How I Lost My Hands

Further Info

The Museum of Bristol ran a project called Roman Roots in which young people investigated the ruins of a Roman villa in Lawrence Weston. This workshop marked the culmination of the project, and the stories incorporate what was learnt and the activities involved in the project.

Transcript

Chantelle and I were walking through a field in Caerleon when we saw a village that hadn’t been there before.

We thought they might be travellers except they had tents made from animal skins instead of trailers. There were funny noises coming from the quarry too, sounds like from a battle. We were just stood there looking when these strange men came over to us. They were each wearing a wolfskin on their head, and one was carrying what looked like a musical instrument. It looked a bit like a really huge trumpet.

“Come to see the gladiators, fair maidens?” the one with the trumpet asked.

“Uh, no we’re here to see the craft fair” said Chan, “this woman handed us a leaflet for it.”

“Craft fair? Yes, why of course! We have every craft here, why not ask our blacksmith to make you some new shoes? Or we have make-up and jewellery, perfumes and aromatic spices which I’m sure would please you young ladies. But don’t forget to stop and watch the gladiators. Percius The Polevaulter’s come all the way from Rome.”

We were just deciding what to do when an army of semi-naked, sweaty, muscular blokes wearing barely more than loin cloths walked past. They headed into the quarry.

“I think I just decided what we should do” I said.

”So did I” said Chan.

We walked over to the quarry, and sat on the grass over-looking the arena. The blokes put on lots of armour and bits of animals, and then they picked up nets with rocks in, spears and other vicious-looking weapons. Watching the event, we were aware that hundreds of other people were lining the quarry-edge too, and they were all cheering and shouting on their particular favourite gladiator.

“Come on Percius! Come on Gorgeous Georgius! Get on with it, Galarius The Grumpy!” were just some of the shouts we could hear.

Argus The Arrogant was the first to drop out of the fight, he lost to Wilius The Wise. I was cheering on Eduardius The Elongated, whereas Chan preferred Panius The Pouty. Eventually the fight was over, and Victorius The Violent was declared the champion. He stood in the centre of the arena, raised his arms above his head and shouted “Victoria! Victoria!” which I assumed was either his girlfriend or Latin for victory.

Later, Chantelle and I went round the tents where people were selling things. There was a cobbler, and a jeweller, and a lady with lots of interesting looking make-up. We were busy painting our faces, trying everything in sight, when she informed us what the potions were made of.

“This lip paint is made from the blood of peacocks and the milk of cows” she said proudly, obviously thinking that this fact was a major selling point. Chan and I hastily started putting things back.

We were looking at the jewellery stand when we made our first big mistake.

“I really like that necklace” said Chan, “it’s really pretty.”

“Yeah it is” I agreed, “but we don’t have any money. Or at least not money that will be accepted here.”

“Well…” said Chan, “we could just take it… I mean, Romans aren’t going to have security tags and electronic beeping things are they? We’d get away with it for sure. “

“Ummm… yeah okay” I said, more than a little apprehensive.

We moved closer to the necklace, Chan turned her back to me and stood facing the rest of the tent to shield me. I reached out and slipped the necklace into my pocket.

We’d just started walking away, chuffed as punch with ourselves, when we heard the shout.

“Thief! Those rotten girls have robbed me!”

We broke into a run but we didn’t get far. A burly hand landed on each of our shoulders and steered us into a very grand looking tent. A man in a helmet with a plume on top sat in a chair, he eyed us up and down.

“Tut, tut, girls” he said, “thieving is a very serious offence. You’ll have your hands chopped off for this.”

Chantelle and I looked at each other in horror. What had we done?

Credits

Tent picture created by Scott M (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Victory schulpture picture created by ishane (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.

Severed hand picture created by Zpyder (flickr.com), used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 licence.