295 Blog Post

295 Blog Post: British Museum and Evaristo's The Emperor's Babe

 

Tombstone. British Museum.

Septimius Severus. British Museum.

The pictures I found within the British Museum lead me to directly relate these artifacts back to the Bernardine Evaristo novel, Emperor’s Babe. The first artifact that I was attracted to within the Roman Britain gallery was that of a 2^nd-4^th century tombstone of a young woman. This tombstone was found within Kirkby Thore, Cumbria, England designating it a part of the British island, but with artistic influences of tombstone heads of the Roman empire. The tombstone itself contains the image of a young lady within a banquet festival lounging on a couch, which was a common theme within tomb art for Roman- British women. The tomb itself contains an inscription that details who the young woman’s father was, but leaves little information to be known of the young woman herself. This is reminiscent of the culture within Roman-Britain times that appears in Evaristo’s novel, where women are sidelined within society and the male kin within their families take precedence even through their death. The tombstone also depicts the idea of remembrance and how important that concept was to the citizens within the Roman empire as well as the idea of wanting proper burials for citizens. The notion that Zuleika asks Alba that she wants to be buried properly and never wants her to forget her solidifies that cultural importance of being remembered. The interesting thing about this tombstone and relating it back to Zuleika’s character is the fact that there is an importance of class rank and who was who in order to receive a proper burial. This unknown young woman is not recognized as an individual within her own tombstone, whether it was due to the tombstone being broken or on purpose is somewhat irrelevant for the times it pertained to. The tombstone itself commemorated her through her father and his position within Roman- Britain society. Within Evaristo’s novel Zuleika clearly states what she wants written upon her tombstone, “To the spirits of the departed and the memory of our pal Zuleika, who in her final summer lived a life fuller than any other” (249). This quote is unique as Zulieka wants her name to be individualized upon her tomb without any need or mention of a connection to male kin. Secondly, this quote also rises from the conversation that her husband will not take responsibility for her tombstone or burial, so she must ask a female friend to purchase it from another source, legally recognized Roman males, Cato or Venus (249). Zuleika’s position at her time of death is worrisome for her because she must rely on other factors to receive a proper burial, as her current position is that of a deposed woman within her household and within the society. 

The second artifact that I found that I found to relate to The Emperor’s Babe was a full body statue of Emperor Septimius Severus who ruled the Roman empire from 193-211 AD. This statue obviously reminded me of Evaristo’s novel, due to the fact that the Emperor is a character within the novel and is specifically Zuleika’s lover. It was interesting to see the statue of the real person who was a character within the historically fictitious novel and be able to see the true facial characteristics of the said character. The information on the plaque next to the statue was fascinating because I learned most of the same information through the novel. The fact that he was a centered military leader form Libya, his wife was Julia Domna, and he died in York in 211 AD. It was fascinating for me to see this character in real life, or a version of this person in real life. I had this feeling like I knew who he was and felt surprised to see him within the museum. The characters detailed monologue within the novel of his experiences from boy hood to his trials to becoming emperor, weirdly gave me this false connection to the statue and person. It also made me uncomfortable to realize and seriously put into perspective that this figure, who was old, had a relationship with Zuleika who was 18 years old. While reading the novel the age difference was present, but you could forget about it throughout the novel, unless Zulieka brought it up. Once you get a physical depiction of the actual person the idea becomes all too real and you realize that this man was extremely old and in reference to an 18-year-old was even older.