Conquering Rome in two days

Last week, before Ferdy got ill on Friday (hence no blog), he and I just managed to have about an hour in the Dewa Roman Experience in Chester.

tl clockwise-middle: food; Baths; a warrior in his chariot; a slave in prison;
meetingthe legionary; poo sponges; watching a drummer;
swapping hats with the legionary; holding a shield

We had listened to Horrible Histories: Rotten Romans on the way, so it felt like we arrived having already amassed a vast knowledge of these ancient warriors. We learnt that they used sponges on sticks to wipe their bottoms; that they ate hare, dormouse (ahhhh nooo), lobster, wild boar, flamingo and ostrich; that they wore NO underpants; that they went to the Baths naked (no swimming costumes) and that they washed their clothes in their pee.

As well as dressing up as a Gladiator and making me into a slave, Ferdy was thrilled to discover the poo sponges at the museum. He also delighted in meeting a real Legionary who swapped Ferdy's Storm Trooper hat for his own Roman helmet and sword and didn't even ask for any denarius...

This Friday, we carried on with our lesson on the Romans.

Picture by Gil

And because the Romans seem rather a misogynist bunch (women were not allowed to vote or fight or hold political office), and I think it's important for my boys (who have no sisters), to appreciate and respect strong women, we learnt about Queen Boudicca and her powerful army. Ferdy was slightly disappointed to learn that, despite her army being a lot bigger she was eventually overcome by the Romans (he was on the side of the Celts), but cheered up when we learnt about the battle of Teutoburg Forest in which the Romans were defeated.

He then requested that we go to Teutoburg Forest, so we did (kind of).

After being chased by Claudius's legionaries and finally taking shelter near a stream ('let's pretend it's the sea because the Romans thought that monsters lived in the sea so didn't like it'), we had a rather tame picnic tea of no flamingos or baby pig, just chocolate chip biscuits and carrots.

Later on, after Ferdy had randomly written his own Aesops Fable, and we had done some division, for Friday night family film night (a ritual introduced by the boys), we watched the very funny and at times gruesome Horrible Histories movie. Ferdy's favourite bits were the feminist anthems sung by Kate Nash as the fiesty and empowered Queen Boudicca and Gil's favourite bit was Derek Jacobi's Emperor Claudius falling off his sofa.

I don't seem to have learnt much history in school, so some of this is pretty new to me too, but I'm thoroughly enjoying us learning about history (herstory?) through its gory and quirky details.

The Romans conquered Africa, the Romans conquered Europe, the Romans conquered Britain, why did they stop conquering? 

Because they ran out of conkers....

Looking to see where the Romans marched and conquered