TEACHING ABOUT THE ANCIENT ROMANS & BEING A CENTURION AT BIRMINGHAM MUSEUM & ART GALLERY...

 Teaching About The Ancient Romans At the Museum & Art Gallery…

This was always going to be a tough assignment, for when I was first asked to do a Roman session at the Museum, there really was little on offer. Clearly, Birmingham is not known as a Roman settlement but in fact, a fort does lie beneath the ground near the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, called Metchley Fort. A civil settlement (vicus) also lies beneath the ground and the site was built after AD 43 then abandoned by the Romas twice, in AD 70 and AD 120.

So, we have a fort and vicus but nobody can see them…

We also have the 13th century Weoley Castle in Brum too, which was built as a hunting lodge for the Lords of Dudley and a Roman road even passes through Sutton Park. We also have Aston Hall and Blakesley Hall, dating from the 16th & 17th centuries in the city, so perhaps Birmingham is somewhat more than just a Victorian industrial city with a number of canals and a bull called Perry…

NOT IN ROLE BUT SHOWING THE VINE-STICK...

My problem was how to present a Roman session to children and in truth I was only asked to provide two or three during the first couple of years of working in the Museum. However, I was able to use the suitcases of Roman artefacts from the schools’ loans service but to be fair, making a useful, interesting, exciting presentation for Year 3 children with a few broken sherds of pottery and a couple of replica togas was going to tax the depths of my imagination and humour… 

Getting a couple of children to try on the togas using the illustration provided was a joy though, for I asked the class teacher to help the children into the garments. Rarely did they go on properly, so the humour of it was readily available for me to take advantage of. Sadly, putting together a worksheet for children was like writing a report about a soccer match played in thick fog, so basically a visit to the Museum just to ‘look at the Romans’ was certainly a non-starter. 

AN EARLY SESSION, NOT IN ROLE...

One item in Gallery 33 though was particularly unusual… There was a brick, made by ancient Britons with gargoyle-like faces upon it and it had been excavated at the Wall Roman site in Staffordshire. It had been used in the building of a ‘pagan’ temple but the Romans had recycled the stones and bricks to build their own replacement shrine and in order to ward off or reverse the influence of any evil spirits, they had reused the bricks with the images on them upside-down…

At Wall’s small site museum, more of those bricks were on display at the time…   

However, I think I managed to provide decent sessions, before the Gallery, number 33 was refurbished and it soon became a collection of ethnic artefacts from around the world, leaving me with a few Roman gravestones in Gallery 32, alongside several other artefacts installed. However, as the National Curriculum suggested that a study of the ancient Romans would be rather useful, I thought about borrowing some spare artefacts from Dave Symons in the Archaeology Department and doing some sessions in role… He agreed…

REPLICA SAMIAN WARE BOWL...

At first, I was able to borrow a turquoise tunic from a Roman re-enactment group and managed to purchase a grim looking helmet and a belt. Somehow I then had to make up a scenario involving the items I had been given to pass round to the pupils and make the items ‘come alive’, I guess.

THE AWFUL FIRST COSTUME...

However, I was told by the head of my department that the tunic was too short and so after a few sessions I had a red tunic made for me, only just above the knees… (Yawn…) My cloak (sagulum) was made from an old blanket of my mum’s, dyed brown.

THE GLADIUS...

Using some of the SLD’s capitation though, I was finally able to order a Centurion’s helmet, a belt (cingulum), a gladius (short sword), a dagger (pugio) and a pair of leather sandals, which led me on to thinking about who I could be…

I spent time researching names of Centurions who had actually visited this country and remarkably, one name stood out: Petronius Fortunatus… He actually came here twice and to explain his story, I wrote a poem some years back which I have restored, updated and reproduced below. I’m Peter, so Petronius seemed a good fit…

And for several years, I WAS Petronius Fortunatus…  

IN GALLERY 32 WITH THE ROMAN GRAVESTONES...

