A Don’s Life

Were there Christians at Pompeii? The word-square evidence.

I have had a large number of emails in the last week, asking me if there really were Christians at Pompeii. The prompt for this was Waldemar Januszczak's BBC4 programme on the Dark Ages -- which had some amazing stuff, but also claimed that there were Christians at Pompeii. The evidence for this was the scratched word square (like the one above). 

It reads: "Sator/Arepo/Tenet/Opera /Rotas/" You'll see its clever "palindromic-ness" . It means (literally translated) "Arepo the sower holds the wheels at his work". But, as is often pointed out, the letters can be re-arranged into two "pater noster"s in the sign of a cross with a couple of "a"s and "o"s left over -- as in (converting to Greek) "alpha and omega". So it looks as if there could be a Christian significance: "our father" plus alpha and omega.

This "game" is found in all kind of places in the Roman world (including Cirencester) and it is often thought to be evidence of Christianity. One has been discovered in the palaestra in Pompeii ... but is it really evidence of Christianity as W J insisted in his programme? Probably not.

Cambridge's royal visit and my day

I have been teaching all day, while our Duke and Duchess have been paying a royal visit. So I wave the flag in my head (well, errr ??), while actually being busy on all kinds of other things.

It's the last week of term and let me inflict on you what my uni day has been, before we get on to our royal family. This is partly for those very few readers of this blog who might be under the impression that we academics don't work hard enough. . .

Reconstructing the classics: from Pompeii to Athens.

I just did my third talk in A Point of View (one more to go, to write this weekend...) about the plaster casts of Pompeii, which was sparked off by the conference at the Getty I went to last weekend and the show at the Getty Museum. (You can read it here or listen here.)

As I've said before it is weird how long it takes to write a 10 minute radio talk (somehow, it's in your head all week). But, on the other hand, it always turns out that you dont have time to get in all you wanted to. (Well, of cource not, it's only 10 minutes.)

This week I was particularly sad not to be able to name check the extraordinary broadcast by Matthew Halton for CBC, which is actually a live commentary on the Battle of Pompeii in 1943 (pretty early on in the battle, as he says at one point that the ancient city is still relatively unscathed... in the end it took the hit of more than 160 allied bombs). For me this is the second most moving account of the destruction of Pompeii, after that of Pliny the Younger. You can listen here (really worth it!).

Confronting the Classics

I havent actually confessed yet that I am putting together a choice selection of essays and reviews to come out next Spring from Profile -- almost certainly called Confronting the Classics (we've been through quite a lot of titles and that one seems to please the most, and to be faithful to the contents). And barring an afterword and preface and linking passages (OK a good couple of days work there, but never mind).. I've finished and pressed the button about five minutes ago.

Have a foul cold (caught on the airplane to Los Angeles, how else?) and am more knackered than I like to think... but I can sort of tick the job off. (I count ticking the job off as reaching the point where if you dropped down dead someone woud be able to finish it and still put your name on the cover). 

What's amazing is that, even with something approaching a compilation, it still takes ages and ages to get done. Think of a number of weeks, then treble it.

Sunset Boulevard and the eco-police

It is always, in a way, a mistake to go to a conference in the middle of term ... all the more so when that conference is on the other side of the planet. But when you say 'yes', it's months in advance, and you somehow fantasise that it will be a nice little break in a slightly warmer climate. At that point, you havent quite worked out that it will mean almost as many hours in a plane as you are at the conference.

So here I am again in Los Angeles, writing this at 5.00 am (and trying NOT to adjust to California time, made more difficult by the fact that all a cabin crew want you to do on a long flight is go to sleep: more booze, lights off, blinds down, heating up -- and you're out for the count).

But in this case the conference really WAS irresistible, because it is all connected with an exhibition at the Getty Villa on the modern legacy of Pompeii. I had had a bit to do with the early plans for the show, and if I didn't come now, I would miss it entirely. Besides I am not down to give a paper,but to "respond" at the end of the day. (In truth an ambiguous advantage: it means you dont have to write a paper, but it means that you have to stay awake and sharp -- so you have something worthwhile to say. No dropping off, Beard.)

