 | Culture of ancient Rome: Encyclopedia II - Culture of ancient Rome - Customs and daily life
Culture of ancient Rome - Customs and daily life
Life in the ancient Roman cities revolved round the Forum, the central business district, where most of the Romans would go for marketing and shopping, trading and banking, and for participating in festivities and ceremonies. The Forum was also a place where orators would express themselves to mould public opinion, and elicit support for any particular issue of interest to him or others. Before sunrise, children would go to schools or tutoring them at home would commence. Elders would dress, take a breakfast by 11 o'clock, have a siesta and in the afternoon or evening would generally go to the Forum. Going to public bath at least once daily was a habit with most Roman citizens. Children and slaves were not allowed to use these baths, and there were separate hours for men and women.
Different types of outdoor and indoor entertainment, free of cost, were available in the ancient Rome. Depending on the nature of the events, they were scheduled during daytime, afternoons, evenings or late night. Huge crowds gathered at the Colosseum to watch events like gladiators, combats between men, or fights between men and the wild animals. The Circus Maximus was used for chariot racing. Endless such activities were also conducted in other cities under the ancient Rome.
Life in the countryside was slow but lively, with numerous local festivals and social events. Farms were run by the farm managers, but estate owners would sometimes take a retreat to the country side for rest, enjoying the splendor of the nature and the sunshine, including activities like fishing, hunting, and riding. On the other hand, slave labor shall be slogging continuously, for long hours and all seven days, and ensuring comforts and creating wealth for their masters. The average farm owners were better off, spending evenings in economic and social interactions at the village markets. The day ended with a meal, generally left over from the noon time preparations.
Culture of ancient Rome - Clothing
In ancient Rome, the cloth and the dress distinguished one class of people from the other class. The tunic worn by plebians (common people) like shepherds and slaves was made from coarse and dark material, whereas the tunic worn by patricians was of linen or white wool. A magistrate would wear the tunic augusticlavia; senators wore a tunic with broad strips, called tunica laticlavia. Military tunics were shorter than the ones worn by civilians.
Even footwear indicated a person’s social status. Patricians wore red sandals, senators had brown footwear, consuls had white shoes, and soldiers wore heavy boots. Women wore closed shoes of colors like white, yellow or green.
The bulla was a locket-like amulet worn by children. Men typically wore a toga, and women a stola.
Culture of ancient Rome - Dining
Main article: Roman eating and drinking
Since the period of the Republic until 200 BC, ancient Romans had very simple food habits. Staple food was simple, generally consumed at around 11 o’clock, and consisted of bread, salad, olives, cheese, fruits, nuts, and cold meat left over from the dinner the night before. A nap or rest followed this.
The family ate together, sitting on stools around a table. Later on, a separate dining room with dining couches was designed. Fingers were used to take foods. Spoons had come, but table knives and forks were yet to appear. Consuming alcoholic beverages by men were socially accepted, but women were not expected to consume drinks. By the time of the Roman Empire, women were also consuming drinks.
During the Imperial period, staple food of the lower class Romans (plebeians) was vegetable porridge and bread, and occasionally fish, meat, olives and fruits. Sometimes, subsidized or free foods were distributed in cities, and school children were generally served with lunch by the local authorities. The patrician's aristocracy had elaborate dinners, with parties and wines and a variety of eatables. Sometimes, dancing girls would entertain the diners. Their women and children ate separately, but in the later Empire period, with permissiveness creeping in, even decent women would attend such dinner parties.
Culture of ancient Rome - Education
Main article: Roman school
Before regular schooling system evolved in ancient Rome, home was the learning centre, where children were taught Roman law, customs, and physical training to prepare the boys to grow as Roman citizens and for eventual recruitment in the army. Conforming to discipline was a point of great emphasis. Girls generally received instructions from their mothers in the art of spinning, weaving and sewing.