The Centurion Petronius Fortunatus…

His name was Petronius Fortunatus, his rank was Centurion.

An old man he became, an octogenarian,

One year for each Legionary he commanded:

A Century, whose complete obedience he demanded.

Thirteen legions he served in his military career,

Decorated for valour, never harbouring fear;

From Pannonia to Arabia, the Euphrates and Palestine,

To the Parthian Wars, then to York and the Rhine.

During his formative army years,

He was promoted to Centurion by the votes of his peers;

From Librarius, he became the Watch N.C.O.,

Or Tesserarius, before a promotion to Optio.

He was Deputy Centurion in the 1st Legion Italica,

Then was promoted to Centurion of the Sixth Legion Ferrata.

He followed the Legate Adventus to the Parthian Wars,

Winning torques and phallerae for bravery, of course.

The neck-ring torques, to his cuirass were attached,

The small discs or phallerae to his strapped harness were lashed;

These visible signs of his valour ensured

That he gained the infantry’s respect and discipline was assured.

For marriage as a Centurion he was certainly game,

Claudia Marcia Capitolina was his wife’s given name.

She bore him a son, his father’s name he was given

And to join the army ranks he was strongly driven.

Sadly however, his service caused deep-seated pain,

For he was killed during the dangerous northern campaign.

He had served with the 22nd Primigenia,

Then in Upper Germany with the 2nd Augusta…

 Thus, harbouring his memories, gnarled and alone,

Petronius’ joints ached, his scars itched, he became chilled to the bone.

Preparations for his burial had already been made

In Algeria’s heat, beneath a cool, leafy glade.

His life had been long, varied and full,

His prayers were generally answered by Mithras the Bull;

Tired, expiring, he lay back beneath a shield

Until his spirit drifted to the dead warriors’ field… 

Pete Ray

August 2022

Centurion Petronius Fortunatus: a real person, who visited Britain on two occasions and a character I played the role of during my Museum teaching…

The sessions…

They were brilliant to do…

The kids were enthralled by the costume, which I began by talking about and asking them questions about the uniform and securing their opinions about why the design was as it was.

The art teacher at the Museum, Trish Peate, kindly soaked the sandals (caligae) in a saddle oil, used for her horses because the leather rubbed harshly at my feet… The galea, or helmet was spectacular, the metal greaves for leg protection made me look rather like a robotic wicketkeeper and the strap over one shoulder to hold the scabbard, the baldric, always brought laughter from the adults. I carried a vine-stick too, which for me was merely a metre-long stick found in Sutton Park…  

LEFT-HANDED CENTURION...

One of the most hilarious interludes in the session was when I described how the gladius, or sword was used. One child had thought that I would waft the sword about, rather like a fencer would do today and he demonstrated whilst standing up next to me with a replica wooden sword, how a swashbuckler would fight…

I simply stood still and stared at the child, who was dancing around like Errol Flynn… I motioned for him to stop for a minute and asked him what use would dancing be when I was supposed to be killing the enemy? Then I began to prance about opposite him, pretending we were Olympic contestants and encouraging him to do more of the same. It was really funny as we skipped about in front of the audience…

Then I stopped him and told him that I didn’t dance well anyway and explained that my gladius was simply a stabbing weapon, for use when shoving forward in a line against an enemy’s line, protecting myself with a shield (scutum), hacking and stepping over dead and dying bodies, treading upon screaming and bleeding bodies, in the chaos of battle. The smells of sweat, fear and death made my use of a gladius rather different to using a sword to dance about with in a one-on-one contest…

The kids would then go very quiet…  

The artefacts I showed and passed to the children included pottery lamps, coins, a slingshot bullet, other pieces of pottery, including the more expensive Samian ware. Replicas of complete pots and bowls I did not pass round. A section of a mortarium (grinding bowl) which still had its tiny sharp-edged stones for grinding up food in the bottom of it was always interesting for the children to touch.

ROMAN LAMPS...

