killed by the charging bull, Getorix

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risks his life to save the Roman boy. Lucius insists that Getorix has fulfilled his vow to “face death with courage before the Romans,” and is free to live his life. * Getorix has the signet brooch Marius considers his prize and soemone in the crowd has seen it, so Getorix must flee once again. This time, however, he has a geis of his own choosing to fulfill.

Historical Points:* The explanation of Samhain (Sah’ win) illustrates the parallel with our celebration of Halloween – which is, of course, the same holiday.* The description of the crossroads shrines and crossroads brotherhoods is consistent with history.* Getorix’s vision of the heads on the rostra (237) refers to the proscriptions and beheadings of the civil wars of the coming century. (Cicero was among the victims. It’s a bit of a conceit, but may stimulate interest in the students.) * Catulus’ speech is consistent with the “republican” attitude, but is not modeled on any specific document.

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GEtorix: The Eagle and The BullFactual QuestionsPart Four: Chapters XX—XXIV pages 193—249

1. After escaping from the Lutatius Domus, where does Getorix decide to hide? Why?

2. What trouble does Getorix run into as he looks for the Tullianum?

3. At the end of Chapter XX, the reader learns that the fates will send a different messenger. Who or what is the different messenger, and what is the message he brings?

4. Whom does Getorix see among the captives? What had happened to this person after the Celtic defeat by the Romans?

5. How does Getorix escape from the group of boys in the barn?

6. How does Getorix find out that Lucius is still alive?

7. How does Getorix help Lucius at the Campus Martius?

8. What does Getorix “steal” from the Principia on the Campus Martius? How does he choose this item?

9. After his escape from the Principia, where does Getorix find Brosch?

10. When Getorix shows Brosch his find from the Principia, what decision do her questions prompt?

11. What does Senias tell Getorix in the Tullianum?

12. Whom does Getorix believe Senias to be? Why does he listen to the old man?

13. Where does Getorix spot Boiorix in the Forum?

14. What warning does Catulus give to the Roman people in his speech at the Forum?

15 What does Getorix do when he realizes that the bull has veered and is heading straight for Lucius?

16. After he rescues Lucius, how does Getorix decide to fulfill his geis?

17. As Getorix tries to escape what does Keltus do when Getorix runs into him ?


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Getorix: The Eagle and The BullAnswers to Factual Questions Part Four: Chapters XX—XXIV pages 193—249

1. After escaping from the Lutatius Domus, where does Getorix decide to hide? Why?Answer: The Tullianum.On Samhain, the night that marked the Celtic New Year, spirits of the dead discontented with their life in the Otherworld wandered the earth. Getorix hopes his father will return to the place of his death, the Tullianum, at the Roman New Year to guide his son to the Otherworld. (195)

2. What trouble does Getorix run into as he looks for the Tullianum?Answer: A band of ragged children attack him and steal his shoes. Sicarius, their leader turns a knife on Getorix. Getorix fights back and the gang runs away when confronted by a veteran legion-ary. (197—200)

3. At the end of Chapter XX, the reader learns that the fates will send a different messenger. Who or what is the different messenger, and what is the message he brought? Answer: The messenger is the legionary who is rounding up “every blond boy from ten-years-old who couldn’t prove he was the son of a citizen” and the message is that Getorix has been captured along with a score of other blond boys. (204)

4. Whom does Getorix see among the captives? What has happened to this person after the Celtic de-feat by the Romans? Answer: Getorix recognizes Boiorix, son of the High King of the Celtic Confederacy. Boiorix had been captured and enslaved with an iron ring around his neck. He was forced to work chained to other slaves and beaten for any infraction. He was eventually purchased by a Persian trader who wanted to make Boiorix his chief eunuch. Boiorix escaped and lived in the sewers. (206—207)

5. How does Getorix escape from the group of boys in the barn?Answer: Getorix persuaded Boiorix to turn himself over to Sulla telling him that Getorix is dead. When Boiorix sees the overseer who had enslaved him earlier, he quickly agrees to take his chances with Sulla and the Aedui. Getorix has spied a hole in the barn wall behind a water barrel. Dur-ing the commotion of Boiorix’s surrender, he is able to rock the barrel enough to slip behind it and escape through the hole. (208—209)

6. How does Getorix find out that Lucius is still alive?Answer: Getorix sees Brosch at the shrine to the crossroads gods at the fountain. He confronts her and discovers that Lucius will recover.

7. How does Getorix help Lucius at the Campus Martius?Answer: When a group of sweaty swordsmen hardly older than Lucius bully him, Getorix acts as if he is going to spar with Lucius and warns him of his father’s anger if he maims any more of his op-ponents. (224)

8. What does Getorix “steal” from the Principia on the Campus Martius? How does he choose this item?Answer: When Getorix grabbed something bright from the jumble of trophies on a table and hid it until he had escaped the building, he discovered that he had taken Claodicos’ signet, the most pre-cious symbol of his father’s honor


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9. After his escape from the Principia, where does Getorix find Brosch?Answer: Getorix finds Brosch on the Palatine Hill beside the Domus Lutatius where Brosch’s broth-ers are among slaves building the porticus in Catulus’ honor. (228—229)

10. When Getorix shows Brosch his find from the Principia, what decision do her questions prompt?Answer: Brosch’s questions make Getorix realize that he wants to return the signet to his father’s vil-lage and leap from the palisade with it. This act would honor his father and free him to find his own road as a man. (231)

11. What does Senias tell Getorix in the Tullianum?Answer: Senias tells Getorix, “you’ll miss it if we don’t hurry…they’ll be started and you won’t be there.” He then tells Getorix that on the first day of the new year, anyone may be someone and that on this day he is Getorix’s guide. (235—236)

12. Who does Getorix believe Senias to be? Why does he listen to the old man?Answer: “His name was one of the many words for “wisdom” in the Celtic tongue, and messengers from the gods might come in the form of hags and crones. Who was to say this withered old fool was not such a one?” (236)

13. Where does Getorix spot Boiorix in the Forum?Answer: Boiorix, dressed in his father’s helmet and cloak, stands next to Marius, Sulla, and Ae-dui representatives on the speaker’s platform in the circular meeting area known as the Well of the Comitia. (236—237)

14. What warning does Catulus give the Roman people in his speech at the Forum?Answer: Catulus warns the Romans that their forefathers were not willing to be ruled by kings and follow the path that most of the nations of the world have walked. “It is on that path … that we must continue to walk if we are to remain great.” (238—239)

15. Why does Getorix leap from the column and run up the slope of the hill?Answer: Getorix sees Sulla’s gaze fall directly on his face. (240-241)

16. What does Getorix do when he realizes that the bull has veered and is heading straight for Lucius?Answer: Getorix tries to warn Lucius. Lucius freezes in his tracks and Getorix leaps into the bull’s path and throws himself against Lucius to push him out of the bull’s way. (244)

17. After he rescues Lucius, how does Getorix decide to fulfill his geis?Answer: Getorix decides to follow a geis of his own making. He vows to honor his father’s spirit by making the pilgrimage to return to their home and stand on that palisade as his father stood with him and make that leap. (248—249)

18. As Getorix tries to escape, what does Keltus do when Getorix runs into him ?Answer: Keltus presses his dagger into Getorix’s hand, says “The gods preserve you” (249), and elaborately falls blocking the way of Getorix’s pursuers.


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GEtorix: The Eagle and The BullDiscussion Questions: Evaluative and InterpretiveSection IV: Chapters XX—XXVI pages 193—249

1. In Chapter XX, Getorix has come full circle and finds himself at the Tullianum where his lone journey began. What has he learned from his experiences with the Romans? Name at least three things. What might someone learn from spending a month as a prisoner of war amoung people of our culture?

2. Getorix defies Lucius and rebels against Roman captivity; yet, he takes great risks to save Lucius whenever he is in danger. Why?

3. Boiorix and Getorix share similar backgrounds; yet, Boiorix eagerly volunteers to take Getorix’s place. Why?

4. Why can Getorix tell Boiorix exactly what to do to gain Sulla’s favor, yet not do it himself with Lutatius Catulus?

5. Throughout the novel, Getorix is drawn to Lucius.What do Lucius and Getorix have in com-mon that might serve as a basis for friendship?

6. On page 237, why does Getorix see Roman heads with staring eyes and open jaws and dark hair stiff with blood?

7. Lutatius Catulus speaks of the responsibilities of power. What message is Lutatius Catulus providing to today’s world leaders?

8. Why does Senias say to Getorix, “But you came for the sacrifice, did you not? … You have come all this way just for the sacrifice.” (242) What does he mean?

9. Why does Getorix have to believe he has fulfilled his geis before he can see the other choices that lay before him?


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More ActivitiesAcross the Novel

These activities can be used at any time -- as individual or group activities. They are in-tended to facilitate the novel study across the curriculum.

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Powerful Passages -- A View from The PagesPowerful Passages Activity: As you read the novel, look for different quotations that seem to speak to the reader. Choose quotations that make the reader stop and think due to the way they are writ-ten or what they say about the story and characters. Look for quotations that tend to capture the essence of the novel. They add depth and meaning to the story. They help the reader understand the bigger picture or the spirit of the novel.

1. Find at least five powerful passages. Put the five quotations in chronological order. Use quotation marks correctly. Be sure that you quote accurately.

2. Choose quotations throughout the book. Choose at least one from the beginning, one from the middle, and one from the end.

3. Put the page number in parentheses after the end quotation mark.

4. After each quotation, share why you chose this quotation and what it says to you.

Below are a few examples chosen by the authors:

The voices Getorix heard above were not the lowing of beasts or the moans of men in despair, but chattering and laughter familiar from around a thousand fires. “But these people are not free,” he whispered to the dark. “I am a free person—so I was born, and so I intend to die.” Getorix (62)

Getorix spat in the straw. “I will learn nothing from that Roman toad!”“Then you will be the poorer for it. The man who refuses to learn from his enemy remains a fool.” Keltus straightened up and stretched his back. “Let’s just say there’s much you can teach him … and we never teach but that we learn more about ourselves.” Getorix and Keltus (109)

It isn’t dying that takes the most courage, little one. It’s living with what the gods leave in your bowl.” Keltus (110)

“Why not? Things happen in war. Your father knew what could happen to one who challenged Rome. Great Jupiter! Even if he was the second Brennus, he knew the risks … Besides, no man is free. Every man is slave to something—a serving maid, his love of gold, his honor … That’s what the Stoics say, anyway. …” Lucius (150)

“… My father says the victors write the histories.”“I say it’s the other way around. Those who write histories give themselves the victories.” Lucius and Getorix (152)

“You mean I’m not invisible?” Getorix called down from the tree.Senias snorted. “No, just insignificant, as I am. No one looks at beggars or slaves unless we make trouble, and then it’s only to aim the lash.” Getorix and Senias (242)


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Character MonologueBecome a character, place, or item from GETORIX: The Eagle and The Bull.Can your classmates guess who you are from the clues you provide? Imagine that you are one of the characters, places, or items in Geary’s GETORIX: The Eagle and The Bull. Perform a monologue responding to how you feel about your part in the adven-ture or your impact on the story’s outcome.

The monologue will be an oral presentation in character performed before your classmates. You must use details from the book to add dimension to your character. Incorporate voice, dialect, attitude, and choices that this character would make. • The monologue should be 2-4 minutes. Practice and time yourself at home. • Notes may not be used unless they are incorporated into the character’s dress or props.• Costumes and props are required, but should be handmade and creatively suggest your character.• Remember your use of voice and body language are your most powerful tool in revealing character. Effective use of voice and body language are mandatory.• Your script and performance cannot reveal the name of your character to the audience.• Your voice, actions, and the events you encounter in your presentation should reveal who or what your character is.

When you have completed your presentation, the class will try to guess who or what you are. The details and voice you add to the presentation should make this an easy task for them.


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become An expert

The novel Getorix: The Eagle and The Bull introduces many details of Roman life that make interesting topics for further study. Find a passage in the novel that mentions something that interests you and explore it farther either alone or in a group. Arrange with your teacher to present your research to the class. You will likely want to use visual aides such as models, pictures or PowerPoint to make your presentation more interesting and exciting for the class. To make your presentation more interesting, you may want to take on a “persona”. You could become a modern archaeologist, a shoemaker or a priest in ancient Rome, or some other character.

A few examples:

Celtic Festivals• Chapters 17 &20 contain references to Samhain, or the Celtic New Year. Possible directions for research: 1) Samhain is one of the four celebrations marking the “turning points”of the year. Explore the names and customs of all four. 2) Research the customs of the Celtic celebrations (realizing we don’t have clear records back to the first century BCE) and compare them to our holiday customs from the same seasons. (Example: How does our Halloween celebration compare to what you can find of Samhain?)

