Category: | Our Mythical Childhood Survey

Glen Chapron, Hélène Montardre

Disaster at Pompeii [Catastrophe à Pompéi]

Like all volumes in the series, this one begins with a section The adventure begins… setting up the scene of the novel by providing answers to the basic narrative questions: when, where, “so what”, and who.A teenage boy, Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, who lives in Misenum with his mother and uncle, Pliny the Elder, a writer and also commander of the Roman fleet stationed in the port, frequently visits his friend Loreius in Pompeii, across the bay. Loreius spends lots of tim(...)

literary

YEAR: 2013

COUNTRY: France

TAGS: Architecture Herculaneum Loreius Misenum Pliny the Elder Pliny the Younger Pompeii Roman Art Roman Education Roman History Roman Navy Stabiae Venus Vesuvius

Victor Ambrus, Rosemary Sutcliff

Eagle’s Egg

The story begins with Quintus recounting to his grandchildren how as young man he was posted to Eburacum (York) as the standard-bearer for the Ninth Legion. There, at a well next to the Temple of Sulis, Quintus had encountered Cordaella, who had come from Lindum (Lincoln) with her brother Vedrix after he had been hired to lay a new mosaic floor in the town council chamber. As time passed, Quintus and Cordaella had fallen in love, but because Quintus was below the rank of centurion they could not(...)

literary

YEAR: 1981

COUNTRY: United Kingdom

TAGS: Agricola Calgacus Eboracum Roman Army Roman Art Roman Britain

Rosemary Sutcliff

The Hundredth Feather

In this short story set in a Roman province (likely Britain), Andros, a mosaic-maker, has been hired by a merchant named Cornelius Kaeso to install a mosaic depicting the goddess Juno and her peacock in his dining room. To make the ‘eyes’ on the peacock’s tail, Andros has fashioned 100 pieces from the fragments of a glass vessel that had been accidentally broken by a household slave. As he works on the mosaic, Andros reflects on the aspirations he had to craft mosaics for the w(...)

literary

YEAR: 1984

COUNTRY: United Kingdom

TAGS: Roman Art Roman Britain Roman Empire Roman History

Croteam , Tom Jubert , Jonas Kyratzes

The Talos Principle

In The Talos Principle, the main character wakes up to find a peaceful but ruined world. An unknown voice, who later says he is Elohim, speaks to you, the player, and instructs you to complete a series of puzzles he has created for you (consisting of lasers, pressure pads, “Reflectors”, “Hexahedrons”, Enemies, amongst other features) so that you collect “sigils” and therefore ascend to the next realm. However, it also advises you not to climb the tower; later (...)

electronic

YEAR: 2014

COUNTRY: Online

TAGS: Aristotle Athena Bacchus Daedalus Hephaestus Heracles Hercules Hesperides Hippocampi Labyrinth Lares Mercury Minos Poseidon Pottery / Vases Roman Art Sphinx Talos (Automaton) Zeus