I had managed to collect a few Roman artefacts of my own too which I would show to the children but not allow any touching of…  

Being a Roman Centurion at Sarehole Mill…

My colleague Elfyn Morris and I put together a session about the use of water through history and I was in role at the mill as both an ancient Egyptian and the Roman centurion Petronius Fortunatus…

EXPLAINING HOW WE ROMANS MOVE WATER...
WHAT DID WE EVER DO FOR YOU IN BRITAIN?
APART FROM...
AND...
AND...

I was there to demonstrate how water was moved by the ancient Romans from a river to a town, or a fort, or a villa, using the mill’s horse trough and gravity to illustrate the way it worked… We pumped the water from the trough into an angled, sloping channel…

MAKING THE FILM, AS I STAND BY, OR MAYBE STAND TO...

Now that was a weird experience…

THE INTERVIEWER LOOKS SCARED STIFF...

The craziest moments dressed as Petronius Fortunatus…

There were two which readily come to mind…

First of all, during one teaching session, the fire alarm sounded in the Museum. I made sure the children and staff reached the exit first but the security staff insisted that I went outside into Chamberlain Square as well, fully dressed as a Centurion… 

Thanks for that…

It was warm, it was crowded and as I walked into the Square, astonished faces greeted me… I could do nothing but greet people, asking how they were and whether they rued the presence of the Roman army in the area. 

One mum asked me to look into her pushchair and say hi to her young child, which I did but the kid was so terrified that it bawled and howled at the helmeted idiot who grinned at it in the Square.

The Square was busier than usual though because of a number of Japanese tourists being present and of course they made a rush towards me and I was photographed many, many times… “You take sword out, yes?” So, there was I, stabbing my gladius for the benefit of Japan…

Yeah, thanks, security ‘friends’, thanks a lot… 

PIECES OF MOSAIC FLOORING...

The other incident was all the more remarkable because I had tried so hard not to let the pupils see anything modern about my person during role-play but I would always hide my watch on my table so that I could make quick checks on the time during a two-hour session.

I never wore my watch before work either, in case an eagle-eyed child spotted the strap marks on my right wrist (I am left-handed, remember) and so what happened one day, around 12.15pm, totally pigged me off…

I had booked a Roman role-play session in the morning and an Egyptian role-play session after lunch and so I was short of time. I needed to race through the Museum’s art galleries back to what was the office area at the time, off the Great Charles Street staircase. I had got to try to gobble a sandwich, strip off the Roman uniform, don my Egyptian costume and make up my eyes…

So, I strapped on my watch, put away the Roman artefacts, replaced them with the Egyptian ones and hurriedly left my teaching room but as I dashed through one of the art galleries, a chap was approaching from the other direction.

He was middle-aged, he wore wire-rimmed specs and in my mind he should have been carrying a stamp album under one arm and his train-spotting notebook in the other hand. He hailed me and asked in a voice which the Monty Python team would have had great fun imitating: 

“Excuse me, where’s the toilet?” 

I directed him and then he retorted: 

“By the way, Roman soldiers didn’t wear watches…” 

I turned on him and virtually nose to nose, I bellowed at his pasty face: 

“I KNOW…”

I could have poked him with my pugio…

Totally petrified, he turned tail and fled… 

NEXT: TEACHING ABOUT ANCIENT EGYPT… 

ANCIENT GREEK HANDLING SESSION & BEING IN ROLE AS PETROS, THE OLYMPIC PENTATHLETE...

 Ancient Greek Handling Session & Being In Role As A Pentathlete…

I had been handed a box of what amounted to superfluous and broken artefacts from ancient Greek territories, items which would never be displayed to the public by the Archaeology Department of Birmingham’s Museum.

The visiting children would be able to handle the artefacts with great care during teaching sessions and I soon wound those sessions around a fictitious athlete called Petros. On many occasions, I was in role as Petros, chatting about my experiences as a pentathlete in the ancient Olympic Games and using the artefacts as my belongings, asking the pupils questions about them and revealing how they were used in my household.

