Real Roman Tours

Home
United Kingdom
Edinburgh
Real Roman Tours

Scotland's premier Antonine Wall & Hadrian's Wall tour guide company

To provide historical and cultural tours to sites along the Antonine Wall & Hadrian's Wall, and other Roman sites in the UK.

14/11/2024

A welcome return to the Annual Classics Day at Fettes! Putting the recruits through their paces!

26/07/2024

Never mind all these Olympics hopefuls, the greatest Olympian has to be emperor Nero. He bribed the organisers to postpone the Games for a year so he could enter, and then subsequently won every event he entered, even the 10 horse chariot race where he was thrown off the chariot before the finish line. Read and weep, all ye Olympian pretenders!

18/11/2023

At Fettes Classics Day this week, a pupil asked what accent the Romans would have. What a great question! The answer is we really can't know for sure how a Roman would have sounded. Added to that, a lot depends on how you define 'Roman'. But we can say there would have been a wide variety of accents heard in the camp, as well as in towns and cities across the empire. Even at the top, emperor Severus's north african accent was mocked by the senate. But as to what that accent sounded like, we'll never be sure.

09/11/2022

Great to be back at Fettes again this year!

17/12/2021

Happy Saturnalia!

26/11/2021

What a find! The archaeology in this country just keeps on giving! This scene depicts Achilles and Hector perhaps? Dates to late Roman period, 3rd or 4th century ad. BBC News - Roman mosaic and villa complex found in Rutland farmer's field
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-59391650

The mosaic, part of a villa complex, is said to be one of the most significant found in Britain.

09/11/2021

A welcome return to Fettes last thursday for the annual Classics day!

31/10/2021

An ancient ghost story, which contains all the essential elements which we're familiar with today!

Rome's first recorded ghost story, by Pliny the Younger around AD 100. 👻

There stood at Athens a spacious and roomy house, but it had an evil reputation of being fatal to those who lived in it. In the silence of the night the clank of iron and, if you listened with closer attention, the rattle of chains were heard, the sound coming first from a distance and afterwards quite close at hand. Then appeared the ghostly form of an old man, emaciated, filthy, decrepit, with a flowing beard and hair on end, with fetters round his legs and chains on his hands, which he kept shaking. The terrified inmates passed sleepless nights of fearful terror, and following upon their sleeplessness came disease and then death as their fears increased. For every now and again, though the ghost had vanished, memory conjured up the vision before their eyes, and their fright remained longer than the apparition which had caused it. Then the house was deserted and condemned to stand empty, and was wholly abandoned to the spectre, while the authorities forbade that it should be sold or let to anyone wishing to take it, not knowing under what a curse it lay.

The philosopher Athenodorus came to Athens, read the notice board, and on hearing the price hesitated, because the low rent made him suspicious. Then he was told the whole story, and, so far from being deterred, he became the more eager to rent it When evening began to fall, he ordered his people to make him up a bed in the front of the house, and asked for his tablets, a pen, and a lamp. Dismissing all his servants to the inner rooms, he applied mind, eyes, and hand to the task of writing, lest by having nothing to think about he might begin to conjure up the apparition of which he had been told and other idle fears. At first the night was just as still there as elsewhere, then the iron was rattled and the chains clanked. Athenodorus did not raise his eyes, nor cease to write, but fortified his resolution and closed his ears. The noise became louder and drew nearer, and was heard now on the threshold and then within the room itself. He turned his head, and saw and recognised the ghost which had been described to him. It stood and beckoned with its finger, as if calling him; but Athenodorus merely motioned with his hand, as if to bid it wait a little, and once more bent over his tablets and plied his pen. As he wrote the spectre rattled its chains over his head, and looking round he saw that it was beckoning as before, so, without further delay, he took up the lamp and followed. The spectre walked with slow steps, as though burdened by the chains, then it turned off into the courtyard of the house and suddenly vanished, leaving its companion alone, who thereupon plucked some grass and foliage to mark the place. On the following day he went to the magistrates and advised them to give orders that the place should be dug up. Bones were found with chains wound round them. Time and the action of the soil had made the flesh moulder, and left the bones bare and eaten away by the chains, but the remains were collected and given a public burial. Ever afterwards the house was free of the ghost which had been thus laid with due ceremony.

Pliny the Younger: Letters Book VII Letter 27 (http://www.attalus.org/old/pliny7.html #27)

29/10/2021

Something for Halloween: cursing Roman style! Defixiones (curse tablets) have been found at the sacred spring complex at Bath.

Servilia of the Junii casts ancient Roman curses (defixiones) on Julius Caesar and his niece, Atia of the Julii. She calls on the gods of the underworld to c...

29/10/2021

Wow! What a find :-)

Two complete sculptures appearing to be a man and a woman were found at a site in Buckinghamshire.

17/08/2021

Today we bid farewell to the sterling service provided by Jennifer Shearer, Classics teacher at Kirkcaldy High School for the past 29 years! After 40 years of teaching, she is now due to retire this month to explore new projects. Jennifer's support was instrumental in the early days getting RRT off the ground, and I have very much enjoyed the annual visits to her Classics class at Kirkcaldy High each year, where the new intake for that year are 'recruited' into the Roman army for the afternoon - whether they like it or not ;-) It's hoped annual visits will continue under her successor. This photo is from one of our early tours to Roughcastle in 2014. Best wishes for the future, Jennifer!

Address

Edinburgh

Website

http://www.realromantours.co.uk/, http://twitter.com/RealRomanTours

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Real Roman Tours posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Real Roman Tours:

Shortcuts

Our Story

To provide personal tours to sites along the Antonine Wall in Scotland & Hadrian's Wall in England. As a Roman legionary, I also visit schools to help bring their classroom Roman topic to life!