Lego Roman Villa
I started playing with Lego when they announced there would be new Star Wars movies back in 2012. Boba Fett’s Slave I had been sitting in the top of my cupboard - unbuilt - for years. A while later I began work on Legonium.com, a website that uses Lego to teach and promote Latin. From there I decided to build a Lego Roman villa. I’ve been working on it on and off since 2016, and it is nearly finished.
I began by deciding on a size and using bricks to map out the iconic ground floor, based on the plan found in the first chapter of the Cambridge Latin Course, with a central atrium, study, kitchen, triclinium and a garden in the rear. Mary Beard’s Pompeii has convinced me that the rooms around the atrium were probably not for sleeping, so I created a sitting room, reading room and a small library with a shelf of scrolls. There is also a store room with a sets of stairs leading upwards.
I decided to divide the upper floor between a sleeping area and mosaic workshop. There are draws full of different colour Lego tiles, allowing you to make a mini-mosaic of your own, which can be sold in one of the shops that opens onto the street. The other shop sells apples and juices - which is more child friendly than wine.
There is nowhere for slaves to sleep in the Lego villa. When the villa is complete, I will submit it to Lego Ideas, with the hope that it might become an official set. I could not abide the thought of children playing at slave keeping. The time comes when all children who love ancient culture must confront the reality of slavery, but Lego did not seem the right medium for such a serious matter.
The next step - after applying some finishing touches - is to create some resources to go with the model. I’d like to write some Latin stories illustrated with pictures of the villa, but most of all I’d like to create resources that allow for Latin play and conversation using the home. I once spent thirty minutes with a friend moving figures between rooms and announcing - in Latin - the scene we had created. Claudia aquam portat. Marcus in culina coquit. statua Veneris in horto stat. Claudia et Marcus lares laudant. feles murem sub scala vexat. It was iucundissimum!