Prize Givings

You know you are getting to be an elderly academic when you start getting asked to give out prizes at school (to be honest you also know that you are thought of as someone who might go down well, might give a decent mini-speech and not be wholly ridiculous in front of the kids and Mums and Dads .... "elderly but a bit sexy" seems to hit the nail on the head). 

Anyway I went to Swavesey Village College on Monday, where I had a great time and is obviously a great school (well done to everyone there!). But this brought back all those "speech day/prize giving memories" from way back.

I said to the audience on Monday that I didnt remember anything that had been said at any of the occasions I attended as a kid. That wasnt actually quite true. I do remember when John Ferguson (who was Professor of Classics at the OU), and he gave a tub thumping left wing speech to the rather proper burghers of Shrewsbury, ending up with "No Man Is An Island"... which I of course loved. But I thought it might all seem a bit pious in the early 21st century (young Beard thrills to John Donne), so I drew a veil over it.

I did mention one speech though, that I heard at my son's school about 15 years ago...

WORLD at New Broadcasting House

I fetched up this morning at the new wing of Broadcasting House to do my Point of View recording (just next to the Old Broadcasting House and where most of the outlying bits of the BBC are gradually being brought in). It was the first time I had been there in daylight . . . and the first time I had had a good look around.

Parts of the building are extremely elegant, and there are wonderful vertiginous vistas through glass from upper floors to the ground. And it's a great match for the old Broadcasting House. What is more, good or bad, anyone who think that BBC staff work in the lap of spacious luxury could well take a look round the packed "open plan" offices. (Not sure who chose the carpets though...some of the retro orange was a bit blood-curdling.)

But what caught my eye even more was the art work in the piazza outside. It's called WORLD by Mark Pimlott, and it is simply a series of lines of latitude and longitude set in the pavement, plus a series of place names.

Sounds silly?

Thank heavens I don't live in Ohio, or get tweeted by David Cameron

I heard sometime in the middle of the night (we'd left the radio on) that Obama had probably won... then a bit later that he really had won, Romney had conceded etc. I went back to sleep with a certain pleasure, or rather relief that I wouldnt have to be living on planet Romney.

And this morning it is hard to forget the lingering pleasure. Even "Thought for the Day" was an Obama broadcast. (I wondered what the nice rabbl would have said if Romney had won... did he have two scripts ready? Or did he write it all in an hour? You can listen here.)

So joy all round, but not without a few wry reflections.

First, what is it about American politicians that means they have constantly to bang on about how the USA is the greates nation in the world? In truth Obama's 'accession  speech' (as the Romans would have called it) had some good bits in it, as those speeches go (democracy being messy etc). But it still had quite a lot of the 'top nation' stuff. Doesn't any one of them ever reflect what the criteria are for the world's greatest country? (I mean, why not Norway?)  And that maybe part of the trouble in the world is that Americans are being brought up constantly being told that they are the greatest, simply by being American? (Usually -- as with the Roman empire -- top nation actually means, as Obama came close to saying, 'most fire power'... and that certainly excludes Norway.)

A day at Heffers.

It's not really clear what is going to make a bookshop successful into the 21st century against the competition of Amazon etc. There was the rush to the "in-store coffee shop" a few years ago, but that didnt save Borders. And anyway the coffee shop is always going to take up space where you might have books, and that is the beginning of the slippery slope.

It's probably a much better idea to move in the Literary Festival direction. I have done a number of bookshop events of that sort (including some great events at Bookmark in Spalding and Topping of Ely). But today Heffers did a whole day Classics festival, which was free and booked out. In fact the ting had been so popular that they had to move it to the Union Society to fit more people in.

This is not the place for me to put the record on about inportant local bookshops are. OK I use Amazon sometimes, but if we all buy all our books from Amazon, we'll wake up one day and find we dont have a local bookshop.. and we wont like that.