Celtic & Roman Bathing Customs• In Chapter 1, Getorix muses that the Romans had not allowed them “a proper bath” in preparation for the sacrifice.• In several chapters, Getorix bathes in a basin, but in Chapter 16, Getorix is sent for “a real bath” in preparation to being presented to Catulus. There (in Chapter 17) he discovers that the Roman bath is different than what he is accustomed to. Possible directions for research: 1) Compare the “Roman bath” of this time period with how we bathe today and what we know of Celtic bathing customs.

Roman Festivals• Chapters 1-3 gives many of the customs surrounding the celebration of a Roman triumph.• Chapter 8 contains customs of the celebration of the Bona Dea.• Chapters 8 - 11, 12. 14, 15 &18 contain customs of Saturnalia.Possible directions for research: 1) Explore the celebration of Saturnalia. How do the customs compare with our celebration of Christmas?

Roman Footwear• In Chapter 1, Getorix notices many of the Romans are wearing crimson boots and wonders what they mean. Do the red boots “mark the ones who assist in the sacrifices?” • In Chapter 4, Selia and the other women are changing shoes in preparation for leaving the festival at the temple.• In Chapter 13, Lucius is wearing “soft leather shoes.”• In Chapter 17, Getorix finds in his cell “Real shoes, not a peasant’s wooden clogs or folded boots given to slaves ...”


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Possible directions for research: 1) Romans wore about as many types of footwear as we do. Explore the different types, and who might have worn them. 2) Choose one type of Roman footwear, perhaps caligae worn by legionaries or the simple “folded boots” that slaves or members of the lower class might wear, and make a reproduction to show to the class.

Roman Pottery• In Chapter 3, Pellia “carried a small pottery lamp in the shape of a fish.”• In Chapter 7, Keltus gives Getorix something to drink in a cup, “thin red pottery with designs pressed into its shiny surface and a chip in the lip to claim it for the slaves’ use.”Possible directions for research: 1) Research various types of Roman pottery and identify the kind that was described in Chapter 7. 2) Early people, including the Romans, used pottery and ceram-ics for many purposes. Explore the many things made of “pottery” at this time. (lamps, roof tiles, shipping containers – amphorae, cooking vessels, etc.)

Blueprint for Novel Study, by Sandra Horton, provides tools for teachers and students to ex-plore what inspires or intrigues each reader about a novel, its author, and the message it conveys. Presented with a focus on the interdisciplinary, the materials include rubrics, handouts, overheads, activities, and assessment tools to facilitate students in choosing an area of expertise to create a novel presentation as an independent study and self-directed task. Analyzing ideas allows students to see the act of reading and novel study as an active rather than a passive process.


section tWo

the historicAl erAnovel Activites

relAted to the lives of the people in

the romAn republic

dress like A romAn

eAt like A romAn

study like A romAn: educAtion, literAture & poetry

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Dress like a RomanWearing a tunic

The tunic was the universal basic garment in the time of the Roman Republic. Men wore them from mid-thigh to knee length, women to the ankle or the feet. Depending on the wearer’s gender, age, social class and activity – and the weath-er – the tunic might be worn simply belted at the waist, tied around with ribbon or chord to more closely follow the lines of the body, or under a toga or other outer garment. The tunic was made from two straight pieces of fabric, seamed up the sides and left open to form spaces for the arms. It might be sewn across the shoulders, or it might be left open and lapped and pinned. Romans of the time seem to have known how to make a set-in sleeve, at least judging from some of the statues and the fact that Julius Caesar was criticized for wearing long fringed sleeves. However, the common tunic only appeared to have a bit of a sleeve because it was the same width from top to bottom and had to be big enough to fit easily around the hips.


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Dress like a Roman

Only Roman citizens were allowed to wear a toga, “the draped robe that proclaims they never have to do anything useful,” in Getorix’s words. Even though it looks quite complex on statues, the toga itself was a single piece of fabric—it’s the draping that makes it complex. Various authors have speculated on the size and shape of the Roman Toga. Certainly it varied somewhat in fash-ion—both in size and the way it was draped – in the thou-sand years of Roman history, as it did with the wealth of the wearer and the occasion for which it was being worn. Toward the end of the Republic – the first century B.C.E. – the toga was likely worn mostly for more formal occasions, such as attendance in the Senate or religious ceremonies. It was certainly worn over a belted tunic, and likely over nothing else. Managing a toga, a tunic and a loincloth while relieving oneself at a public urinal would be one garment too many. Note also that it was considered a mark of shame for a woman to wear a toga. Not all togas were white. The basic toga, the toga viri-lis or toga pura, was unadorned off-white fabric the natural color of “white” wool. The toga candida was an artificially whitened toga worn by candidates for political office – to symbolize their purity, perhaps. The chalk used to whiten the fabric would glow a bit in the sun also – an early example of “managing” the candidate’s image. The toga picta was a purple toga embroidered with gold thread that was won by the victorious general during a triumph parade. The toga praetexta was an off-white toga with a crimson border worn by the higher orders of so-ciety. “Equestrians,” the upper middle-class, wore a tunic with a narrow crimson stripe from the right shoulder to the hem, and a toga bordered in crimson. Senators and members of the upper aristocracy wore a tunic and toga trimmed in a “wide” crimson stripe. (Unfortunately we have no documentation on the exact widths of the stripes.) A crimson-bordered toga could also be worn by citizen’s sons under 16 years old – to symbolize that each had the potential to be a leader, perhaps. Some authors insist that the toga was a half-circle. Others insist it was a somewhat distorted ellipse. Archaeologists have not found a preserved toga, so we must rely on what we can learn from statues, reliefs and paintings. Other pieces of Roman clothing have been found, however. It seems the Romans were not enthusiastic about hemming. Most garments show either raw edges or the selvage from the woven edge of the fabric. For that reason, it is at least possible the toga was a simple rectangular piece of fabric, woven in the final size.

Wearing a toga


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Making Your Own TogaBegin with a piece of fabric – a lightweight wool or acrylic with a soft drape will give the most authentic results – about double the length as width. Four to five yards of 60” wide fabric is a practical compromise. If you’re stuck with sheets, two twin-size sheets sewed end to end will suffice. Fold the fabric roughly lengthwise with one side (the side that will end up next to your body) showing a bit below the other. The folded piece of fab-ric should be wide enough that one edge almost touches the floor from just above your waist. This takes more than one person, but Romans who wore a togas likely had a slave, or several, to help.

I.Drape one end over your left shoulder so the end comes close to the hem of your tunic. You may slip

that end under your belt to help hold it in place.

II. The rest of the fabric goes across your back and under your right arm.

III. Go around your body one more time. When making the the first pass around the front of your body, make a

few pleats and tuck them into your belt to give you more room to walk.

IV. The remainder is thrown over your left shoulder and arm. Your right arm now has freedom of movement. However, your left hand can be used for very little except to grasp the edge of the piece of your toga next to your neck to hold the whole thing together.

“ cAsuAl” And “pArty” clothes

Roman men wore togas only on “formal” occasions, when meeting in the Senate, making speeches, or when representing the Roman government. At home, they wore tunics, sometimes with a robe for warmth. “Dining gowns,” or “dining robes” in bright colors, are referred to in letters and documents from the time, but without a clear description of how they were made. We may imagine that they were either a long tunic with sleeves added or an open robe, so that a brightly colored bathrobe in silk or a “silk-like” fabric may substitute for a banquet or party.

I

II

III

IV


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Women’s clothinG

Women wore the basic full length tunica with various designs of wrap. There was no specific formula for the designs of women’s clothing that indicated social class, so the quality of the fabric, jewelry and hair style were the cues. Women’s tunics were of two basic types, both adapted from Greek models -- the peplos and the chiton. Married women were “allowed” or ex-pected to wear the stola, which appears in statues to have been almost like a “jumper” worn over the basic tunica. The palla was a long rectangular shawl worn outside for warmth. The palla might be bordered or fringed. In Getorix, Brosch speaks of putting a special border on one she wove for Selia.

Make your own Peplos The peplos is merely a tunic long enough to reach from your shoulders to your feet with enough extra to fold over and make a “collar.” The fabric would have been linen, or perhaps cotton -- though cotton was imported from Egypt and was considered a luxury. Colors would include browns and greens, golden yellows, mauves and pinks.

1. Measure and cut your fabric. First, measure from your shoulders to your feet. Then, decide how much you want your “collar” to hang down. It can end above your waist or be longer -- to your hips. Add these two measure-ments together. You’ll need two strips of fabric this long. (The Romans don’t seem to have used “hems” as we do, but you can finish the ends of your tunic with narrow braid or bind it with stitches.) The width should be comfotably loose, so measure your hips, divide in half and add at least four inches. Your strips of fabric should be this wide.

2. Seam up the sides. The seams should extend only part of the way from the bottom to a point that will be just under your arm with the tunic in place. Leave the top open.

3. Pin the shoulders. Large “safety pins” or kilt pins work well. These fibula were sometimes gold and elaborately jew-eled, so here’s a place where you can add individualality to your outfit.

4. Add a belt. Your belt may be a simple cord at the waist, or you may wrap ribbon or braid from under the bustline to the waist, holding the peplos close to the body.

Drawing of fibula discovered in Medorf, Germany from the first century.


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mAke your oWn chiton

Greek styles were very popular in ancient Rome, and the chiton is an example. The effect is of a long sleeved robe with the seam from shoul-der to the end of the sleeve trimmed with buttons. Actually, the “buttons” were decorated pins, or fibulae. (See the previous page.) Fabrics and colors would be similar to a peplos.

1) Measure and cut. First, decide how long your “sleeves” should be. This will determine the width of your fabric (or vice versa.) Hold your arms out straight and have someone measure straight across your sholders from one elbow to the other or one wrist to the other. This is the width of your fabric. Then, measure from your shoulders to your feet. This is the length of your fabric. (Note that longer sleeves mean you will have more fullness in the body of your chiton. Therefore, you may wish to use lighter weight fabric with more “drape” for longer sleeves.)

2) Seam up the sides. Sew from the bot-tom to close to the top edge -- leaving enough of an opening to give you room

for the armhole.

3) Pin the top edge. Pin the top edge of your chiton togeth-er, leaving room for your head, spacing pins every four to six inches. You may use safety pins, decorative pins with a clasp, or make your own.

4. Add a belt. Your belt may be a simple cord at the waist, or you may wrap ribbon or braid from under the bustline to the waist.

Add a Palla

The palla was a simple rectangle of soft woolen fabric used as a shawl. It might be trimmed on the edges with braid or fringe. It might be draped across the body from the left shoul-der and under the right arm, leaving the right shoulder bare (like a toga),

or it might be pulled up to cover the shoulders and head for warmth. Your palla may be created from any afgan or shawl that gives the look you want.

*Diagrams used on these pages are from the VRoma project by Barbara McManus: http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/clothing2.html


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Drawings are from Costumes of the Greeks and Romans, by Thomas Hope, originally published in

finishinG touches

Shoes: Romans wore as great a variety of shoes as we do today – from sandals to boots to clogs. Certain types of shoes marked a particular type or person or their role – like the crimson boots of a senator, or the high-laced caligae of the legionary.

Whatever the style, shoes of this period appear to have had flat soles and to have been fastened with laces. A type of thong san-dal appears most often on women, perhaps decorated with coins or jewels. Shoes are not always necessary to be authentically Roman.” Shoes were removed (and the feet washed) before dining, and Ro-mans seem to have often gone barefoot in the house.

Hair styles: Men wore their hair cut short and were clean shaven (or, more likely, plucked their beards.) Later, during the empire, beards were sometimes in fashion. Women’s hair was long and generally worn pulled up or back. At times elaborate hair styles and wigs (particularly blond wigs) were in fashion. However, at the time Getorix is set, the hair styles were relatively simple – like the portrait of a woman found at Pompeii. (See hair styles below.)

Jewelry and ornaments: Fibulae, or brooches, were the most com-mon jewelry. Necklaces and earrings combined smooth round gemstones (rather than faceted stones), or lumps of colored glass and settings of gold, silver or copper. Orbs or hollow beads of gold and granulated, or tiny beads of gold were used as decoration. Pearls were highly prized. Notice that this woman (from an early Greek source) appears to be wearing earrings and a necklace of pendant drops from a chain or strand of beads., as well as decorated bands binding her hair.

Men of this period didn’t commonly wear much jewelry be-yond a ring on the index finger of the right hand. A simple iron band denoted citizenship, though the ring might also be made of

silver or gold. A signet ring might also be worn on that finger, with a design cut into a stone so that it could be used to make a distinctive impression in the sealing wax of a document.