Schooling in a more formal sense was begun around 200 BC. Education began at the age of around six, and by next six to seven years, boys and girls were expected to learn basics of reading, writing and counting. By the age of twelve or so, they would be learning Latin, Greek, grammar and literature, followed by training for public speaking. Oratory was an art to be practiced and learnt and good orators commanded respect, and to become an effective orator was one of the objectives of education and learning. Poor children could not afford education. In some cases, services of gifted slaves were utilized for imparting education.
Other related archives19th century, 1st century, 1st century BC, 200 BC, 20th, 31 BC, 500 BC, 509, 800 BC, 9th century, Aeneid, Africa, Ancient Greeks, Ancient Roman, Ancient Rome, Anglo-Saxon, Apicius, Aqueducts, Ares, Athens, Augustus, Bacchus, Board games, Britannia, Byzantine Empire, Cato the Elder, Catullus, Checkers, Christianity, Cicero, Circus Maximus, Classical Latin, Classical antiquity, Classical culture, Colosseum, Constantine, Council of Nicea, Cumbria, Cybele, Cynicism, Dice, Domitian, Ecclesiastical Latin, Egypt, English, Ephesos, Etruscan, Euphrates, First Punic War, Forum, Forum of Trajan, France, French, Galerius, Gallic Wars, Gallo-Roman culture, Gaul, Germanic, Greece, Greek, Greek alphabet, Greek gods, Hannibal, Histories, History of Rome, Horace, Humanist Latin, Isis, Israelites, Italian, Italic language, Italy, Jewish, Jews, Judaism, Judea, Julian the Apostate, Julius Caesar, Jupiter, Juvenal, Latin, Latin alphabet, Latin literature, Latrunculi, Livy, Lucian, Lucretius, Maecenas, Mars, Martial, Medieval Latin, Mediterranean, Metamorphoses, Milvian Bridge, Mithras, Morocco, Old Italic alphabet, On the Nature of Things, Oratory, Ovid, Palaces, Palatine Hill, Pantheon, Pater familias, Plebeians, Portuguese, Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Indo-European pantheon, Quirinus, Renaissance, Riding, Roman Britain, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Empire, Roman Republic, Roman architecture, Roman art, Roman eating and drinking, Roman law, Roman province, Roman religion, Roman school, Romance languages, Romanian, Rome, Romulus, Slavery, Social class in ancient Rome, Sol Invictus, Spain, Spanish, Spoons, Stoicism, Tabula, Tacitus, Terence, Theodosius I, Tiber river, Tic-tac-toe, Troy, Turkey, Vatican City, Verona, Virgil, Vulgar Latin, academia, affixes, alcoholic, amphitheatre, ancient Rome, appropriated, arch, architecture, aristocratic, army, ball games, banking, baths, beverages, boxing, bread, brothels, building, bulla, capital city, central business district, chariot, cheese, citation needed, citizens, city, civil engineering, civilization, civilizations, clientela, concrete, construction, counting, country villas, countryside, cultural, culture, customs, dactylic hexameter, dialectized, dome, dwellings, education, epigrams, executions, extinct language, farms, festivals, fish, fishing, footwear, forks, forum, fruits, gladiators, gods, grammar, gymnasiums, household, households, houses, hunting, hydraulics, imperial, inflectional, jumping, jurisdiction, knives, law, learning, lingua franca, literary language, literature, locket, logistical, luxuries, marketing, markets, meat, megapolis, monumental, moveable, murder, mutilation, nuts, oil, olives, paganism, pastime, patricians, plebians, porridge, portraiture, property, public opinion, public speaking, racing, reading, recruitment, religion, residences, residential, rhetorical, rites, rural, salad, sandals, schooling, science, sculpture, seven hills, sewing, shopping, siesta, slave markets, slaves, spinning, staple food, stola, stools, structures, sunrise, swimming, synthetic language, table, taverns, technology, temple, temples, theaters, throwing, toga, town planning, trading, tunic, urban, vegetables, villas, water, weaving, wine, word order, word stems, wrestling, writing
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Customs and daily life", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
