Junia’s funerary altar – image © Uffizi Museum After her death her father set up an elaborately decorated altar featuring (among many other things) Junia’s portrait, with her tidy little curls: She lived during the Flavian age (69-96AD) – so the same period as our Pompeiian kiddos – though Junia was in Rome. Having the Latin on the walls is a lovely detail – and I was quite intrigued by the name in the picture above, as Junia Procula was actually a real Roman child who died just before her 9th birthday. The lively scenes prompted lots of questions: What’s in that big vase? Where are the boats going? What do those letters on the wall mean? A busy day in Pompeii We’re also nicely introduced to different features of everyday Roman life: the busy taverns and shops, ships at the harbour bringing goods in and out of the city, the forum where politicians make speeches, the theatre, and even some children’s games – knucklebones! This is all bolstered by the warm illustrations which bring the city to life in characteristically earthy tones. We meet Tranio and Livia, two Roman children who live in Pompeii, and follow their story as disaster strikes the city. We’ve been exploring lots of Roman forts here lately, so it definitely seemed like time to balance out all our Greek and Egyptian books with some more Romans! We’ve read about Pompeii before a few times before and it immediately captured H’s imagination, so I was really excited when I spied Escape from Pompeiiby Christina Balit.
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