The Games of Sulis

Nowadays, visitors to the Baths enjoy their chance to walk upon the stone trodden by Roman feet two thousand years ago; but did you know that, in the 1960s & ‘70s, there were regular events which gave people an even more intimate taste of ancient culture, allowing them to dine at a full Roman banquet around the baths themselves? 

An invitation to the very first of these, in the shape of a scroll with a wax seal and ribbon and entitled LUDI SULIS I JUNIUS MCMLXI (The Games of Sulis, 1^st June 1961), has recently been acquired by the Roman Baths:

The invitation to the Roman banquet

The invitation sets out full details of the ‘orgy’, from clothing and music to décor and food, interspersed with quotes from poets such as Tibullus and Propertius, and even begins with a specially-composed, three-verse Latin poem, inviting the guests to the feast:

The invitation’s heading, including the Latin invitatory poem

The first two verses imagine the invitee as a weary ploughman or shepherd, enticed to take rest under a tree, sate their thirst and be lulled to sleep. The final verse invites the guest to a rather less tranquil affair, as can be seen by a possible translation:

But if you prefer a ladle of Falernian wine with water, or an beautiful girl to a disgusting sheep, seize the lavish joys of the night with the orgies of Sulis.

Every invitee was required to attend in full Roman attire to make the atmosphere more authentic, the men therefore being given a purple toga on arrival, the women a stola (a long, sleeveless dress). Together with the invitation was a photograph (see below) showing some guests in their outfits. The women’s hair is arranged in Roman style, in accordance with the invitation’s suggestion that they ‘imitated Cypassis’, an ‘expert in ornamenting hair in a thousand fashions’ (ponendis in mille modos perfecta capillis, Ovid Amores II.8).

Guests to Ludi Sulis in their Roman attire of toga or stola

Each item of food in the gustatio (hors d’oeuvres), fercula (roast) and mensa secunda (dessert) was an authentic Roman delicacy. These ranged from tunny fish, snails, honey cakes and stuffed pastry birds to a complete roast pig, which greeted the guests as they arrived to sit on cushions around the Great Bath.

Organisers even took inspiration from Cena Trimalchionis (Trimalchio’s Feast), part of Petronius’ Satyricon (often considered one of the earliest ‘novels’, written in the 1^st century AD), in setting up a ‘table of delicacies’. Guests were advised to decline these, seeing as they included things like nightingales’ tongues, flamingos’ brains and sows’ udders!

The feast was accompanied by music adapted from surviving Greek fragments and performed on lyres and recorders (the double flute or tibia being deemed too unwieldy to play). The after-dinner entertainment was decidedly more modern: guests were serenaded on the terrace by Nero and the Gladiators, a 1960s rock band!

According to a newspaper article from 1990 written about it, the event was organised by Mrs B. Robertson and Mrs V. Crallan to raise money for the Bath Festival. Tickets cost four guineas, and a film crew was even paid to record the event, on the condition that the cameramen must enter into the spirit of things by donning togas too! The event quickly morphed into ‘Roman Rendezvous’ nights, and many people remember being allowed to swim in the Great Bath before dancing in the Pump Room.

Acquisitions come from many different sources, such as donations, purchases or transfers - but it’s always fascinating to receive evidence of the colourful history of the Baths’ use through time.

Jack

Collections Volunteer 

The Tompion Clock

One of the jobs I am privileged to do as Collections Manager at the Roman Baths is to wind the Tompion Clock. It has stood in Bath’s Pump Room since 1709 and its older than the present Room!

The 1670s-1700s were an interesting time in the history of telling the time: pendulums had only recently been invented and clock makers were working out how to improve clocks and watches’ accuracy particularly with springs, making it possible to take these fragile instruments onto ships. 

Thomas Tompion was (and still is) a well-regarded clock maker. He worked for Charles II, William III and Queen Anne. As a friend of the first Astronomer Royal, Flamsted, two of his clocks were built into the Observatory, Greenwich.  And after a successful life, having made over 700 clocks and 6,000 watches when he died his work was recognised with a burial in Westminster Abbey.

The clock with its hood removed 

The Bath clock is, to get technical, a long case equation clock.  This means its much bigger than a grandfather clock (it stands over three metres high) and it has a kidney shaped dial which reflects the solar time which is not regular like the ticking of a clock because of the elliptical orbit of the earth around the sun. This was important to the men of science as that was what they were used to from sundials. Even so, to check an equation clock its necessary to regularly use a sundial to get “the sun’s time”.  So all of these clocks were supplied with a sun dial!  Ours is outside the nearest window in the Pump Room. 

Tompion's sundial outside the Pump Room

Unlike most of Tompion’s clocks, which were given mahogany wood cases, ours has an oak one.  Another difference is that it has to be wound every 3 weeks which sounds good until you consider the one Tompion made  for William III now in Buckingham Palace needs to be wound only once a year!

Some people have suggested these difference are because Tompion made the clock cheaply and gave it the City of Bath not so much as a gift but a very large advertisement in the social centre of Bath!   However, as he did live here for   and he was made an honorary freedman of the city before he gave the clock, that doesn’t sound fair.

Our earliest photograph (early 20th century) of the Tompion Clock in the Pump Room with the Victorian colour scheme!

Apart from the pedigree of this clock, I love it because of its elaborate details: the urn and foliage decoration around the dial, and the fire gilt finials with mini flames on top!

I’m surprised that it shows the date: but this means throughout the year we have to ever so carefully, don gloves, and move the delicate hands around to show the right date.  

Susan