Portriat of a woman from Pompeii


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eAt like A romAn

Staging an “authentic” Roman Banquet

During the Republic (509 B.C.E. into the first century B.C.E.) Roman foods and customs were relatively rational and conservative. We find none of the stories that have come down to us of the Empire and the Emperors feasting on larks’ tongues and throwing slaves into the pools to feed eels. We will be patterning our banquet after a family dinner party of about the turn of the first century B.C.E. We know something of Roman dining customs from wall paintings and the discoveries of archaeologists, as well as from letters that were preserved. Primarily, however, these are “best guesses.”

Setting the stage: Romans ate lying down at banquets, in what they considered the “Greek fashion.” A fully furnished triclinium (dining room) in an aristocratic household would have room for three dining couches arranged in an open “U” shape with the opening facing the doors to the atrium. Each couch would be about four feet wide and at least twice that long with a raised head on one end. Narrow tables served each couch. Only men reclined to eat; the women sat on straight chairs across the table on the inside of the “U”. Single beds or cots with a headboard would serve well as dining couches. Realize that the Romans would have lain three to a couch crosswise and side by side with their feet hanging off the back. The tables should be just lower than the height of the mattress. Long narrow coffee tables might serve, or a board across low supports. Straight wooden chairs with curved backs, similar to the common “bentwood” style are remarkably similar to what the Romans would have used.

Table settings: Bare tables (without table cloths) were the custom. However, each diner would have two napkins,

which he might have brought with him. As napkins with embroi-dered designs are mentioned in letters of the time as gifts brought back from Spain, the quality of one’s napkin might be point of pride. One napkin might be used at the diner’s place spread on the table, the other reserved for taking home leftovers. Bowls of water offered between courses served to clean the fingers. There were no forks and foods were served cut to bite-size, so knives were not likely used by the diners. Spoons were available


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of silver, bronze or bone for eating eggs and liquids, and had a pointed handle to extract snails or shellfish from their shells. Rather than plates

at each place, the individual foods were served in bowls or footed dishes and may have been intended to be shared between two or more diners. The dishes might be silver or bronze, or even gold, or they might be red pottery from Spain, patterned pottery from Greece, or a rather delicate black china designed to mimic the designs of silver. Wine was mixed with warm water or cool, flavored with honey or spices. A large two-handled vessel, sometimes called a “krater” was used for mixing the wine. It must have been then dipped out with a cup, as the filled krater is too heavy to ac-curately pour from and has no specific lip. An ice bucket of a similar design should serve well for a krater, with grape juice for wine. Carved rock crystal cups were not unknown, but glass blowing was not in-

vented until around 50 B.C.E. Handless cups of pottery, bronze or silver would certainly be more common.

The cast and crew:Roman banquets required many more “support personnel” than participants, the majority of whom were slaves, of course, but you can have volunteers stand in for some of these. Consider assigning roles by lot, without regard to gender, so that boys may be playing the role of girls and vice versa. Saturnalia was the major Roman festival in December with many cus-toms in common with our Christmas celebration. A notable one was a banquet in which the masters served the slaves. Including this custom at some point in your celebration could be a fun touch. You could stage the whole thing “straight,” then do “turnabout” and have those playing slaves take their places on the couches.

Costumes: Romans did not dine in their togas. “Dining robes” might be provided by the host or brought by the guests. Silk was not unknown at this period, though it was still uncommon, as was cotton. Soft wool would be more likely. Colorful bathrobes, in fleece or a silky fabric, worn over a tunic, will suffice. Men’s feet are bare unless the weather is chilly, then soft boots may be worn. Sheepskin slippers are a reasonable approximation. Women will wear their tunica. We’re supposing we all know each other, so a palla, the covering worn by respectable Roman matrons in public, is not necessary. Bright colors, particularly greens and mauves, and multiple layers of gauzy wool in different shades are authentic. Servants and slaves wear tunics. Simple off-white wool is likely most authentic, but distinc-tive fibulae (pins) at the shoulders or a bright belt might mark the ones of the host’s household. Servants’ feet are bare. Guests might also bring a personal servant to attend to their needs.


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The Menu: A Roman dinner party of the Republican Era would have at least three courses. The order will seem familiar: appetizers, main course, dessert. Accounts of the time record dinners where the dessert consisted of oysters, or creamy cheese, but fruit is just as authentic, and will likely be more appetiz-ing to modern diners.

The appetizer (gustatio):*Bread rolls (Recipes included)*A salad of baby lettuce and chopped leeks, dressed with a bit of olive oil and red wine vinegar*Tuna steak, broiled, served with chopped boiled eggs and rue leaves (Rue is available as a medicinal herb, but you may choose to leave it out.)*Assorted raw vegetables including celery, cucumbers and broccoli (though not the fat heads we’re familiar with today – more like broccoli rabe), with a cheese pate’ for dipping.

The main course (prima mensa):*Bread rolls*”Blackened” cabbage leaves roasted in olive oil and “served in the black dish” (Recipe included)*Pork sausage (broiled) served on top of buckwheat groats*Sweet and sour pork (Recipe included)*Rabbit with fruit sauce (Recipe included)

Dessert (secunda mensa): *Fresh fruit *Soft cheese, perhaps sweetened with honey*Cookies (crackers – perhaps with the cheese and a fruit spread)

The Script: In the novel, GETORIX: The Eagle and the Bull, Getorix faces the Romans twice during meals with very unsatisfactory results. Another passage describes a Saturnalia banquet. Use these scenes as prompts to write your own scenes.

Notable Customs and Entertainment:The most common customs were seldom mentioned because everyone took them for granted. Again, these are best guesses from comments by sources at the time. Women apparently drank only water at the table and left before any serious political discussions or entertainment began. It might be supposed that they retired to the sitting room of the hostess, perhaps for their own wine, dessert and entertainment, but we have to records to confirm that. Servants were silent while serving the meal. We might suppose that they communicated by hand signals or whispered before they entered the room. A pleasant expression was considered a virtue. (Writers of the time commented on a host’s “contented looking” slaves.) Entertainment might include music (from a recorder-like pipe or stringed instruments) and a dancing girl. However, a reading, either from one of the guests or a trained slave, would likely be more common. The passage read might be poetry or prose from a well-known writer of the time, or something new by the host or one of the guests. Educated men and women of the time wrote poetry and epigrams and might share their efforts at a dinner party. You may share epigrams from the activity in this package on “Education, Literature and Poetry,” or you may share what you’ve written yourself.


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romAn recipescompiled by Judith Geary

The limits of research: Our knowledge of Romans’ dieting habits comes from literary references, such as the letters Ro-mans wrote to each other; archeological evidence, such as the discoveries of carbonized foods in Pompeii and Herculanium; and paintings. The only true literary source devoted to Roman food was a cookbook attributed to Marcus Gavius Apicius, who wrote in the 1st century C.E., and un-fortunately, he doesn’t give quantities or instructions for preparation.

Bread and Grain:Romans baked on the hearth under a “baking brick,” or testum, which was a terra cotta dome much like a casserole. Some found by archaeologists have a number of small holes in the top. Cooks baked by piling hot coals around the testum, creating a mini-oven on the hearth. For your testum, you can use a large oven proof casserole or even a large shallow flower pot. The drainage hole in the flower pot will provide for air circulation. If your “baking brick” does not have holes, prop one side up about an inch. Baking in a hot oven using the “baking brick” will yield very good results. However, if you want to try it, and have the outdoor facilities, charcoal was the fuel used on Roman hearths. You an use a ceramic tile with a bit of olive oil and coarse ground buckwheat or barley to prevent sticking and oil the inside of your “baking brick.” Remember that butter is northern European in origin and wasn’t used in ancient Rome. All ancient flour was whole grain. As the Romans certainly knew, some grains yield softer, light-er results, others make for crusty bread. Some, like barley, don’t rise very much even when yeast is added. We know the reason is the amount and type of gluten in the flour. Whether the Romans had a name for it or not, they used different flours for different purposes, and mixed flours to get different results. Spelt was apparently considered more pure or holy than other grains because it was used to bake the bread for religious ceremonies and the pontifex maximus (chief priest) could eat only spelt rather than wheat. Barley is very low in gluten. Pure barley bread is flat and heavy with a dry crust and poor keep-ing qualities. Barley was considered a “lower class” grain, though its nutritional properties were apparently recognized as it was considered a basic food for gladiators. Wheat was the “standard” grain for bread flour, though the emer wheat that was common in the ancient world didn’t have the level or quality of gluten of the wheat we use for bread flour to-day. You may add a bit of olive oil if you like to recipes and use olive oil to grease bowls.


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Barley RollsThe recipe below is from The Classical Cookbook, by Andrew Dalb and Sally Grainger (1996) (The explanation is modified.)You may want to try substituting 100% whole wheat flour to get a crustier bread for “Etruscan pizza”.

Leaven:2 oz. (½ cup) barley flour1 teaspoon fresh or ½ teaspoon dried yeast.

Ancient leavening was a sourdough culture saved from one baking to the next. If you have access to such a resource, use it. To create your own yeast culture: dissolve the yeast in 1 tablespoon warm water and use to form a dough with 2 oz. barley flour. Knead the dough briefly, mold into a pat, cross it lightly and put a thumb print in the center. Pour 2 teaspoons of warn water into the inden-tation. Place in a glass dish with a lid and leave to ferment in a warm place for at least 24 hours.

Dough6 oz. (1 ½ cup) wholewheat flour6 oz. (1 ½ cup) barley flourleaven (from above)1 teaspoon salt.

Sift wholewheat and barley flour together, add salt and the leaven. Add enough warm water to form a dough. Knead well and allow to rest and rise in a bowl covered with an oiled cloth (or plastic wrap), in a warm place until it has doubled in size. Divide the dough into 12 pieces for rolls and mold them with your hands into smooth balls. Leave them to rise in a warm place, covered with a cloth. Heat the oven to 400 degrees and also heat a baking tray, or large ceramic tile and your “baking brick..” Brush the tray with a little olive oil and place the rolls in circles of 6, with the edges barely touching. Cover with “baking brick” and bake 15-20 minutes until lightly golden and hollow-sounding when tapped.

“Etruscan Pizza”This dish is actually more like what we call focaccia. Using small handfuls of the dough recipe above, or modified to 100% whole wheat flour, flatten into rounds and spread with olive oil, chopped onions, black and green olives, and cheese. You can use mozzarella, feta or any white cheese except cheddar.

dAiry – cheeses:Romans made and imported cheeses of many kinds, primarily from the milk of sheep and goats. Soft cheeses might be spiced and used as a pate or incorporated into what sounds surprisingly like a honey-flavored cheesecake. Cheese might be baked into a bread loaf to fortify it as food for hard-working laborers, slaves or soldiers. Butter was not used; it was a northern European, a Celtic product.


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Garlic and Herb Cheese Pate’ (serves 8)Four (4) garlic cloves (or more to taste), finely minced1 ½ stalks celery, finely minced1 small bunch coriander leaves, finely mincedSalt to tasteSoft cheese (Farmer cheese or pot cheese will work; feta gives a more savory, but drier, product.)

To be authentic, use a mortar and pestle to reduce your flavorings to a paste. Add the cheese and combine until smooth and creamy. You may also use a food processor. If you choose feta cheese, a bit of vinegar and oil may be necessary to make the pate’ soft enough to spread easily. Combine all ingredients and allow to rest at least 15 minutes, preferably several hours, before serving.

Fruits, Nuts & Vegetables:Fruits were eaten raw, cooked, dried and preserved. They were used as sweet-eners, added to breads dried or as jam-like paste and used in the cooking of meats. Common fruits included: apples, figs, grapes, melons, plums, pears, pomegranates and quinces. Oranges from Spain and cherries from China were perhaps known about at the beginning of the first century B.C.E., but were not commonly available. Berries were known, but do not appear in recipes or accounts of the time. Perhaps they were eaten by rural people. Nuts were eaten raw, roasted and honeyed. Available were: almonds, chestnuts, filberts, and walnuts. Vegetables were eaten boiled, roasted and as part of other dishes in-cluding soups. Many vegetables were available, either locally grown or im-ported. Available vegetables included: artichokes, asparagus, beans of several kinds, beets, broccoli, celery, cabbages, chickpeas, cucumbers, garlic, leeks, lentils, lettuces, mallow leaves, marrows, ol-ives, onions, parsnips, peas, pumpkins, radishes and turnips.

Roasted Cabbage “served in the black dish”We have no specific recipe for this dish, just a reference to it in a dinner invitation, but the follow-ing is consistent with the way Romans prepared foods.

Outer leaves of a head of cabbage, cut into bite-sized piecesOil single-serving sized dishes with olive oil and place a loose handful of cabbage pieces in eachDrizzle with a bit more olive oil and bake in a hot oven until the edges brown.

According to the dinner invitation, this would have been served hot enough to burn the fingers, but you might want to be careful of that.


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meAts:Meats were not part of every meal, or even every day’s fare for the Romans. However, recipes for meats are the recipes modern cooks may find most fascinating. Pork, smoked or incorporated into sausage, were relatively common as were fish, of many varieties.

