Concordia

Concordia Winter 2021

15

Working a flotation machine on an excavation at Hayling Island, Hampshire. (Photo: Grahame Soffe)

Moor Park Roman Villa, the deep room looking south

Martin Henig (1955-1960) did not initially study Classics at A Level before a chance encounter with the late John Steane led him to take a very different path. He writes of an extraordinary journey which took him first to Cambridge and then onto a career in the field of archaeology. A Classicist by Accident

I was interested in history long before I arrived at Merchant Taylors’ in the spring of 1955 at the age of 13. My father had taken me to the British Museum to see the Elgin Marbles in case they were returned to Greece, and holidays always included excursions to archaeological sites. However I had, and still retain, a passion for animals and the Natural World, and that led me to choose the science side, where my dismal lack of ability in Mathematics and Physics meant I was bumping along not far off the bottom of the class, except in Chemistry. Despite mediocre O Level results, I began in the Lower Sixth to study Biology. My idea of studying the subject was bird-watching in the water-meadows, not cutting up dogfish. A minor subject in my curriculum was English, and that was taken by John Steane – a wonderful teacher, and an authority on Elizabethan literature and music – but I think taking a lower science set was not to his taste. In despair he asked the class to review a book they had read. I have no idea what others had been reading, but my book was Robert Graves’ Penguin translation of Suetonius’ The Twelve Caesars . At the following week’s class he announced: ‘Henig stay behind!’ So was I going to be admonished? When everyone else had gone, Steane said, ‘that is the most salacious book Penguin has put out in purple covers! Are you doing the right thing?’ I stuttered ‘do you mean reading that book, sir?’. At which he roared with laughter and told me that my essay was very enjoyable and he thought I should