Sources, Style and the Whole-Theme Answer
The paper on this theme rewards more than memorised translation. It tests how well you can read a picture, explain a stylistic choice, and build an argument using evidence from right across the eight prescribed texts. This lesson pulls together the skills you need for that final, evaluative part of your revision.
The theme is set alongside six prescribed pictures. At least one picture will form the basis of a question in every exam paper on this theme, so you must know what each one shows and why it matters.
Reading the Picture Sources
Roman authors did not only write about food and dining — artists painted it, potters labelled it, and sculptors carved scenes of banquets onto walls. The pictures for this theme let you see what the texts describe.
- A fresco of meal preparation, showing two men preparing the carcass of a small calf or fawn beside a large silver vessel with handles shaped like goats’ heads — probably from a tavern rather than a private house.
- A decorated bronze food warmer, raised so a fire could be lit underneath it, likely used to keep dishes hot in the dining room itself.
- A garum jar from the workshop of Aulus Umbricius Scaurus, Pompeii’s leading fish-sauce manufacturer, whose products have been found at sites right across the Mediterranean.
- A fresco of a fruit bowl from the estate of Julia Felix, showing apples, grapes and pomegranates in a glass bowl, alongside jars of wine and raisins.
- A banquet scene from the House of the Triclinium, showing diners reclining on couches while an enslaved boy attends them.
- A fresco showing a politician distributing bread to the townsfolk of Pompeii, hinting at the political use of food as a gift.
The garum jar carries its own inscribed label: G(ari) F(los) SCOM(bri) SCAURI EX OFFI(ci)NA SCAURI — “flower of garum, made from mackerel, [a product] of Scaurus, from the workshop of Scaurus.” A label like this is itself evidence: it shows that Scaurus branded and exported his sauce widely enough to need his own name stamped on the jar.
A question on a picture is not just asking “what can you see?” It is asking you to connect the picture to the theme’s three big ideas: the food eaten by rich and poor households, the importance of hospitality, and food as a display of wealth and power.
For example, the banquet fresco showing an enslaved boy in attendance connects directly to how a household displayed its status through service, not just through food. The bread-distribution fresco connects to hospitality on a public, political scale rather than a private one.
Style and Effect: Quote, Translate, Explain
Analysing style means more than spotting a device. A full answer quotes the Latin, gives its meaning, and then explains exactly what effect it creates. Naming chiasmus is only the starting point: you also need to say what it does for that particular line.
A strong style answer always has three parts: the Latin quotation, its English meaning, and a specific explanation of the effect that choice of words, word order or sound creates in that exact line.
In Martial’s poem about an ungrateful patron, the line cur mihi non eadem, quae tibi, cena datur? — “why is the same dinner not given to me as to you?” — sets up the whole poem’s pattern of paired contrasts between host and guest.
A few lines later, sunt tibi boleti, fungos ego sumo suillos — “you have the finest mushrooms, I eat the pig-fungus” — places the two foods side by side in the same line, so the gap in status is felt in the grammar itself, not just the meaning.
Petronius uses chiasmus when Trimalchio’s gaming pieces are described: pro calculis albis ac nigris aureos argenteosque habebat denarios — “instead of white and black counters, he had gold and silver coins.” The crossed word order pairs each colour with its precious replacement, underlining how Trimalchio turns an ordinary game into a display of wealth.
Ovid uses anaphora to describe Lycaon’s transformation: canities eadem est, eadem violentia vultus, idem oculi lucent, eadem feritatis imago est — “the same grey hair, the same violence of face, the same eyes glittering, the same picture of savagery.” The repeated eadem — same — hammers home that the wolf is still recognisably the same cruel character as the king.
Juvenal’s alliteration in crudi posuere pericula suci — “[the apples] have laid aside the dangers of raw juice” — uses the repeated p- sound to slow the line down, matching the idea of fruit carefully stored and softened over time.
Pliny’s hissing sordidum simul et sumptuosum — “mean and extravagant at the same time” — uses sibilance to make the description sound like a disapproving hiss, reinforcing his contempt for the host’s behaviour.
The Extended Evaluative Response
At least one question on this paper asks for an extended evaluative response. This means constructing a sustained, logically ordered argument that uses evidence from several different texts across the theme, not just the one passage in front of you.
The theme requires knowledge of three things: the kind of food eaten in wealthy and in poorer households, the importance of hospitality, and food as a way to display wealth and power. Every extended response should connect back to one or more of these.
Building an Answer Across the Whole Theme
Suppose the question asks how far food is used to display wealth and power across the theme. A strong answer will not stay in one text. It might open with Trimalchio’s absurd dormice and gaming counters made of gold and silver coins, then contrast this with the poverty and generosity of Baucis and Philemon, who serve omnia fictilibus — “everything in earthenware dishes” — yet are rewarded by the gods precisely because their hospitality does not depend on wealth.
The answer could then bring in Aulus Gellius’s account of the sumptuary laws, which tried and repeatedly failed to limit spending on dinners, and Martial’s and Pliny’s complaints about hosts who used food to mark out which guests mattered more. Drawing all four writers together into one line of argument — rather than describing each in turn — is what turns a list of facts into an evaluative answer.
Take care not to describe a source in detail without connecting it to a specific factual point about the theme. Simply saying “this shows a banquet” is not enough — you must say what the banquet shows about status, hospitality or excess.
Another common mistake is writing about only one text when the question asks for evidence “across the theme.” Practise picking a single evaluative question and drafting one sentence of evidence from each of the eight prescribed texts, so that pulling in a wide range of material becomes automatic.