Note: Garum and liquamen were very popular sauces (at least as popular as ketsup and “A1” are today.) From the descriptions, they were both based on cured fish parts and spices. Garum seems to have been the “heavier” sauce -- liquamen the “lighter.” Worcestershire sauce will suffice, as might some Asian sauces with cured fish stock bases.

These two recipes were adapted from Apicius, Cookbook.

Rabbit with Fruit Sauce:(Quantities may be adjusted according to the number of servings and to taste. Also, chicken thighs may be substituted for rabbit.) Cook the rabbit in wine, liquamen and water, with a little bit of mustard, anise and a whole leek. When the rabbit is done, prepare this sauce: pepper, savory, onion, dates, two damson plums, wine, liquamen (Worcestershire sauce), and caroenum (a reduced wine—you may use concentrat-ed, unsweetened grape juice) and a small amount of olive oil. Thicken with starch (flour) and allow the mixture to boil for a short time. (Cut the meat into bite-sized pieces.) Pour this fruit sauce over the rabbit in a serving dish.

Sweet and Sour Pork:Put in a pot olive oil, liquamen (Worcestershire sauce) and wine. Add a chopped, dried shallot and diced, cooked pork shoulder. Cook this mixture until well heated. Grind together pepper, cumin, dried mint, and anise. Add to this mixture: honey, liquimen, passum (Sweet cooking wine or raisin wine. You may use concentrated grape juice.), a little vinegar and juice from the meat mixture. Combine the spice mixture with the meat. Add fruit from which the pits and seeds have been removed (Plums, or prunes–which are dried plums, and a little extra water – should work nicely.), bring the mixture to a boil, and heat thoroughly. Crumble pastry (flour with olive oil cut in until resembles coarse meal.) over the mixture to bind it. Sprinkle with pepper and serve.


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“certified substitutes”prepared by Judith Geary,

Many schools now are requiring that foods used in the classroom be prepared in a certified or commercial kitchen. This limits the food preparation the children can participate in, but it need not limit your experience. Credible substitutes can be purchased at many grocery stores or delis. This is certainly not intended as an exhaustive list. I would love to hear from students or teachers who have found the treasure of an “authentic ancient Roman” food on grocers’ shelves.

FOODS TO AVOID: Remember that many foods we today think of as “Italian” were not available in the first century B.C.E. Identifying the origins of some of these foods could be an extra project.Corn (no polenta)Potatoes (no gnocchi)Tomatoes (no marinara)Refined, high-gluten flour (no pasta or “Italian” bread)Sugar, of the cane, beet. or corn syrup varieties (use all-fruit, like grape or apricot spreads, or honey for sweetening)

So, what did they eat that we would recognize to-day?

FOR THE FIRST COURSE, OR GUSTATIO:Salad: Baby greens simply dressed with oil and vinegar, makes an authentic first course. Include radishes, perhaps cut as flowers, and pickled mushrooms and cucumbers. Tuna, which is avail-able packaged, already marinated and grilled, on the grocery store aisle with canned tuna, can be included as a special treat if your budget allows (which would also have been true for the Romans.) Boiled eggs, either served by themselves or sliced and used as garnish for the tuna, should be in-cluded in your gustatio, as they were very popular.

PRIMA MENSA (FIRST TABLE):Meats: Sweet & Sour sauces (vinegar based & fruit sweetened) were popular on meats in pieces of a convenient size to pick up. (Remember, no tableware other than spoons.)

Chicken: Barbequed chicken in a vinegar-based sauce works well. “Rotisserie” chicken cut in convenient pieces is a great starting point -- then add vinegar-based barbeque sauce from a bottle. All-fruit grape or apricot spreads can add sweetness. Garum, which the ancient Romans used like we use catsup -- on everything -- is perhaps most similar to certain tangy Thai sauces with a “fer-mented fish” base. However, Worcestershire Sauce works well and is likely very close. (Check the ingredients label for confirmation.)

Pork: Pork was a popular meat, and sweet and sour pork would have seemed familiar to the up-per classes in ancient Rome. Prepared, microwaveable entrees from the Asian foods section of the


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grocery or carry-out from a Chinese restaurant will serve.

Breads: Whole-grain “artisan” breads made with wheat, barley and/or spelt will be true to the time. Barley was considered “rough” but very nutritious, fed to gladiators and legionaries; it was the bread of the common people. Spelt had a certain mystique. It was the only grain the high priest was allowed, but could be eaten by others as well. Wheat was considered the grain for the upper classes. So, read the labels and choose your bread according to whom you’re feeding. Foccacia (flat bread topped with olive oil and a variety of olives, onions, garlic and cheeses), is similar to a dish served from the open-air, corner tabernas. (Remember -- no tomatoes, not even the sun-dried variety.) Cheese: White cheeses in a number of varieties, both mild and sharp, would have been familiar to the Romans in ancient times. Creamy fresh cheeses are mentioned as part of their final course, our “dessert.” Many modern cream cheeses have a slightly gummy texture; the fresh creamy cheeses labeled as “hispanic” farmer cheeses are likely closer. Hard, or sharp, cheeses may have been more commonly used when traveling, when their “durability” was desirable. Modern mozzarella, provo-lone and ricotta cheeses will do nicely.

Vegetables and Fruits: The fruits and vegetables in the grocery store today are the products of many centuries of selective breeding and cross-pollination. Our transpor-tation system makes it possible for us to eat fresh foods from all over the world whenever we want. The Romans traded extensively in the quarter of the globe that was their “known world,” so they also ate a variety of foods, but trav-el times and preservation methods made for differences.

Apples: Smaller and less sweet than most grocery store va-rieties today. Those sold as “cooking apples” are likely closer to authentic.

Grapes: “Table grapes” -- translucent globes as big as your thumb -- are modern developments. Look for smaller, darker varieties with thicker skins if you want to be more authentic.

Plums and peaches: Though modern varieties are certainly larger, grocery store varieties are fine.

Figs, dates and raisins would have been familiar. If you can get them “really dried” rather than in vacuum-sealed packets, they’ll be more authentic.

Broccoli: Modern myths surrounding broccoli abound (including that it was “created” by cross-ing kale and cauliflower.) However, writers in ancient Rome mention broccoli, though “broccoli rabe” is more likely similar to what they ate.

Cabbage: Cabbage was a popular food for all classes. It was considered healthy, as well as nutri-tious, even a “digestive aide.” Cabbage was served raw, dressed with vinegar, or cooked, roasted or boiled. If you’re using a school cafeteria version, remember that a bit of vinegar and oil goes a long way in adding Roman flavor.


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Beans and chick peas: Chick peas were so common that dried ones were said to have been used as ship’s ballast. Various kinds of white beans (brown ones are more likely “new-world”), lupins and len-tils were preserved dried and cooked in water, much as they are today, or pickled in brine or vinegar.

Root vegetables: Parsnips, beets, carrots (though likely the varieties of carrots were white or purple rather than the orange ones of today),

SECUNDA MENSA (SECOND TABLE, OR DES-SERT)

Dessert: The final course in a Roman banquet might have included oysters or mild cheeses, as the Romans seemed more concerned with the texture than that it be something sweet. However, honey-sweetened baked cus-tards or “cheesecake” would have been familiar, and mod-ern versions will serve. Fruit, raw or stewed, might also be part of “dessert,” perhaps topped with custard as a sauce.

Sweets and snacks: Dried fruits like raisins, currents, figs and dates; olives, both black and green (Those pre-served in brine with the pits left in are much more authen-tic.); bread or rolls, cheese, and fresh fruit make great authentic snack foods. Nuts -- almonds, walnuts or hazelnuts -- raw or roasted without salt, are good. The closest thing to a “cookie” would be a cracker (“water biscuit”) with all-fruit spread over, perhaps, creamy cheese. (See the note above on cream cheese.)

Pastries: Roman bakers made elaborately formed yeast-raised breads and “cakes”. “Honey-buns” are perhaps most similar. An unsweetened swirl-shaped roll with honey drizzled over is closer to authentic than the packaged variety.

Sausages, some similar to bratwurst, were sold on the streets, much as “hot dogs” are today. A bit of parchment (paper) would serve to hold it rather than a bun.

Sources: This information comes from a wide variety of print and internet sources, both based in ancient accounts and in archaeology. Where the information from one source seemed surpris-ing, I’ve tried to validate it from several. Write me with questions, comments and challenges: [email protected]


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Add your own recipes andRoman foods


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study like A romAn:Education, Literature and Poetryby Judith Geary

Roman children in the first century B.C.E. might be taught by their parents, by a tutor (usu-ally an educated slave), or might attend a school. Schools were a single teacher and his students and generally met in a rented space, a room in a private home, a shop, or even a street corner. Classes started at dawn and might be over at noon, or continue after a break for lunch. Girls and boys, from the age of seven to 11, both attended classes in reading, writing, arith-metic and Greek. Secondary education for boys from 12 to 15 years included literature in Latin and Greek. From age 16 on, education for upper class boys focused on rhetoric, the art of persua-sive speaking. Girls from the age of twelve were assumed to be preparing for marriage, and lower class boys were working. Slaves and members of the lower classes were not assumed to be literate. From sources at the time, we believe that most people could read well enough to decipher the inscriptions on buildings and their ticket to the circus. The ability to read and write, especially in Greek, was considered a valu-able skill, and there were no barriers to their learning if they were able to find a teacher. Indeed, some households had a tutor for the slave children. We may also imagine that some of the classes, especially those held in the out-of-doors were being “audited” by the servants of the pupils and others within hearing. Books were expensive and rare as they were hand-copied one at a time. Scribes copied origi-nals or other copies in columns on sheets of papyrus, which were then glued together and rolled

onto spindles. A school was lucky to have a single copy of a work, and students memorized classic passages and made their own copies.

Students more often wrote on waxed tablets with a stylus. The tablet was constructed by pouring melted wax blackened with soot into a frame of wood or bronze. The stylus was used to scratch through the wax to the lighter wood underneath. The stylus had a rounded nub on the end to use to smooth the wax to erase mistakes or reuse the tablet again. The tablet might also be gently heated to smooth the wax for reuse. Even important documents were sometimes written on such tablets of several leaves and closed with cord and a wax seal.

Maybe you would like to try exercises like some Roman children had in their school.


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Write A romAn speech:Roman citizens of the upper classes were expected to participate in politics. The ability to write and deliver speeches effectively was an absolute requirement, as was the ability to argue effectively in court. Speech topics were divided into two broad categories. Suasoria were speeches intended to persuade someone to undertake a particular course of action. Controversiae were speeches in which one argued for one side of a point of law.

Try your hand at some actual school assignments from the Roman period.

Controversia: Seneca the Elder, Controversia 1.1The law states: children should support their parents, or be cast in prison.Two brothers quarrel among themselves. One has a son. The uncle falls on hard times. Although his father forbids him to do so, the young man supports his uncle; for this reason, his father disowns him. His uncle adopts him. His uncle receives an inheritance and becomes wealthy. His father falls on hard times. Although his uncle forbids him to do so, the young man supports him. The uncle disowns him.

Each student would be expected to argue either for or against the justice of the father’s and uncle’s actions. Remember, fathers expected absolute obedience from their children and could punish adult children even with death.

A Suasoria from Seneca the Elder, Sausoria 3:Agamemnon at Aulis has been warned by the prophet Calchas that it is against the will of the gods for him to set sail until he has slaughtered his daughter Iphigenia. Agamemnon deliberates: should he slaughter Iphigenia?

Each student would be expected to compose a speech urging Agamemnon either to slaughter or not to slaughter Iphigenia.

A Sausoria based on the novel, GETORIX: The Eagle and the BullIn the novel, Getorix’s father has charged him to face death honorably before the Romans. Getorix deliberates. Should he seek an honorable death at Roman hands, or should he seek to live honor-ably until death comes?

Each student would be expected to compose a speech urging Getorix to seek death or to seek to live honorably.


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literAture: Roman literature had a “moral” to the stories. They were intended to instruct about right action or warn against foolishness, often the dangers of angering the gods. Epigrams were a popular form of Roman literature, not just written by recognized philosophers, but by educated amateurs. These were witty sayings intended to express some kind of moral or logical truth, much the same as the sayings of Ben Franklin in our own country. Here are some examples of Roman epigrams:

Epigrams:

“Does it seem marvelous because it was done long ago?” – Livius Andronicus (280-204 B.C.E.)

“Daylight, water, sunlight, moonlight, darkness—for those thing I have to pay no money; ev-erything else we wish to use we purchase on Greek credit.” – Titus Maccius Plautus (255-184 B.C.E.)

“We mortals realize the value of blessings only when we have lost them.” – Titus Maccius Plautus (255-184 B.C.E.)

