An Ontario high school teacher is spearheading a campaign to build a roof over one of the ancient homes in Pompeii, in an effort to preserve the prized archeological site where a well-known figure in Latin education once lived.
Latin teacher Margaret-Anne Gillis, of Barrie, Ont., is trying to raise $250,000 to put a roof over the home of Lucius Caecilius Iucundus, a banker whose financial records informed the current understanding of Pompeii when it was destroyed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. The Italian town lies near modern-day Naples.
Caecilius is also a well-known figure in Latin education, as a the central figure in the widely used Cambridge Latin Course textbook.
“It’s one of the few things that points to what happened in Pompeii,” she told CTV’s Your Morning on Monday.
Gillis was inspired to champion a new roof for the home’s atrium after leading a field trip to the site in 2006, when a tour guide told her parts of the building were slowly being destroyed because they were exposed to the elements. Other sections of the home are already protected by a roof, but the mosaic floors and fresco walls in its atrium remain exposed.
Now, Gillis has partnered with the Swedish Institute, the Cambridge University Press, the Swedish Pompeii Project and two of her former students to build the roof and protect the site.
“it’s been a very happy series of coincidences,” she said, adding that she’s thrilled to undertake the project with two former pupils. She says she often builds strong ties with her students through four years of working with them.
“Getting to work with them again is like getting my family back,” she said.
One of her former students is designing the roof, while another will create a 3D bust of Caecilius to stand in the centre of the home.
Gillis is currently accepting donations for her efforts through the House of Caecilius website.
