Visualising Late Antiquity

One of the biggest challenges of writing historical fiction is trying to visualise what everyday life was like.

How did people dress? What did they eat and drink? What would you have seen, heard and smelled as you walked through an ancient city?

The problem is that most historical texts are concerned with high politics or religion, and not with telling us about humdrum realities. Sometimes we get a glimpse of daily life, as in this famous (and rather snobbish) passage by Ammianus Marcellinus on the fourth-century plebs of Rome:

But of the multitude of lowest condition and greatest poverty some spend the entire night in wineshops, some lurk in the shade of the awnings of the theatres [...] or they quarrel with one another in their games at dice, making a disgusting sound by drawing back the breath into their resounding nostrils; or, which is the favourite among all amusements, from sunrise until evening, in sunshine and in rain, they stand open-mouthed, examining minutely the good points or the defects of charioteers and their horses.

(Blokes hanging out to get drunk, play pub games and argue about sport? Maybe the Roman world wasn't so weird after all...)

Archaeology is also incredibly useful, along with the work of re-enactors who experiment with clothing, cooking and the countless other details of ordinary life that most historians rarely have to think about.

This is why I'm excited about a current research project based at the University of Kent, Visualising Late Antiquity.

This project is bringing together a whole range of academics and research students to piece together a clearer picture of 'everyday urban society' in the late Roman period. So far they've published fantastic visual reconstructions of city life in Ostia, along with articles on basket weaving, tunics, and even spices (which, it seems, were not just used in cooking).

True, this project isn't going to teach anyone about the lives of emperors and empresses, or about epic wars or the adventures of great heroes - but it's a real treasure trove for the historical novelist, and for anyone interested in the humdrum lives of the 99%!