“On ancient ways and heroes stands the Roman state.” – Quintus Ennius (239-169 B.C.E)

“A friend in need is a friend indeed.” – Quintus Ennius (239-169 B.C.E)

“Whom men fear, they hate; whom a man hates he wishes dead.” – Quintus Ennius (239-169 B.C.E)

“Buy not what you can use, but what you cannot do without. What you do not need is dear at any price.” – Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 B.C.E.)

“Live as you can since you cannot live as you would.” – Caecilius Statius (219-166 B.C.E.)

“He plants trees to be useful to another generation.” – Caecilius Statius (219-166 B.C.E.)

“The law at its most rigorous is often injustice at its worst” – Publius Terentius Afer (185-159 B.C.E.)

“Nothing is ever said that has not been said before.” – Publius Terentius Afer (185-159 B.C.E.)

–Translations from Guterman, Norman. The Anchor Book of Latin Quotations, New York: Doubleday. (1966)

Make up your own epigrams about things that are important to remember in your life today.


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poetry:The ancient Romans were fond of playing with words and concepts. If we may consider that poetry, rhyming or not, is a form of literature that focuses on the form as well as the content, we can play with words in a way that echoes the Romans.

An acrostic is any poem whose lines’ first letters vertically form either the alphabet, the poet’s or a dedicatee’s name, or another related word.

Use your own name and compose an acrostic about yourself.

A diamante is a poetic form with a specific format. First choose two nouns that are related in some way. They can be opposites, like: day/night or good/bad. They can be related in another way, like: sea/shore, train/plane or home/family. Your diamante will be seven lines long. On line one, place your first noun; on line seven, the sec-ond. Then create this pattern:

Line one: Noun oneLine two: Two adjectives that relate to noun oneLine three: Three participles that relate to noun oneLine four: Four nouns. The first two relate to noun one, the second two to noun twoLine five: Three participles that relate to noun twoLine six: Two adjectives that relate to noun twoLine seven: Noun two

An example:

daybright, sunny

playing, eating, learningwarmth, activity, darkness, restsleeping, growing, dreaming

dark, starrynight

Now write your own diamante, using two contrasting nouns or related ones, perhaps one naming something from modern times, and the other a related thing from the time of the ancient Ro-mans.


section three:AdditionAl resources

Contents curriently include:

Map of the Republican Roman World Timeline of Getorix’s World

The Roman Constitution

The Roman Legion in The Republic (This essay includes the changes Marius made in the organization of the military that made The Empire possible.)

Republican Roman Construction

Roman Names

With more to come ...

These pages may be copied and distributed to the students

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TIME LINE – Apologia: This is not intended as a complete time line of Roman civilization, but a bare outline to put the events of the novel, GETORIX: The Eagle and The Bull, into its historical context. The early Roman calendar was imprecise – so imprecise that Gaius Julius Caesar under-took a major reform of it in the first century B.C.E. Even that calendar, though it was used in the western world for over fifteen hundred years, proved not entirely accurate. The dates given are based on the Gregorian calendar we use today, and are generally accepted –a least according to my survey of available literature.

753 B.C.E. Founding of Rome. (traditional) Romulus was the first king

625 B.C.E. Founding of Rome. (historical)

510 B.C.E. Founding of the Republic. Overthrow of King Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin the Proud) by a group of nobles led by Lucius Junius Brutus.

510 - 23 B.C.E.Roman Republic. Rome was ruled by elected leaders. Two consuls were elected each year, and they served as both civil leaders and military commanders. The Senate had the power to approve or overrule the Consuls’ civil decisions. Senate members were admitted by a combination of heredity nobility, wealth, and being elected to certain civil offices. During this time, the power of Rome grew until it influenced much of the world its people knew. But it was still ruled as a city, rather than the capital of a country.

387 B.C.E. Brennus’ invasion of Rome. At least two versions of the story exist. One says that Brennus, chieftan of the Celtic Senone tribe, laid siege to the Roman Citadel and was only persuaded to leave after collecting 1,000 pounds of gold. Another version adds the Roman general Camillus, recalled from exile to save the city, who arrived in time to defeat and kill Brennus. In the novel, GETORIX: The Eagle and The Bull, Lucius and Getorix argue over the details of the story.

120? - 101 B.C.E. Celtic migrations through Europe. One theory is that this migration of Celtic tribes from northern Europe and Scandinavia was triggered by climate change and flooding in the lands bordering the North Sea. Whatever the cause, thousands of men, women, children, wagons and cattle wandering through lands claimed by other Celtic peoples was a threat to those whose homelands were being “invaded” and to the influ ence of Rome. Roman legions faced the people they called the “Cimbri” or “Germans” several times in Europe, and the Celts either won the encounters or did so much damage to the legions that they could be said to have won.

107 B.C.E. First consulship of Gaius Marius. Marius was a “new man,” born in the farming town of Arpinum rather than Rome. He distinguished himself as an aide to consul and general Quintus Caecilius Metellus during military service in north Africa.

105 B.C.E. Battle of Aurasio. The “Cimbri” met two separate Roman armies (functioning separately because one commander felt the other was a “social inferior” and refused to work with him), crushed both, killing nearly 80,000 legionaries.

105 B.C.E. Second consulship of Gaius Marius. The Roman “constitution” (which was a col-lection of accepted laws and practices rather than a formal document like ours) required ten

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years between a man’s terms as consul. (Though he might serve as “proconsul” – one with consular powers – as a military commander or provincial governor, with senate approval.) The threat of invasion by the Cimbri persuaded the Senate to make an exception – and they continued to make exceptions for Marius.

103 -101B.C.E.Third, fourth and fifth terms of Gaius Marius as consul.

102 B.C.E. Battle of Aquae Sextiae. The “invading” Celtic tribes had split into two groups. One moved west and followed the Alps south into Italy. Marius’ legions met them at Aquae Sextiae and defeated them utterly. The survivors were sold as slaves. In the novel, GETORIX: The Eagle and The Bull, Brosch and her brothers are survivors of this battle. She tells Getorix the Celtic version of Marius’ trickery that led to his victory.

101 B.C.E. Late summer. Battle of Vercellae. Proconsul Quintus Lutatius Catulus, Marius’ colleague the previous year, was officially the general at this battle. However, Marius had disposed of the spoils and survivors of the Battle of Aquae Sextiae quickly and joined his forces with Catulus.

101 B.C.E. December 1. Roman triumph celebrating the victories over the “Cimbri and Germans.” History tells us that Marius proposed the “co-triumph” because he had disposed of the spoils of his victory at Aquae Sextiae and needed that captured by Catulus’ legions to put on a good show. The people of Rome hailed Marius as “savior of Rome” and gave him the lion’s share of the credit for both victories. This triumph celebration frames the opening scene of the novel, GETORIX: The Eagle and The Bull. The leader of the Cimbri, Boiorix, was killed in the final battle. However, someone would have been chosen to serve as his symbol, to receive the abuse of the Roman crowds, and the names Claodicos and Getorix appear in the record as tribal leaders. The novel’s action takes place in the next month, climaxing at the celebration of the New Year.

100 B.C.E. Marius’ sixth consulship.

100 B.C.E. Birth of Gaius Julius Caesar (to become “Caesar the Dictator”)

90-88 B.C.E. “Social Wars.” Rebellion of Rome’s Itallian “allies” against Roman policy of de manding military support without recognizing the allies as equals.

86 B.C.E. Gaius Marius’ seventh term as consul and his death.

73-71 B.C.E. “Slave Wars” – Rebellion led by Spartacus

59-54 B.C.E. First triumvirate of Julius Caesar, Pompey and Crassus.

58-50 B.C.E. “Caesar’s Gallic Wars”

44 B.C.E. Julius Caesar assassinated

27 B.C.E. End of the Republic. Beginning of the Empire. After a period of civil war, Octa vian, Julius Caesar’s great nephew and adopted heir was recognized as Augustus Caesar.

306 - 337 C.E. Reign of Emperor Constantine. Christianity was adopted as the official state religion, and the imperial capital moved from Rome to Constantinople.

410 C.E. Alaric the Goth sacks Rome.

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the constitution of the romAn republicby Judith Geary

What is often called the “Constitution” of the Roman Republic is actually a description by Polybius of the Roman government at the time of the Second Punic War (146 B.C.E.) In his account, Polybius describes the three divisions of the Roman government and compares them to governments considered aristocratic, democratic or monarchial.

The consuls he compares to a king. When in Rome, the consuls are in charge of all public affairs and are over all other public officials with the exception of the tribunes. The consuls introduce foreign am-bassadors to the Senate, introduce urgent matters to the Senate and bring about the implementation of its decrees. They summon the as-semblies, introduce measures requiring a vote and implement their decisions. They disperse public funds. As military generals, they enjoy nearly absolute authority. They can make demands of the allies (for supporting troops), appoint military officers, and choose those fit for service. In the field, they have authority to punish any under their command as they wish. The Senate’s power stems primarily from its control over the trea-sury, all revenues and expenditures; the only exception being in the case of the consuls (see above.) Included is the power to allocate money for the censors’ allotment, every five years, for the repair and construction of public works. The public investigation of major crimes -- treason, conspiracy, poisoning, assassination -- fall under the jurisdiction of the Senate, as does legal settlement of civil disputes in any of the provinces

of Italy. The Senate deals with foreign policy: declares war, ratifies a truce, imposes duties, requests aid, receives embassies from foreign powers and votes how to deal with them. The Senate is com-posed of members of the aristocracy, Polybius makes the point that to those observing from other countries, the Roman government would appear to be aristocratic in nature. The people, acting in their assemblies and through their representatives, the tribunes, also exercise considerable power. (Note that “the people” means male citizens.) The people have juris-diction over awards and punishments. The people alone pass judgment in capital cases (where the punishment is death), except in the case of an army in the field. The people often pass judgment whenever a substantial penalty is involved, even if it is merely a financial penalty, especially if the accused has held high office. Even the consuls answer to the people at the end of their term of office. They have authority over ratifying laws and over decisions of war and peace. That is, their representatives can veto decisions of the Senate and other assemblies. In this way, theRoman government has the character of a democracy.


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Polybius then goes on to explain how the three branches of government can work together or against each other–-their balance of power. Consuls in the field may have absolute imperium, but it does them little good if the Senate does not appropriate funds to support their military operations. In addi-tion, the Senate has the authority to replace the consul as general at the end of his one-year term of office or to extend their command until the end of the campaign. It has the power to celebrate the consul’s victory through a triumph, or to refuse such recognition. The people have the power to ratify truces and other treaties, and to pass judgment on the consuls when their term of office is over. Therefore, even the consuls dare not slight the Senate or the good will of the people. Similarly, the people are obligated to the Senate because of its authority over public works and private matters. Practically everyone has some interest in the contracts let by the censors. The revenues from the administration of the rivers, harbors, gardens, mines, public land; the contracts for the construction and repair of the public works throughout Italy – all of that is under control of the Roman Senate. The Senate has authority to grant extensions, and in the case of an unforseen catastrophe, can lessen the contractor’s liability or release him from his contract. Therefore, the Senate can either benefit or harm anyone involved in public works. The Senate is also the body from which judges are appointed in most public and private law suits that concern charges of any weight. As a result, the people take care with regard to obstructing or opposing the wishes of the Senate, as they are dependent on its goodwill and assis-tance. Similarly, the people respect the wishes of the consuls as all citizens fall under their authority when serving in the military. So it is, Polybius tells the reader, that it is impossible to find a constitution of government that is better constructed. In unison, they are a match for any and all emergencies. “The result is that their unique form of constitution comes to be uncon-querable and successfully achieves every goal upon which it resolves.”

Note: The rules for the specifics of authority and practice were subjects of considerable debate and contention over time as might be expected in a government acting under an unwritten constitution. The composition of the law courts–-whether judges and juries were drawn from the Senate or the plebeian assemblies—is an example of practice that varied considerably over time. Some sources state the rule that a man could not succeed himself in the consulship, nor hold the office more than three times in his lifetime. Certainly, Gaius Marius broke this “rule,” holding the consulship five times in succession and a total of seven in his lifetime. Several of the strong men who followed him into power also held multiple consulships. This was seen at the time, by some, as a dangerous trend toward monarchy. Gaius Julius Caesar was in the midst of his fifth term when he was assassinated in 44 B.C.E.

Bibliography: Polybius 6.11-18. translation by John Porter, University of Saskatchewan, 1995. accessed on http://duke.usask.ca/~porterj/DeptTransis/Polybius.html. 3/29/05. See this link for the complete text of Polybius.


