This blog was written by Alexa Wolff and Rebekah Marsh, second-year students in the Department of Classics at the University of Reading.

This year was the third year the ancient schoolroom came to Butser Ancient Farm to run a week of activities, and it was an incredible time and a great experience. It was our first time attending the week at Butser, and we both had just the most amazing time. A week of living like an ancient Roman may sound a touch daunting – I was a little apprehensive about having to eat like a Roman! – but it was a great week and we all had a lot of fun.

Figure 1: Reading Ancient Schoolroom team at Butser Ancient Farm

The Reading Ancient Schoolroom usually offers a day of activities in schools, but our week at Butser involved so much more. Beyond the usual schoolroom activities of reading and writing (including on wax tablets and with ink and pens made by participants!) and Roman arithmetic with beans and counting boards, the schoolroom team also ran a range of fantastic workshops and smaller activities, like spinning yarn and engraving magical gems.

Figure 2: Alexa in the Schoolroom

Jacinta Hunter (BA Reading 2025) put on two fantastic plays, adapted for a younger cast – Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Plautus’ Miles Gloriosus, a Greek tragedy and a Roman comedy. We were both able to act in Agamemnon – I played Cassandra, a tragic prophet; the herald; and Aegisthus, a sleazy interloper to the royal court. Rebekah did a fantastic job as Clytemnestra, the queen who took her revenge against her husband. Beyond just the play, we spent time rehearsing and developing acting skills, including going into depth about the characters from the ancient plays. The highlight of Agamemnon, as I’m sure the audience would agree, was our fellow ancient Roman Nicole Wellington getting brought out in a wheelbarrow as the corpse of Agamemnon himself. Miles Gloriosus was also a success and very well-loved by the audience of farm visitors and volunteers, and the children had a fantastic time – and did a great job remembering all the Roman names!

Other workshops included learning about Roman graffiti, having a deeper look into Roman maths and even investigating Roman currency, and getting the chance to create our very own Vindolanda tablet. We also ran some smaller activities during the day – third-year student Lucy French showed visitors how to use a drop spindle and sew their own small Roman purses and I wandered around the farm, ‘selling’ Roman curse tablets (and getting thrown out of the villa for my illegal practices!).

Figure 3: Rebekah in Costume

After the visitors left for the day, we continued to live as Romans – we ditched the tunics, but moved up to the Anglo-Saxon longhouse to prepare our Roman dinners. Rebekah stoked the fire every night that we used for our cooking, and we took recipes from the Gladiatoren Kochbuch and Sally Grainger’s recipe books, which use Apicius as a main source. Rebekah’s favourite Roman meal was the Roman pasta soup that PhD student Adel Ternovacz cooked (with an honourable mention going to Nicole’s mushroom patina and stuffed dates!), and I particularly enjoyed the Romano-British pork skewers that Jacinta made.

Figure 4: A garden breakfast

The schoolroom team stayed in the farm even overnight. We had ample sleeping spots to choose from, ranging from a Neolithic hut (which had a very welcoming skull over the door) to the Anglo-Saxon longhouse, but we both elected to spend as many nights as possible inside the Roman villa, which was remarkably similar to modern buildings. We were well sheltered from wind and rain, and even had the opportunity to sleep on Roman beds! The Bronze Age hut was a popular spot due to the family of swallows living in the roof, but we preferred to stay inside a building with a door.

Figure 5: Alexa in Costume

The farm was all in all a very welcoming place to stay, and we made good friends with our neighbours the goats. Nutmeg tried at one point to eat Rebekah’s Roman bag, but we have elected to forgive her. The goats had to make space for us as well as a group of historical music specialists, so the days were certainly never dull, as we had the chance to meet so many visitors and volunteers.

We had a fantastic time – we were both apprehensive at first, but it was a really great experience, and we’re already looking forward to next year! The team were so welcoming and amazing, and getting the chance to learn from other people from all walks of life was incredible – Nicole flew all the way from Boston to help out, which definitely wins the award for furthest distance travelled! It was a brilliant opportunity and I hope to take part in many more activities with the schoolroom to come.