THE ACTION IMAGES WERE TAKEN FOR THE SCHOOLS LIAISON WEBSITE...

As Petros, I showed the children how a javelin and discus were thrown, using the modern equivalents as props and also how wrestling and running a short race (the stadion, around 180 metres) were integrated into the event. However, what the kids seemed to appreciate most was when I performed a standing long jump across the floor of my teaching room.

THE STANDING LONG JUMP START...

When I saw an image of myself leaping I was surprised at the height I had achieved, so it must have been rather a spectacular moment in the teaching session. The jumper carried two weights called halteres which I had secured modern replicas of and the swinging of them aided longer standing jumps. It is probable that the athlete took five such leaps in each jumping attempt… 

DEMONSTRATING THE LONG JUMP...

I also cut out a thin leather strip, or thong, an amentum with which to demonstrate how it would have been attached to a javelin and also the athlete’s fingers, so that when released, the missile would spin and thus travel further. Typically, spinning an American football or a rugby ball works by a similar principle, as do bullets from guns, which twist against a spiral cut onto the insides of barrels, which spin them as they exit.

USING A MODERN SCHOOL JAVELIN TO SHOW HOW A THONG WAS ATTACHED...

HOLDING A REPLICA DISCUS...

As for the wrestling, I would tell the kids that anything was allowed except biting, killing the opponent and gouging out his eyes… I also said that because of my size, I had to be quick and so crouched very low in order to spring upwards and unbalance my opponents and knock them down for a ‘fall’. That ruse often worked well in ancient times for the smaller pentathletes, I believe… 

So, I had a tunic made, off the right shoulder, which therefore made visible a scar I have. I would tell the children, in role that it was from an injury in battle, when a javelin tip glanced from my shoulder. That, more than anything else seemed to engage the children so that they began to believe that I really was Petros, 2000 years old and chatting to them in a museum…

DISCUSSING THE SCAR...

The artefacts they saw and handled were simple, including two coins which it was believed were actually 2000 year old counterfeit pieces. A couple of oil lamps were passed round too, one being quite enclosed to prevent some of the oil evaporating and to deter mice or insects from getting inside. The other lamp was flatter, with two spouts for wicks, more open than the other style with a hole through the centre, creating a channel around the edge for the oil to sit in. That one had likely been made to slip easily onto a raised stand.

THE TWO OIL LAMPS...

There was a terracotta bull, made in a mould, still with a touch of the original red paint on it, plus a couple of figurines of women, one remaining as just the head, the other missing its lower legs. It was suggested that the head was actually found at Pompeii of all places. More red paint could be seen on that artefact…

THE BULL...

THE TERRACOTTA HEAD...

THE FIGURINE...

A marble hand from a statue, missing the smallest finger was good to fit into the fictional Petros’ story as being made by a sculptor to look like the athlete’s daughter’s hand.

A terracotta tortoise was a popular artefact with the visitors, despite its head being damaged. Traces of brown paint could be seen on that…

The most attractive item was a jug, an OINOCHOE, made in the red figure style, which was decorated by the head of a woman wearing a headdress.

THE OINOCHOE...

A flat dish was also passed round, which contained scored floral motifs, however a small bronze mirror and a lead slingshot bullet, which was fired by spinning it from a sling, were the very special pieces to show the pupils. I had a Roman bullet made from clay too, which looked like a small egg and I featured both bullets in my Greek sessions

THE DISH...

THE BRONZE MIRROR...

Often messages were inscribed on such bullets, such as ‘I HOPE THIS KILLS YOU’, something which continues to this day of course, with cynical messages being painted on bombs to be dropped upon enemy forces…  

THE LEAD BULLET...

THE TERRACOTTA BULLET...

