Rome

Rome was one of the greatest powers in the andient world. The city is said to have been founded in 753BC by Romulus and Remus, the twin sons o the god Mars. It grew from a collection of small towns on the river Tiber in Italy to control an empire that included Italy, Spain, France, North Africa, Greece, the Middle East, most of Britain and parts of Germany.

Intially ruled by kings, Rome became a republic in 509 BC, where the wealthy elite ruled the city rhough the senate. The repiblic collapsed in 31BC and was replaced by the empire, under the first emperor Augustus. The Roman Empire eventually controlled all of the Mediterranean and much of Western Europe. It lasted un 476 AD. The ancient Romans have had a huge and enduring impsct on the world we live in today.

How do we know about the Romans

Even though The Roman Empire ended over 1500 years ago we know a lot about it because the Romans left so much evidence behind. There are written sources from Roman writers such as Caesar. The physical remains of Roman life can also be seen all over Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. The ruins of many buildings and evryday artefacts such as coins, weapons, tools and toys have survived. Most important are the remains of the Roman town Pompeii, which was burries by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD. The volcanic ash preserved the town just as it was.

Roman Towns

As their empire expanded into Europe, the Romans controlled each local area from towns they founded. Romans lived here with the native peoples, many of whom became citizens of the empire. Most Roman towns shared similar features:

• walls for defence

• paved streets laid out in grid system

• a forum, a large town square, was the centre of business, political activity and religious worship

• temples for worship

• aqueducts to bring fresh water to the town

• monuments or triumphal arches to commemorate Rome’s history

• public baths, where people bathed, exercised and met friends

• public toilets and drinking fountains

• an amphitheatre, where gladitorial games were held

The people of Ancient Rome

Women both Patrician and Plebian, were citizens but were not permitted to vote or take part in public life.

A partrician family lived in a large detached house called a domus. It had a central courtyard called the atrium where guests met. This hsd a pool called an impluvium to collect rainwater and a shrine to the family gods called the laraium. Other rooms led off this: the bedrooms(cubiculum), the kitchen(culina), the study(tablinum) and the dining room(peristylium). The walls were decorated with paintings and the floors with mosaics. The house of the richest partricians also hsd running water and underfloor heating. A domus had small windows and was usually quite dark inside.

The plebians lived in an apartment block called an insulae. In Rome these were usually five stories high. The ground floor hsd shops or workshops that opened out onto the street. Above them were apartments, the higher you went the smalled the apartments became. The poorest Romans lived on the highest floors. There was a constant danger of fire from wood burning stoves used for cooking.

Slaves

Slavery was an everyday part of Roman life. By law slaves were the property of their owners. In Rome itself there were over 300,000 slaves, who came from a number of different soruces:

• Any prisoners of war became slaves

• The children of slaves were automatically slaves themselves

• People captured by pirates or bandits while travelling were often sold as slaves

• Parents in debt sold their own children into slavery

Thousands of slaves worked on Rome’s public building projects such as aqueducts. In a domus a slave did the cooking, cleaning and other manual labour activities. Others worked on huge mines or farms, where they were treated harshly and often worked to death.

Well educated slaves, often Greeks were highly valued snd treated well. They were usually employed ss teachers, secretaries and doctors and were sometimes given their freedom after many years of service. This was called manumission.

Women and Marriage

Roman girls were usually married by the sge of 14 or 15. Marriages were to benefit the families involved, and the girl had little or no say in the man her father chose; however divorce was legal. The Conferratio(wedding ceremony) was held at the brides house. A wife was expected to run her husbands home, make his clothes, supervise slaves, bear a son and oversee the rearing of her children.

Plebeian women would also work outside the hom, for example in the market or their husbands business, or as a midwife. Roman women did have some rights under the law. For example, a womens property was kept seperate from her husbands and could be taken with her if they divorced. Many women died in childbirth, so men oftn maried several times and a girl could essily end up marrying a man her fathers age.

Education in Rome

Plebeian children received a basic education at home and then began working with their parents. A wealthy Romans education had three different stages:

• Boys and some girls from the age of seven to twelve attended a ludus, where they lesrned resding, sriting and arithmetic.

• At 12 boys could attend a grammaticus, where they lesrned history grammar and geometry and studied literature by Greek and Roman writers such as Homer and Virgil. Girls of the same age were kept at home and taught by their mothers how to spin weave and run a household.

• At 16 a partrifian boy was taught oratory by a rhetor to prepare him for a career in public life.

Discipline was very strict in Roman Schools and students could be beaten for making mistakes. They wrote with a painted wooden stylus on a wax tablet which could be later melted snd reuse. They used an abacus to lesrn arithmetic.

Entertainment in Rome

Public entertainment was very importsnt in Rome. Along sith the grain dole, public entertainment was the main way that ambitious politicians and emperors ensured they hsd the support of the people.

The Public Baths