This slender volume forms part of a ‘History Essentials’ series of books which the publisher's website reveals is intended for children in Key Stage 2; other titles cover ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, the Stone and Bronze Ages and the Vikings. The subtitle of this volume on the Romans is ‘Invasion and Empire’, and although much of the book focuses on the wider empire – and especially Roman Britain – there are sections which discuss other aspects of Roman civilisation too.
Each double-page spread in the book covers a particular topic that is brought to life by a combination of text and illustrations. Most of the illustrations in this colourful book are photographs, although some pages feature drawn reconstructions. The first topic discussed is the AD 43 invasion of Britain, but then the following double-page steps back to consider ‘Who were the Romans?’ The next several topics deal with various aspects of Roman civilisation – the empire, the army, domestic life, food, features of the city of Rome, and gladiators. Thereafter the focus shifts back to Roman Britain, with a general section on ‘the Romans in Britain’ followed by ones exploring Boudica's revolt, baths (with a focus on Bath itself) and Hadrian's Wall.
There are, unfortunately, some features of the book which could cause confusion, and there are also occasional errors. The map which begins the book (p. 2), for example, is stated to show ‘the Roman Empire at the beginning of the 2nd century AD’ but includes Hadrian's Wall (not begun until AD 122); the labelling of the map is also inconsistent, with areas of the empire shown as ‘Britannia’, ‘Gaul (Modern-day France)’ and ‘Modern-day Spain’. Later in the book one reads of ‘England’ (p. 4) and ‘Wales’ (p. 20); whilst these terms may be meaningful to younger modern readers, it might perhaps have been worth clarifying that these names did not come into use until after the Roman period. We read that ‘Insulae had no running water or toilets’ (p. 12), but the accompanying – and otherwise excellent – reconstruction drawing of such an apartment block that illustrates that double page seems to include an individual making use of a wooden latrina (p. 13). The same double page suggests that a Roman's ‘city house’ was a domus and that he might also have a ‘beautiful villa in the countryside’ (p. 12), but also refers to what could certainly be features of urban dwellings as those of ‘a Roman villa’ (p. 13). Two seemingly contradictory statements are given on a single page (p. 22), where we read both that ‘the Iceni lived peacefully under Roman rule’ and that ‘Boudica and her people had suffered years of Roman rule’. Those with knowledge of Latin might regret the sentence ‘Roman soldiers fought with pilums’ (p. 10), but more serious is the error contained in ‘the Romans believed that a spirit called a lares protected their home’ (p. 13) when a plural term is used as if it were singular. Two other erroneous statements claim that Augustus was Julius Caesar's nephew, rather than his great-nephew (p. 7), and that Vindolanda was a ‘fort at Hadrian's Wall’, rather than a fort that pre-dated and remained distinct from the Wall (p. 27).
Despite these issues, there are many positive features of this book. The range of topics covered is impressive, even if most have to be covered at a superficial level. The double page entitled ‘The Roman Empire’ discusses roads, the army, numerals and Latin as well as the geographical extent of Roman control and the idea that non-Romans could gain citizenship (pp. 8–9). ‘Family life and homes’ includes discussion of infant mortality and covers the lives of women as well as men and of poorer as well as richer Romans (pp. 12–13). Ancient evidence comes to the fore in the section on ‘Boudica's revolt’, with mention made of Cassius Dio, Tacitus, and archaeological evidence (p. 23). Drawing attention to surviving Roman evidence continues with discussion of the Vindolanda tablets (p. 27) and, especially, on the double page entitled ‘Roman Bones’ (pp. 28–29), where readers are introduced to the idea that a person's diet and even their life histories can be recovered from skeletal remains. The ‘Lant Street girl’ is discussed as an example, and we learn that she was born in the southern Mediterranean, moved to London at the age of nine or ten, and then died at the age of 14 (p. 29).
The book ends with a glossary of terms; the explanations given are generally helpful, although the description of a merchant as ‘a person (usually from history) who buys and sells goods’ seemed a little unclear (p. 31). The words included in the glossary appear in bold when used earlier in the book, which will help young readers to understand the book's content (provided they realise that they should look in the glossary for guidance). Many of the features of the Roman world discussed seem likely to appeal to the age range for which the book is intended: they can, for example, find out about war elephants (p. 5), Roman foodstuffs (pp. 14–15, with a flamingo, sea urchin and dormouse pictured!), and the Roman use of ‘a sponge on a stick’ when in the latrina (p. 17). Gladiators also receive their own double page which will interest young readers, although their parents might like to be aware of the gory detail included that ‘a cut across a fighter's stomach could release their intestines onto the sand’ (p. 18). It is impressive, however, that the book ensures that these lively aspects of Roman life appear alongside other, more-complicated issues, such as slavery, migration and Romanisation, that are presented in an accessible way.
Whilst it is a shame that certain aspects of the volume prevent it from being completely clear and fully accurate, this book nonetheless could serve as a fine introduction to the Roman world, and particularly to Roman Britain.
Open access
