The Romans Losing Their Nuts
By Lothar. Filed in Germany |
On Monday, April 21st, we are taking Gabi’s students to the former Roman settlement “Colonia Ulpia Traiana”, nowadays “Xanten”.
2000 years ago, it used to be a port city along the Rhine river. The river changed it’s course ,and now our bus drops us in the middle of flat cow pastures, outside of the walled town of “Xanten. It is sunny and pleasant, as we walk past a still working grain mill to the Gothic-style church, the “Xantener Dom”.
We admire the amazing wood-carving skills that produced the life-like figures of the “St-Martinus Altar” and the “Altar of the Holy Mary”, more than 500 years old!
Lunch is al fresco at the market square. I have a traditional Rhineland dish: mashed potato-carrot stew.
A ten minute walk takes us to the partially reconstructed Roman city. Colonia Ulpia Traiana was given the city rights by Emperor Traian around 98 AD.
We get to see the defense structures of the city wall and watch towers, the large Roman amphitheater, the Harbor Temple, heated Roman Thermal Baths, water and sewer lines, as well as a reconstructed wooden travel coach and road map of that time. “All Roads Lead To Rome”.
Finally, our students get to play Roman games with balls and marbles: a mix of hand-eye-coordination and a little luck. We learn that the Roman frontier towns had their problems with boredom of the legionnaires and addiction to gambling. They used dice and nuts for gambling, even though the Latin phrase for entering adulthood was “to lose your nuts”, meaning to give up playing with nuts or marbles.
Literal translations can certainly cause a lot of misunderstandings!