There was also a worksheet for the children to use in Gallery 32, although the collection of Greek artefacts there was small and largely uninteresting, even though an incongruous model of Athens’ Acropolis sat rather obscurely in the centre of the room at that time…   

Dave Symons, a curator, certainly wasn’t happy to hand over the artefacts originally but one day he saw me working with my Egyptian items and thought that the session was really good, so that he soon sent me copious notes about the Greek and Roman artefacts he had been told to provide. We got on really well after that because he felt that what I was doing was so worthwhile…

HOLDING THE REPLICA LONG-JUMPING WEIGHTS...

Breakages? A few rare accidents were experienced but we were always able to repair those but once, a child stole the Greek slingshot bullet… The accompanying teacher was horrified of course and she was someone I knew from Heathfield Primary School in Handsworth, the site which used to be a maternity home and actually where I was born. 

She held an investigation in the lunch area after my session had finished and the bullet was subsequently found, dumped inside a waste bin…

NEXT: teaching about the ancient Romans & being the Centurion, Petronius Fortunatus…

BEING AYLMER FOLIOT AT BLAKESLEY HALL, BIRMINGHAM & BEING FEATURED BY RADIO WM IN 1985...

 As Aylmer Foliot @ Blakesley Hall, Birmingham…

In the mid-1980s I was asked to play the role of the historical character Aylmer Foliot, one of the 17th century owners of Birmingham’s Blakesley Hall. I would simply wear my Sir Thomas Holte costume but be Aylmer… 

Ridiculously, I had never visited Blakesley Hall prior to teaching for the Schools Liaison Department of Birmingham Museums, despite having once taught at Blakesley Hall Primary School!

The Swan Shopping Centre…

One appearance as Aylmer was to be just up the road from Blakesley Hall at the Swan Shopping Centre, Yardley, sited just off the main A45 Coventry Road. Art teacher Wendy Roberts, in role as Foliot’s wife was to accompany me to a shop, hired for the day by Radio West Midlands, which would basically be a jolly for the locals to take part in. We would be interviewed and of course those present would find out more about their locality’s fine Blakesley Hall.

Clearly, Blakesley Hall was a gem in the Yardley area, along with the parish church and so Wendy, who was teaching at the Hall as well as in the city centre’s Art Gallery, was invited along to add a touch of colour and history to the live broadcast. I was invited too because Gyn Freeman, Stuart Roper and her Radio WM team had met me at Aston Hall and knew that I would likely bring some humour to the experience…

It turned out to be a bizarre morning because our cameo appearance was rather short, being interviewed before and after the 11am news bulletin. According to Stuart, the folks in the crowded shop were totally ‘stunned’  by our arrival in costume accompanied by a fanfare and of course we milked their awe… 

WENDY ROBERTS AND MYSELF...

Invited onto a stage, I turned Stuart as if he was a servant: “Wouldst thou help me?” He grumbled but obliged…

I then suggested that my wife Barbara was suffering with back pain but Stuart commented that she was likely suffering more with being my wife… I responded with, “I am not a cruel man but thy hand is in danger…” This referred of course to the bloody hand on the Holte family crest, which the Radio WM team had seen on their visit to Aston Hall.

Stuart continued to harass me with comments about our horses being in the car-park but I continually and patiently corrected his error, mentioning that surely he meant in the ‘stables’… I was then asked to ‘broadcast’ a message to my workers back at Blakesley Hall and spoke into what was referred to as a ‘microphone’. Gingerly I suggested that despite the rain, I fully expected my servants to be going about their business as usual, or there would be no extra food provided for them during Whitsuntide…

I made some comment about usually gathering news through gossip or reading from a scroll, or even via a town crier’s bellowing voice, but not through the strange things spread across Gyn’s and Stuart's heads. After the news had finished, about which of course I just had to ask where the sound had been coming from, I was interviewed live about what I had made of what I had heard. Put on the spot, fortunately I was able to comment upon one item about teachers wanting more pay, suggesting in role that all teachers deserved paying very well.  

