Holidays with the ancients

For most Romans, there were no such things as ‘summer holidays’. Holidays were for the rich, who went to their Cape Cod equivalent: the bay of Naples, leaving the stench, filth and disease of malarial Rome for the tideless, sheltered bay (‘bay’ derives from the local resort Baiae), cool sea breezes, healthy spas and agreeable villas. They certainly did not tour islands and coastlines by gulet, as I do every year with the sublime Westminster Classic Tours, full of Spectator readers keen to see and know everything, and hear what the ancients thought about it too.

Cruises of any sort are, in fact, a 19th-century invention. True, Archimedes (as in ‘eureka’) did build what looks like a cruise-ship for Hiero II, tyrant of Syracuse (240 bc). It had interior panelling of cypress, ivory and aromatic cedar. Multicoloured mosaics telling the story of the Iliad covered the three floor-levels. Statues and art-work were scattered about, and there was a temple to Aphrodite paved with agate. The promenades were decorated with arbours of white ivy, plant beds and vineyards. It contained a gymnasium, a vast bath, 20 stables and a sealed fish-tank, packed with fish. The captain’s cabin, sensibly located next to the kitchens, was of ‘fifteen-bed’ size, with three ‘three-bed’ rooms off. Very Costa Concordia.

But in fact it was a cargo boat, protected by fearsome armaments (Archimedes again), carrying 400 tons of grain, and 500 tons each of pickled fish, wool and other cargo. Archimedes needed to invent the screw-windlass to launch the monster.

For those who did venture abroad, local guides (what’s new?) lay in wait. Lucian (2nd-century ad) pictures a tourist examining paintings in a sanctuary ‘and right away two or three people ran up to tell me all about them — for a small fee’.