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the romAn militAry in the republicby Judith Geary

For most of the time of the Roman Republic (509 B.C.E. - mid 1st c B.C.E.), until the time of Marius, the Roman military consisted of citizen militia. The changes that Marius instituted over the course of his seven terms as consul created the professional fighting force that made the later Empire possible. At the time the novel, GETORIX: The Eagle and The Bull is set (101 BCE in the after-math of the Battle of Vercellae), these changes were in progress. In the Republic, soldiers provided their own equipment and support per-sonnel. Membership in the different divisions was based on the ability to provide the necessary equipment, which directly translated into social class as determined by the censors. One premise for this system was that those with land and wealth had more to lose and, therefore, more to protect. Since the legionaries were all Roman land owners, with their own commitments to their families and tribes, loyalty to the state was what held them together. Military obligation for all male citizens began in the summer of their seventeenth year and continued for ten to twenty years depending on conditions set by the Senate at the time.

Organizing the legions:Polybius, who wrote at the time of the Second Punic War (146 B.C.E.) described the organization of the legions and their equipment in Book Six of his History. This description is derived from his. Note that the military would be completely reorganized each January, because new consuls were elected each year. As soon as the consuls were declared, twenty-four tribunes were appointed. These tribunes served as military commanders, and were divided among four legions. At the time Polybius wrote,

every (male) citizen was obliged to serve either ten years in the cavalry or sixteen in the infantry. (Note: Service in the cavalry was based on being a member of the “Equestrian” or upper-middle class.) Excepted were those with income below a certain level, who were “all reserved for the service of the sea,” so they were in the navy. No citizen was permitted by the laws to run for any magistracy before he had served in ten campaigns. (Note: “Campaigns” may be assumed to mean years in terms of the military commitment. However there is some indica-tion that in order to seek office, citizens were expected to see “action” in at least some of those campaigns.) Polybius wrote that all the citizens were assembled in the Capital (The Capitoline Hill rather than on the Campus Martius.) The tri-bunes were divided into four groups, representing four legions. The tribunes then took turns drawing by lots until all of the available sol-diers were divided equally into four legions of between 4,200 and 5,000 men. The legionaries each swore an oath, “that he will be obedi-


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ent to his commanders, and execute all the orders that he shall receive from them to the utmost of his power.” Presumably, those not chosen by lot to fill the legions were free from service for that year. At this point, three hundred cavalry were added to each legion. Polybius said that at the time of his writing the cavalry had been previously enrolled by the censors. At about the same time, the magistrates sent word to the allied cities of Italy giving them the number of auxiliary troops required. They raised their legions in a similar manner and sent them to Rome “attended by a paymaster and a general.”

The divisions of the legion and their weapons:Each legion was organized into four bodies, differing primarily in the way they were armed. Polybius said, “those that are youngest, and of the lowest condition, are set apart for the light-armed troops. From the next above these in age are selected the hastati; from those that are in full strength and vigor, the principes; and the oldest of all that are enrolled are the triarii.” The light-armed troops were armed with a sword, light javelins, and a buck-ler (shield.) The buckler was circular and about three feet in diameter. “They wear upon their heads some simple sort of covering; such as the skin of a wolf, or some-thing of a similar kind; which serves both for their defense, and to point out also to the commanders those particular soldiers that are distinguished either by their bravery or want of courage in the time of action.” The wood of the javelins was two cubits long, and of the thickness of a finger, the iron part a span in length, “and is drawn out to such a slen-der fineness towards the point, that it never fails to be bent in the very first discharge, so that the

enemy cannot throw it back again.” (A cubit was the distance from the elbow to the end of the middle finger. A span the distance from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger when the hand is extended, but likely were stan-dardized at about 18-20 inches for a cubit and nine inches for a span.)

Marius discontinued the lightest armed divisions, and convinced the Senate to provide weapons and armor for all legionaries equal to the “middle-weight” armament of the hastati.

The hastati were “ordered to furnish themselves with a complete suit of armor.” (Before Marius’ reforms.) This consisted of a shield, a sword, two javelins, a helmet made of brass and boots. Beside these arms, the soldiers in general wore a square brass plate called “the guard of the heart.” Those who could afford it wore a coat of mail instead. The hastati shield was described as two and a half by four feet (4’4” for “those of the larg-est size.”) It was convex, constructed of planks covered with linen, then calves’ skin. It was bound with iron on the upper and lower edges “to secure it against the strokes of swords, as that it may be rested also upon the ground without receiving any injury.” It was also fitted with a cover of iron, “to turn aside the more violent strokes of stones, or spears, or any other ponderous weapon.”

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The sword, called the “Spanish sword,” or gladus, was designed to both “to push with at the point, and to make a falling stroke with either edge.” It was about 28-30 inches long. The javelins were of two kinds, one heavier weight, and the other light. Polybius reported, “Upon the helmet is worn an ornament of three upright feathers, either red or black, of about a cubit in height; which being fixed upon the very top of the head, and added to their other arms, make the troops seem to be of double size, and gives them an appearance which is both beautiful and terrible. The

principes and the triarii are armed in the same manner likewise as the hastati; except only that the triarii carry pikes instead of javelins.” The distinction between pikes and javelins seems to be that javelins were intended for throwing and pikes more for jabbing at close quarters. The precise de-signs varied as more effective designs were developed or copied from other armies.

The Cavalry In describing the armament of the cavalry, Polybius compares it to the Greeks. He states that “in ancient times,” the Roman cavalry was not armored at all, wearing only an “undergarment” in order to be more agile, with a light oxhide shield and spears that were so light and flexible that they were often “shaken to pieces by the motion of the horse.” In more recent times, however, the Romans had adopted the Greek shield and spear. The shield was round, “strong in texture” and “serviceable for both attack and for de-fense.” The spear was “firm and stable,” and weighted with iron on the butt end which made it useful as a club. “For the Romans, above all other people, are excellent in admitting foreign customs that are preferable to their own.” According to Plutarch, “When Marius fought against the Cimbri, he ordered that of the two nails or pins (pero/nai) by which the head was fastened to the staff, one should be of iron and the other of wood. The consequence was, that, when the pilum struck the shields of the enemy, the wooden nail broke, and as the iron head was thus bent, the spear, owing to the twist in the metal part, still held to the shield and so dragged along the ground.”

The officers:The presiding consuls served as generals in the army. Each was assigned two legions, and their au-thority was absolute over their own legions. This worked fine when one consul took his army south and the other north. However, problems arose when the two consuls had to operate against the same enemy, such as they did against Hannibal in the second Punic War, or as Marius and Lutatius Catulus were forced to in the wars against the “Cimbri.” The tribunes served at various levels and competent soldiers were chosen from the ranks to supervise bodies of legionaries as small as ten men. The basic unit, or company, consisted of 80 - 100 men, and was commanded by a centurion. While the higher officers, from the consuls to the tribunes, might be nobles who gained their rank from their social class, the centurians rose from the ranks due to their competence. The consuls as generals, and later the emperors, wore a type of armor called a “muscle


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cuirass,” of bronze, iron or hardened leather. It was molded to resemble an idealized male torso. Leather straps, often with metal studs formed a kind of “skirt” beneath the cuirass and sometimes from the arm openings. The centurions were distinguished by the fact that the crest on their helmet was crosswise, rather than from the forehead to the back of the head, and they wore greaves, or shin protectors. Also chosen from the ranks, Polybius said, “two of the bravest and most vigorous among the soldiers are appointed by the captains to carry the standards of the company. “

Marius Reforms the Legions:Gaius Marius was a “new man” who came to power by distinguishing him-self in military service in Numidia, in north Africa. He was elected consul in 107 B.C.E., and subsequently appointed commander of those legions. The legion was in the midst of a manpower crisis due to losses in foreign wars, and Marius rose to that challenge. “Invasions” of a confederacy of Celtic, Germanic Cimbri and Teu-ton tribes through Europe had drawn opposition from Roman legions. Those legions had been defeated in every engagement, with serious losses. Prior to Marius’ election, Rome recruited its main legionary forces from the landowning classes, from men who could equip themselves and who supposedly had the most to lose in the case of Roman defeat. This landowning “middle class” had dwindled, both from losses in war and due to wealthy elite buying up struggling farms. These large landowners then farmed vast acreage with imported slave labor. By the time Marius came to power, there simply weren’t enough landowners available to field a new army. From necessity and with the reluctant approval of the Roman Senate, Marius instituted

reforms in the military structure that might well have made the subsequent Empire possible. He offered the capite cens, the “head count” or urban poor. employment as a professional army, with retirement benefits, such as land in the conquered territories. Legionaries traditionally shared in the spoils of conquests and with this added incentive, the masses flock to join Marius’ reformed legions. Recruiting the masses changed the entire relationship between citizens, generals, the Senate and Roman military ideology. Traditionally, the legion-aries may have been loyal to their general, but at least theoretically they were fighting for the survival of the state, or the expansion of their own lands. Be-sides gaining an army, Marius gained the extreme personal loyalty of the Ro-man head count. Under the new system, soldiers fought for their command-ers and for glory and gain. They had nothing to return to in Rome, often coming from the poorest of the poor, so they became full-time professional soldiers, serving 20 to 25 years. Providing they survived, they then settled in the lands they helped conquer, often with families already in place from their years in service. This extreme loyalty to generals rather than state, would ultimately lead to civil war, military political power and even the crowning of emperors.


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Marius’ Reforms to Legion Structure and Formations:Marius also instituted reforms to the structure of the legion itself. He elimi-nated the maniple structure, in which legionary units used different weap-ons and served different purposes tactically, essentially based on the class of citizen they were recruited from. Each soldier in the maniple system provided his own gear and armor, resulting in wide ranges in quality and completeness. Marius supplied his new army’s gear through the resources of the state and his own vast wealth. Under the new system all recruits were uniformly equipped through the state treasury or their recruiting general. The cohort replaced the mantiple as the basic legionary unit. Each soldier was equipped the same and assigned to one of six centuries of 80 men,

making up the cohort unit. Ten cohorts of 480 men made up a legion. The legion was a single large, cohesive unit with interchangeable parts, capable of tactical flexibility not available with the fragmented structure of the maniple. Traditionally, officers were chosen by political appointments and promotions bases on so-cial status. Under the new system officers were recruited from within the ranks on a regular basis. While such political appointments would still occur, the common soldier was now allowed a way of advancing based on merit. This improved the leadership of the legion in fact, and the morale of the soldiers, as they could now believe their officers were capable leaders, not merely favorites of the Roman Senators. In addition to standardizing the soldiers’ gear, Marius made signifi-cant changes to the pilum, the legionary spear. The iron head was attached to the shaft with one metal nail and one wooden peg so that it would likely break on impact. That way, it couldn’t be thrown back by the enemy. Marius also changed the way legionary baggage was transported. Instead of long, cumbersome baggage trains of wagons loaded with sup-plies and servants, “Marius’ Mules” carried their own gear – weapons, ar-mor, food, tents, supplies and tools – swinging from a forked stick over their shoulders. Finally, the legionary standard – the gathering point for the legionar-ies and the symbol of their pride and their honor – was standardized. Instead of the eagle, wolf, minotaur, horse and boar, all legionaries now fought under the symbol of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, “under the Eagle.”

