In Year 5, we have begun learning about adverbs in Latin. This week, we took inspiration from the defixiones at the Roman baths in Bath, and made some replica curses or blessings!
We learnt that the Romans called Bath Aquae Sulis. One of the reasons it was such an important town for the Romans were the baths, which were first built around 60CE! Because the water from the spring that feeds the baths, comes up hot from the ground, the Romans and the Britons thought it was sacred.
When excavating the area around the spring in the 1970s and 1980s, archaeologists found little folded strips of metal. When they unfolded them, they found that they were covered in Latin writing. When they translated them, they discovered that they were curses (defixiones), thrown into the spring as a plea to the local goddess to make them come true!
The children got to write their own Latin inscription on to a piece of metal, except they could choose whether to write a Latin defixiones or a positive message instead! Here are some examples.