Stuart said the pay-rise would be for teachers’ beer money but I instantly retorted, indignantly: “Schoolteachers, Sir, do not drink beer…” He then asked me, “What time’s the horse?” I replied, “Ah, there’s no answer to that…”

Blakesley Hall visit…

The second appearance I made as Aylmer was at Blakesley Hall itself, when Gyn Freeman’s team covered one of Wendy’s teaching sessions as Barbara Foliot. I was to be used in a continuity role, being interviewed whilst the visiting children were involved in several activities with Wendy, such as pomander and carrot preserve making.

GYN FREEMAN INTERVIEWS WENDY, FAR RIGHT, AS I LOOK ON, FAR LEFT...

This worked well because clearly the WM team would have struggled to fill those changeover segments, so I was asked a variety of questions about living in the Hall. However, I had another agenda, for I knew that one member of the WM team often liked a tot of alcohol in the mornings, having detected it on his breath at Aston Hall the previous December…

When asked about the Hall, I reported that certainly the beams were weakening a little within the house and work was needed to correct the problem but then I sent Stuart out to look after the horses, for he seemed to have ‘no shining of the eyes’ and appeared to be suffering from ‘a lack of sleep’.

I OFFER GYN A REMEDY TO CURE STUART'S WIND...

One of the children, playing the part of Richard Smalbroke was asked by Wendy to choose a girl to be his wife during a brief session in which a family tree was being discussed but Richard (the boy’s real name, actually) didn’t like any of his classmates and so I suggested that he chose a girl for her wealth, although the one he finally picked was because he considered her ‘ferocious’… 

Later Gyn asked me whether I knew a cure for Stuart’s lack of sleep and I came up with the boiling of bruised dill seeds, mixing them with wine and sniffing the concoction. Also I advised perhaps drinking the juice of pounded lettuce leaves for use as a sedative…

For his headaches I reckoned that coarse brown paper with vinegar placed upon the forehead would bring some relief but that only brought cheeky comments from Gyn and Stuart about Barbara having 12 children already and that I regularly offered the remedy for a headache to her before bedtime… Hmm… I ignored that one… 

WATCHING THE ACTIVITIES...

I also suggested a remedy for wind, should Stuart need the lavatory chute… I listed certain spices to be mixed in a pestle and mortar which would cure his problem and offer a pleasant odour too, at which point the conversation became quite hilarious. 

It was all live on the radio, which I still have the recording of… 

A beauty mask for Gyn was then suggested to ward off spots and freckles, which consisted of meal of oats boiled with vinegar and I told her it was actually made in Yardley… “Do you think I need one?” she asked, indignantly. “Not at present, m’lady…” I carefully replied. 

We chatted about the Yardley market and I told Gyn that I didn’t usually buy commodities there personally but often attended to ascertain the local gossip and word of threats to the locality, for in Birmingham recently anti-Royalists had apparently been selling muskets and swords to Parliamentarians. 

Those were troubled times…

NOTE MY BLACK EYE...

Conclusion…

It was a worthwhile morning for Radio WM for sure and Wendy Roberts did a fine job of teaching/presenting for the children from Blackwood School in Streetly, as well as having to be interviewed at the same time…

Yeah, we teachers deserved our beer money in the SLD team…

A while before the day of recording, a set of images was taken of Wendy and me in costume at Blakesley Hall and remarkably, one was chosen to feature in the Radio Times…

FROM THE RADIO TIMES, 1985...

You can even make out a soccer related black eye if you check out my face carefully…

It was a strange moment to turn a page and see oneself in such a well known magazine, albeit dressed in a Sir Thomas Holte costume… 

THE LISTING...

Both the Swan Shopping Centre appearance and the Blakesley Hall feature offered much publicity for Birmingham’s Museums but it was great exposure for the Schools Liaison Department in particular although Jean Evans, the Head of our group was clearly less than impressed by the frivolous comments made by the Radio WM team during the recordings…

I loved it though…

NEXT: being Petros, the Ancient Greek athlete…