BibliographySmith, William D.C.L., LL.D.: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. John Murray, London, 1875. Accessed 4/11/05 on website: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Warfare/home*. html, Bill Thayer April, 2005.Much of the information on Marius’ reforms was derived from the following website: UNRV History: http://www.unrv.com/empire/marius-reforms-legions.php


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buidinG construction in republicAn romeby Judith Geary

“I found Rome a city of mud bricks, and left her clothed in marble.” Perhaps the report of Augus-tus” (33 B.C.E. - 14 C.E.) boast is accurate, but the Roman ruins and the remaining structures we see today are not like the enduring mud-brick pueblos of the Navajo Indians, nor are they often marble, if they are as old as the Republic. What happened to those marble buildings? What were Roman build-ings really like before the Empire? Temples and public buildings from the Republic and the early Empire, aside from those that have been incorporated into Christian churches and so

preserved, are often identified by only a column or two. Others are masses of crumbling stone blocks, like a giant’s building blocks, their featureless faces mysteriously pockmarked. What hap-pened to them? And what of the thousands of other structures that were home to the early Ro-mans? Augustus’ reign is called “the principate” and marks the juncture of the Roman Republic and the Empire, so we’re looking for what buildings were like at that time. Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, who served as an engineer with Augustus’ great-uncle Julius Caesar, wrote a treatise on architecture during the principiate. Vitruvius quoted earlier authors and defined his ideal in archi-tecture and building, though most buildings of the time fail to meet his standards. Vitruvius’ work and modern archaeological discoveries give us a starting place for our search. Early Roman houses were huts, of course, much like primitive people’s everywhere. Tour-ists to the city of Rome in the time of the Republic were shown a round hut made of branches which was supposed to be the home of Rome’s founder, Romulus. Modern archaeological excava-tions have revealed foundations of similar huts dating to the eighth century B.C.E., so it’s possible

they were correct. What is generally considered the typical Roman house, or domus, was a plan adopted from the Etrus-cans, the people who dominated central Italy before the Romans. The Etruscans may have received elements of their style from Greece and Mesopotamia, or they may have developed it independently. The house of a wealthy man might consist of a dozen or so rooms ar-ranged around a partially roofed court, one or two stories high,

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called an atrium. A rectangular opening in the center of the atrium roof was positioned over a pool, the implu-vium, and surrounded by a peaked roof covered with terra cotta tiles. The arrangement allowed rainwater to be collected for household use, as well as providing a pleasant interior space. Water was vital to the lifestyle of the Romans, as witnessed by the aquaeducts that re-main from the time. House walls were plastered and painted with decorative panels, scenes from mythology or from daily life. Exteriors, and walls of the less wealthy, might be bright solid colors – often an ocher yellow – or marked and painted to resemble stone. Columns of stone, wood, or intricately shaped bricks, plastered and painted to look like stone, supported the roof. The roof beams were generally of wood, though stone might be used as well for short spans. Both Etruscans and Romans used the

arch and the vault, though the possibilities opened up by arch construction were not fully ex-plored until later. Wealthy homes might also boast an interior garden, the peristyle garden, centered by a fountain and surrounded by a col-onnade, columns supporting the roof of a covered walkway. Lead gut-ters and pipes channeled rainwater from the roof into storage for the household. Terra cotta, the familiar baked red clay of modern flower pots, was used extensively by the Etruscans for roof tiles, column capitals, decorative friezes around the tops of buildings, statues, pots and oth-er household uses. The Romans preferred stone or marble for most structural and decorative uses, copying the Greeks, but must have appreciated the way terra cotta remains impervious to weather – un-like the soft volcanic stone of the area around Rome – and continue to use it for roof tiles to this day. Roman roofs were made of overlap-

ping tiles: tegulae, flat, basically rectangular ones with flanges along the sides, and imbrices, half-tubes to cap the space over the flanges. Fittings for the corners and edges of the roof, to direct rainwater and for decoration, were also of terra cotta, often molded as fantastic or grotesque faces. Doors and window shutters from Republican Rome were generally of wood, though they might be reinforced with iron. Ironwork gates and grills provid-ed security. Evidence of paneled and louvered designs similar to what we use today have been discovered in Pompeii. A noticeable difference was in placement. The Roman domus opened inward. The front entrance was


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often the only entrance to the house, although there might be +an additional service gate to a back alley. Wide doorways with draperies and folding doors of louvered panels opened the dining rooms and other public areas to the atrium or peristyle garden. No windows opened onto the street at all. The closest thing to a modern window in urban houses was an occasional opening, often covered by a grillwork of wood or iron, probably just to let in light. Windows might also be covered with translucent materials such as oiled sheepskin or thin sheets of mica or gypsum. By the time of Augustus, the Phoenicians had learned to blow glass, and to create sheets of it clear enough for windows. The Romans, true to their common practice of adopting anything from other cultures that made for a better quality of life, soon were adding glazed windows to their houses. The urban domus might include shops opening onto the street. Ruins show channels in the door frames and sills of these shops that apparently held the ends of a door that may have pulled down something like the cover of a roll-top desk or a modern garage door. These were surely made of wooden boards, but historians don’t know how they were held together – with canvas, leather, or iron rings, perhaps. Multi-story apartment houses, insulae or “islands,” were home to urban Romans who couldn’t afford their own domus. The ground floor was generally set aside for shops or other com-mercial use. The next floors might have two or four “luxury” apartments, with the density increas-ing and the apartment size decreasing on upper floors. Before the days of elevators, there was no such thing as a “penthouse.” We don’t know the height of the tallest Roman insula, but Augustus limited the height of insulae in Rome to 70 ft. and a later emperor to 60, so seven or eight stories may have been relatively common. Writers of the Republican period complained of the dangers to inhabitants of the insulae, that the buidings often burned or collapsed, killing those who lived there. The remains discovered seem to be of sturdy, well-constructed buildings, but that may be

because the worst ones had all been re-placed in ancient times. If we visited one of these ancient apartment houses, in addition to the obvious differences, like no electricity and no bathrooms on upper floors, we might notice the lack of hallways. A great deal of space was used up by mul-tiple stairways serving only apartments directly above one another. The rooms within an apartment opened directly into each other, so that if there were multiple bedrooms one might have to walk through one to get to another. The walls of buildings in the an-cient Mediterranean world were gener-ally brick or masonry rather than wood. They were thick by modern standards,


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often one and a half to two feet in buildings of only two stories, and thicker in proportion for taller buildings. Modern buildings, even those that appear to be of stone, are supported by frameworks of steel if they reach great heights. The Washington Monument, in Washington D.C., is the tallest modern building constructed entirely of stone and its walls are 15 ft. thick at the base to support its 555.5 ft. height. The Greeks built their walls of stone blocks cut and trimmed into equal rectangles. The wall looked much like a modern brick wall built with the joints between the bricks alternating in each layer. Greek walls were two blocks thick, with occasional blocks or courses laid crosswise to bind the two rows together. Romans sometimes built in this “Greek fashion,” called opus quadratum. For buildings of heroic size the Romans sometimes built with huge blocks of volcanic tufa. Tufa is relatively porous and lightweight for stone, but the blocks still weighed many tons. Early builders may have used ramps of sand or earth, as is speculated for the Egyptians. But Vitruvius describes several machines for lifting and placing stones of great weight, ropes and pul-leys supported by cranes and frames of poles. Rather than use lime mortar, which dried out and cracked when used with porous stone, the Romans precisely cut and fit the stones together and held them together with clamps of bronze or iron. Today we see these walls as massive pockmarked ruins, their “clothing” of marble and metal clamps pillaged by the builders of the Renaissance, who used the ancient buildings of Rome as their “quarry.” Instead of a solid wall of bricks or stone blocks, a Roman wall more often had facings of brick or stone, a cavity in the center filled with rubble and mortar or packed clay, and a coating of plaster. Roman bricks were large and flat by modern standards, approximately eight by eighteen by one and one-half inches. Common brick was mud-brick, and even if it was cured the recom-mended two years before being used, it was sensitive to moisture and weathering. This, and the fact that the stone available around Rome was a relatively soft material, volcanic tufa or limestone, surely led to the practice of plastering walls inside and out. Fired, or “burnt” brick was also used for construction, as was recycled terra cotta roof tile. Vitruvius reports that only burnt brick could be used for new construction of insulae in Rome during his time, as common brick, or mud brick, walls needed to be thicker than regulations allowed. Perhaps that is why the ruins of the relatively newer insulae at Ostia survived into modern times. Stone walls or facings might also be made of trimmed rectangular stones of irregular sizes, opus incertum. The stones could not be laid in straight courses, but when carefully fitted together with some stones extending deep into the wall or even through to the other side, this pattern made for a very strong wall. These patterns of construction depended on lime mortar to hold the ele-ments together. Ruins often reveal that stone or brick was precisely laid at a building’s front, corners and around doorways, and less regularly at the back and the walls between. Sometimes these “impor-tant” places were cut stone and the walls between of some other material, mud bricks or mortar and rubble. Vitruvius reports that “basketwork,” lath or cane woven together and covered with mortar or plaster, might be used by the poor or for interior walls, particularly on upper stories. This construction was neither moisture resistant nor fireproof, but it was lightweight, cheap and quickly


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built. Of course, these walls have not survived. About the third century B.C.E., Roman builders discovered that volcanic ash, when added to lime mortar, made a cement that cured to a rocklike hardness even under water. Mixed with sand and gravel, this material was the equivalent of modern concrete. At first concrete was used like a particularly durable mortar, or for places where its ability to harden without drying out was important-for the water courses of aqueducts and for bridge pilings, for example. Concrete gradually caught on for construction of homes and public buildings, but not in the sense it has in modern times, when architects have taken advantage of the characteristics of the material to create soaring skyscrapers, fantastic shapes and homes cantilevered out over waterfalls. (The soaring dome of Hadrian’s Pantheon is an example of a particularly sophisticated concrete design, but that’s a product of the Empire.) In the time of the Republic, the core of a wall would be concrete, but the facings remained brick or stone. At first, the concrete might be poured between facings of masonry, and layers of rubble added. Eventually, walls became essentially a mass of con-crete, poured into a wooden form and finished before it was completely set. The old terms acquired new meanings. Opus testaceum referred to a concrete wall in which wedge-shaped pieces of brick were inserted, point first, so that the wall appeared to be of laid brick. Opus incertum referred to a concrete wall in which irregular chunks of stone were pressed into the soft concrete. When the concrete set, the stones were chiseled down even with the concrete surface. Opus reticulatum, or “netlike work” in which little square pyramids of stone were inserted point first in a diamond pat-tern, became quite popular. This pattern appears as the flat surfaces of walls between corners of laid brick or stone. According to Vitruvius, opus incertum is an “ancient style,” and opus reticulatum, while not as strong, is the “style used by everybody.” We might ask ourselves why Roman builders bothered with facings of brick or stone for concrete walls. They certainly added nothing to the strength, and they were covered in the finished wall with plaster and paint. The striking opus reticulatum walls we see today at Pompeii and other ruins were likely not visible when the buildings were in use. Perhaps we can look to the basic con-servatism of the Roman people. If a man was paying to have a wall built, he expected to see brick or stone.

We have inherited much from the early Romans. Constructing a picture for ourselves of builders of Republican Rome, we find they share many characteristics with modern build-ers. They were capable of building monuments of enduring beauty and grandeur. However, they were also guilty of taking particular care with the parts of the building that “showed,” and less with the parts that did not. The Ro-mans had “faux-finishes” on walls and columns. They used plaster and stucco to simulate carv-ings of stone and wood. So the designer faux wallpapers, plastic crown moldings and ceiling medallions of modern homes may be more tra-ditional than we think.


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romAn nAmesby Judith GearyCustoms in the Republic (500 B.C.E to about 50 B.C.E.)

Romans in the time of the Republic generally had three names, though they are seldom remembered by all three today. Julius Caesar was Gaius Julius Caesar and Cicero was Marcus Tullius Cicero for example.

The first two names, the praenomen and nomen, were much like first and last names in our time. The nomen was the gens name, much like our family name, passed from a father to all of his children. Just like today, certain family names carried more prestige than others. The aristocrats, the descendants of the original ruling class from the time of the kings, were Etruscan in origin and represented only about 20 families. Servilius, Julius and Cornelius are examples of aristocratic Roman names. The plebians, or commoners, were considered noble if a member of their family was elected to the rank of consul, or ruling magis-trate. Marius is an example of a noble plebian name.

A boy was given a praenomen name at birth and was known by it to his family and close friends. However, there were only about 15 praenomena in common usage among Roman families and only two or three of these might be used by a particular family. For example, most Julius boys were Sextus, Lucius or Gaius. As you may have noticed, all the truly Roman praenomena and nomena ended in the letters us, even the ones often given different endings in modern translations. Limited possibilities meant that in an ex-tended family there might be many men and boys with exactly the same praenomen and nomen. At least some help in distinguishing

between one Gaius Julius and another was provided by the cognomen, the third name. A Roman’s cognomen might refer to some physical characteristic. For example Rufus meant “red-haired” and Strabo referred to crossed eyes. Some were awarded by the Senate in honor of achievement or a military victory. Africanus referred to military victories in Africa and Magnus and Augustus were titles of distinction. Some seemed ironic or mocking. Brutus translates as “animal stupidity”, and Caepio as “onion-vender.” Each of these cognomen was carried with distinction by more than one Roman, however. The cognomen might be handed down to a man’s children, or it might not. Brothers might have different cognomena. However, both the well-known Roman statesman Marcus Tullius and his military strategist brother Quintus carried their father’s cognomen of Cicero. The meaning of “chickpea” may have referred to the family’s origins as farmers in Arpinum, south of Rome, or to a curiously shaped tip on an ancestor’s nose. Whatever the original meaning, Marcus ignored those who advised him to change it if he had any hope for a career in politics, made the name famous and carried it with honor.


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WomenWomen carried, as their legal names, only the feminine form of their father’s nomen. For example, all the daughters of all the Julius family were legally named Julia. A woman might also use a form of her father’s cognomen and so be known as Julia Caesaria. In practice, the second daughter of the family might be called Minora, and the third Tertia, for “minor” and “third.” Mod-ern writers speculate that, among family and friends, women and girls had personal names like modern nicknames, but we have no records confirming this practice from the Republican period.

