by Caroline Lawrence
As a History Girl, one of my obsessions is Detailing the World.
In an historical novel it's not crucial to the reader what kind of hinges you put on the door or if your hero passes a rodent that hasn't been imported yet, but I like to get it right.
I've been studying the Classical world for over forty years, but I'm always learning something new. As I was making a final pass over my forthcoming book set in first century Roman Britain, a couple of details brought me up short. Here are six questions I asked myself:
1. Did Romans have inches?
2. Did Roman doors have hinges as we know them?
3. Did Roman tombs have doors?
4. Were there rats in imperial Rome?
5. Did Romans shake hands the way we do today?
6. Did Romans have pancakes?
Classicists, how would you have answered those?
We can never be 100% sure of anything, but here are the answers I came up with.
1. Did Romans have inches?
Yes. They're called unciae
cf. Pliny NH VI.39, 214
gnomonis C unciae umbram LXXKKVII unciarum faciunt:
A gnomon 100 inches long throws a shadow 77 inches long.
We know Romans had plumb lines, but they probably didn't have a Roman Ruler like this:
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2. Did Roman doors have hinges?
Yes, they had the butterfly hinges as we know them but more common was the cardo. This type of Roman hinge was a dowel added to (or built into) one side of the door, the protruding ends — pivots — fit into sockets, one in the threshold at the bottom of the door and one in the lintel at the top. So one whole side of the door was a hinge. cf. Virgil Ciris, 222 sonitum nam fecerat illi marmoreo aeratus stridens in limine cardo: For the bronze hinge made a sound, squeaking in the marble threshold.
3. Did Roman house tombs have doors?
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Yes. One Pompeian tomb still under construction when Vesuvius erupted featured a door made of a single piece of marble, but carved to resemble the sort of folding wooden doors typical in Roman houses. (pictured: the Tomb of the Marble Door from Pompeii)
4. Were there rats in imperial Rome?
No. According to my research, the black rat didn’t reach Europe until the 1st century AD. Maybe even later. I came upon this fact when I tried to find the Latin word for rat. Rattus doesn't exist until the late Antique period, so mus has to do service until then.
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5. Did Romans shake hands?
Yes. Especially in farewell. We have hundreds of depictions of Greeks and Romans shaking hands and not a single instance of the forearm grasp, used by Hollywood and many writers of historical Roman fiction. The forearm grasp is totally bogus!
6. Did Romans have pancakes?
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Because this blog post is going out on Shrove Tuesday AKA 'Pancake Day' of 2016, I thought it would be fun to see if Romans had pancakes. I went to my shelf and pulled down the indispensable Classical Cookbook and sure enough, they did. Author Sally Grainger quotes the second century Latin author Galen (AD 129-199) and gives a recipe. Essentially it's pancake batter without eggs and substituting clear honey for sugar and with the addition of the very Roman ingredient: sesame seeds! The recipe goes right back to ancient Greece where actors on the Athenian stage speak of warm pancakes steaming over a brazier at daybreak with honey drizzled over them. It might have been a kind of fast food as it is in parts of the world today.
Little details like these are just one of the many factors that go to making an historical novel good. Now I just have to get plot, character and pace right...
Escape from Rome, the first in Caroline Lawrence's new Roman Quests series, launches in May 2016.
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As a History Girl, one of my obsessions is Detailing the World.
In an historical novel it's not crucial to the reader what kind of hinges you put on the door or if your hero passes a rodent that hasn't been imported yet, but I like to get it right.
I've been studying the Classical world for over forty years, but I'm always learning something new. As I was making a final pass over my forthcoming book set in first century Roman Britain, a couple of details brought me up short. Here are six questions I asked myself:
1. Did Romans have inches?
2. Did Roman doors have hinges as we know them?
3. Did Roman tombs have doors?
4. Were there rats in imperial Rome?
5. Did Romans shake hands the way we do today?
6. Did Romans have pancakes?
Classicists, how would you have answered those?
We can never be 100% sure of anything, but here are the answers I came up with.
1. Did Romans have inches?
Yes. They're called unciae
cf. Pliny NH VI.39, 214
gnomonis C unciae umbram LXXKKVII unciarum faciunt:
A gnomon 100 inches long throws a shadow 77 inches long.
We know Romans had plumb lines, but they probably didn't have a Roman Ruler like this:
2. Did Roman doors have hinges?
Yes, they had the butterfly hinges as we know them but more common was the cardo. This type of Roman hinge was a dowel added to (or built into) one side of the door, the protruding ends — pivots — fit into sockets, one in the threshold at the bottom of the door and one in the lintel at the top. So one whole side of the door was a hinge. cf. Virgil Ciris, 222 sonitum nam fecerat illi marmoreo aeratus stridens in limine cardo: For the bronze hinge made a sound, squeaking in the marble threshold.
3. Did Roman house tombs have doors?
Yes. One Pompeian tomb still under construction when Vesuvius erupted featured a door made of a single piece of marble, but carved to resemble the sort of folding wooden doors typical in Roman houses. (pictured: the Tomb of the Marble Door from Pompeii)4. Were there rats in imperial Rome?
No. According to my research, the black rat didn’t reach Europe until the 1st century AD. Maybe even later. I came upon this fact when I tried to find the Latin word for rat. Rattus doesn't exist until the late Antique period, so mus has to do service until then.
Yes. Especially in farewell. We have hundreds of depictions of Greeks and Romans shaking hands and not a single instance of the forearm grasp, used by Hollywood and many writers of historical Roman fiction. The forearm grasp is totally bogus!
6. Did Romans have pancakes?
Little details like these are just one of the many factors that go to making an historical novel good. Now I just have to get plot, character and pace right...
Escape from Rome, the first in Caroline Lawrence's new Roman Quests series, launches in May 2016.