SlavesA slave freed by his master adopted the master’s first two names and added his own slave name as cognomen. For example, Marcus Tullius Tiro was the freed slave secretary of Marcus Tullius Cicero. We might think that the descendants of freed slaves might therefore become mixed up with the kin of their wealthy former masters, but letters of the time seem to indicate that the Romans kept the origins of the families sorted out in their own minds. Slaves, male and female, were named whatever their masters chose to call them much as we name our pets. We know more about the slaves of wealthy Romans than we do the underclass in most societies, because the Ro-mans’ admiration for competence seems to have often overridden their snob-bery. Slave origin did not prevent the playwrite Terence (Publius Terentius Afer) becoming renowned, and Tiro was recognized for developing a system of shorthand to use in recording Cicero’s speeches. Indeed, the civil wars that ended the Republican Period, the proscriptions and repeated assassinations

that decimated aristocratic and noble families, meant that during the em-pire many senators and even emperors had slaves in their lineage. In the Republican Roman household, Greek-sounding names were fash-ionable for slaves, whatever their country of origin. Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the dictator, named a favored slave Chrysogonus “golden one,” perhaps after a character in a play by Menander. Slaves might be named after their place of origin, from their physical appearance or from their master’s name. Marcipor translates as “Marius’ boy,” for example.

The Limits of ResearchThe modern reader isn’t required to be able to decipher a character’s family tree from his name in order to enjoy reading about Republican Rome. In fact many writers, especially those who wrote before the internet made research so easy, seem to be unfamiliar with the customs of the time and use any name that ends in “us”. Note also that the years of the Empire brought so many new families and new cultures under Roman influence that books set in a later time may correctly use names that would seem totally out of place in the Republic. However, in reading modern fiction with settings of this period, and in deciphering history, familiarity with the Roman “rules” of naming adds another dimension to the story.


Thank youfor using these materials on

the novelGETORIX: The Eagle and The Bull

and on Republican Rome

Additional materials are in development.

For updates, visit the author’s website:www.judithgeary.com

If you have requests or suggestions for

additional materials,contact the author through

the website.

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Sandra K. Horton Curriculum designer for Getorix’x WorldAuthor of Point in Time: Blueprint for Novel StudyResource on gifted education, language arts, creative writing, and problem solving

25 years experience in teaching, grades K—8 Instructor for Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth (CTY) Young Students Richmond Humanities Program, 1993-94 Co-instructor for Mary Baldwin College Master of Arts in Teaching: EDU 605 Integrated Approach to Language Arts, 1999—2003 State Director of North Carolina Future Problem Solving Program

Sandra Horton loves the challenge of learning. She thinks that students need to have experiences that take them beyond memorization to the application of what they have learned. These activities challenge students to apply what they have learned in dealing with the complex issues that surround them in today’s world. They are asked to think and to make decisions. To her, learning needs to be real and authentic, and students need to know that what they learn has meaning and importance in their lives. Sandra Horton’s background includes a Bachelor of Science in Education with endorsements in Early Education NK-4; Elementary Education 4-7; Middle Education 4-8; and Gifted Education. Her training and experience include gifted education, language arts, literature, creative writing, law-related education, creative problem-solving, and technology.

“Sandra K. Horton is a distinguished member of the field of gifted education. Her encouragement and respect for her students combine with innovative instructional strategies to create a challenging environment in which students achieve. Sandy is a mentor for her colleagues and an inspiration to the gifted education community as a whole.” -- VAGT Outstanding Teacher Award, 2002

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Judith GeAry is a resource on writing and on the ancient world: specifically Rome of the Republic; author of GEtorix: The Eagle and the Bull, a Celtic adventure in ancient Rome; fiction editor; teacher of communication arts and creative writing. Geary discovered her love of historical fic-tion in writing classes with Orson Scott Card, who at the time was known only for his speculative fiction. Tapping history for tips on world building, Geary was hooked by the real thing. In her other life, Geary teaches at Appalachian State University and is a freelance editor of fiction. Her background includes a masters degree in Educa-

tion from George Peabody College and continued graduate work in writing, edit-ing, literary criticism as well as involvement in a regional writers’ group.

Published articles include:

Republican Roman Construction, by Judith Geary http://romanhistorybooksandmore.freeservers.com/l_rrc1.htm

Republican Roman Names, by Judith Geary http://romanhistorybooksandmore.freeservers.com/l_rrr.htm

Buildings of Artificial Stone, by Judith Geary, posted on About.com http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/uc_geary_bas.htm

In The Steps of Julius Caesar, by Judith Geary, posted on About.com http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/uc_geary_rome.htm

The Palatine: The Emperors views and lunch in the gardens, by Judith Geary http://romanhistorybooksandmore.freeservers.com/l_palatine.htm

Big Changes in Ancient Rome by Judith Geary http://romanhistorybooksandmore.freeservers.com/l_anctrome.htm

The Little House in Pompeii Held a Grand Illusion, by Judith Geary http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/uc_geary_pompeii.htm

“A Quaker Commitment to Education,” by Judith Foster Geary, in African American Education: A Proud Heritage, Cobblestone Magazine, February, 1998.

“Lucretia Mott” in What Really Happened in Colonial America, to be published by Knowledge Quest, Inc., San Antonio, TX.

For more information, visit the author’s website: www.judithgeary.com.

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Springboard of Ideas for Interdisciplinary StudyThis list is not intended to be complete. You will likely be able to add many more topics to this list in your own area of study and by meeting with teachers from different disciplines in your school. Since there is a great deal of “overlap” in various disciplines (To the Romans, all thought was philosophy.), you may want to skim the entire list for ideas.

English/Language ArtsLanguage & communicationRoman education, literature, and poetryDebatable issuesPhilosophy & religionProminent philosophers Celtic gods & goddessesRoman gods & goddessesMythologyPaideia and shared inquiryLatin and Germanic roots of English words

History/ Social StudiesHistoryHistorical time lineRepublic of Rome political systemRoman roads & transportationElectoral system /Magistracies: /Cursus honorumHuman rights: citizenship, women and slavesMilitary structure Marius’ military innovationsTribes and warring factionsUniforms & armorBanners and standards/ Roots of heraldry

GeographyMaps & DiagramsMap of Roman World: the Roman Republic including Celtic migrationMap of Rome [circa 150—50 BCE]Map of Celtic acquisition and migration Landforms and climate and how they influenced culture

Social Customs & Everyday LifeRoman calendarRoman festivals and banquetsRole of religion Coinage & TradeManufacturing & CraftsmenOccupations & Careers Class systems & Social standingsSlaveryPolitical state of slavesPhysical state of slaves Women’s roles Women’s clothing Women’s workMen’s rolesMen’s clothing Naming customsRoman foods, menus and recipes

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Science/Technology/Engineering/MathGeometry of the arch and the domeArchitecture and building customs Building materials and engineeringAqueducts & sewersTransportation on land and seaPower sources: wind, water, steam & mechanical energyMachines: siege machines, pulleys and gearsMathematics & MeasurementComputation in the Roman world Roman NumeralsGeometry: mosaics & tessellations Calendar systemMoney & CoinageMilitary units Chemistry: hypocast concrete, “Greek fire”

The ArtsVisual ArtsWall paintings & frescoesRoman “graffiti” Mosaics & tessellations Encaustic art (pigments in wax)Realism in Roman portraitureInfluence of Greek on Roman sculpturePottery & CeramicsVanishing point perspective in Pollio’s books on architecture

Physical Education & HealthRoman games: wrestling, foot races and “tennis”Military exercisesRoman theories on the cause of diseaseRoman food and sustenanceRoman Medicine: herbal remedies, dentistry and surgeryMenus and recipes

Theatre & Performance ArtsMime & FarceStock characters in Roman dramasCostume “codes” in Roman dramasInfluence of Greek on Roman dramaRoman TheatresRoman music & instruments

list of contents

for the

AccompAnyinG cd

*Complete text of the curriculum as a .pdf file

*Study questions only as a .pdf file

*Study questions only an editable document in MS Word

*Author’s Notes from the original hardcover edition

*Questions for the Accelerated Reader Program as aneditable document in MS Word

*Information about the author as a speaker

Image of the book as a .jpg file

(Check the website for updated information.www.judithgeary.com)

If you have obtained a copy of this curriculum without the CD, contact author Judith Geary at

[email protected] to arrange for CD content to be delivered without charge.

To order these books:

GETORIX: THE EAGLE AND THE BULL

GETORIX: GAMES OF THE UNDERWORLD by Judith GearyGetorix’s World

by Sandra Horton and Judith GearyINGALLS PUBLISHING GROUP Books are distributed through Ingram, and other wholesalers. Libraries may order IPGBooks through their regular channels. However, we are happy to serve libraries, schools and organizations directly, and tooffer discounts on book cost and shipping.* Classroom sets, curriculum and special packages available only from the author or publisher.

Contact our accounting dept. manager for discounts on quantity purchases for resale. Refer to our catalog or our website for information on other titles from Ingalls Publishing Group:


# GETORIX: THE EAGLE AND THE BULL

by Judith Geary

Singlecopy retail

w/ 25%educatordiscount

w/Classroomset (25+)

Subtotal

ISBN: 978-1932158748 (hardcover) $24.95 $18.71 $16.00

Classroom Set: 26 hardcovers, curriculum $673.70 $400.00

ISBN: 978-1932158731 (trade paperback) $15.95 $11.96 $11.00

Classroom Set: 25 paperbacks, 1 hardcover, curriculum $290.00

Getorix’s World (Curriculum Package ) $25.00 $18.75 included

*Note: Since curriculum is reproducible, note here if you’dprefer an extra paperback novel when ordering multipleclassroom sets. ( )

Getorix: Games of the Underworld 978-1932158892 $15.95 $11.96 $11.00

Information about the author as a speaker $0 $0 $0 $0

INGALLS PUBLISHING GROUP Catalogue $0 $0 $0 $0

Shipping and handling (or actual charges ) $3.00 $3.00 $8.00

Tax (if applicable)

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To order directly from the publisher, by e-mail, fax, telephone or post: BOOK ORDER – GETORIXINGALLS PUBLISHING GROUP, INC


Rebecca M. Owen, Accounting & SalesPhone: [email protected]

Payment by: ( ) Check enclosed ( ) Credit card – info below ( ) Invoice /purchase order

Credit card information (if applicable): ( ) VISA ( ) Mastercard PO # _______________________

Acct #______ ______ ______ ______ expiration date:

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mailto:[email protected]

http://www.ingallspublishinggroup.com

InfoTech, the materials selection guide for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, Vol. 2008, Issue 2, p. 17

To order these books:

GETORIX: THE EAGLE AND THE BULL

GETORIX: GAMES OF THE UNDERWORLD by Judith GearyGetorix’s World

by Sandra Horton and Judith GearyINGALLS PUBLISHING GROUP Books are distributed through Ingram, and other wholesalers. Libraries may order IPGBooks through their regular channels. However, we are happy to serve libraries, schools and organizations directly, and tooffer discounts on book cost and shipping.* Classroom sets, curriculum and special packages available only from the author or publisher.

Contact our accounting dept. manager for discounts on quantity purchases for resale. Refer to our catalog or our website for information on other titles from Ingalls Publishing Group:


# GETORIX: THE EAGLE AND THE BULL

by Judith Geary

Singlecopy retail

w/ 25%educatordiscount

w/Classroomset (25+)

Subtotal

ISBN: 978-1932158748 (hardcover) $24.95 $18.71 $16.00

Classroom Set: 26 hardcovers, curriculum $673.70 $400.00

ISBN: 978-1932158731 (trade paperback) $15.95 $11.96 $11.00

Classroom Set: 25 paperbacks, 1 hardcover, curriculum $290.00

Getorix’s World (Curriculum Package ) $25.00 $18.75 included

*Note: Since curriculum is reproducible, note here if you’dprefer an extra paperback novel when ordering multipleclassroom sets. ( )

Getorix: Games of the Underworld 978-1932158892 $15.95 $11.96 $11.00

Information about the author as a speaker $0 $0 $0 $0

INGALLS PUBLISHING GROUP Catalogue $0 $0 $0 $0

Shipping and handling (or actual charges ) $3.00 $3.00 $8.00

Tax (if applicable)

Total

To order directly from the publisher, by e-mail, fax, telephone or post: BOOK ORDER – GETORIXINGALLS PUBLISHING GROUP, INC


Rebecca M. Owen, Accounting & SalesPhone: [email protected]

Payment by: ( ) Check enclosed ( ) Credit card – info below ( ) Invoice /purchase order

Credit card information (if applicable): ( ) VISA ( ) Mastercard PO # _______________________

Acct #______ ______ ______ ______ expiration date:

Cardholder signature:

Print name: _______________________ Phone # (necessary for processing) __________________

Billing address: Shipping address: ( ) same as left

http://www.highcountrypublishers.com

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.ingallspublishinggroup.com

using historical fiction to teach hisorical fact: getorixs world

Education

explanation of study

roman world

discussion questions

roman education

judith geary sandra

roman staging

roman republiccreated

roman calendar