Roman families

 

There could be the father, the grandfather or perhaps even an uncle. Each family had slightly different customs and rules, because the head of the family had the POWER to decide what those rules were for his family. He owned the property and had total authority, the power of life and death, about every member of his household. Even when his children became adults, he was still the boss but, he was also responsible for the action of any adult member of his household. He could throw out a kid or a grown-up member of his house, but if they committed a crime, he might be punished for something his family did. In poor families, the head of the house might decide to put a sick baby out to die or to sell grown-ups in his family into slavery, because there wasn't enough food to feed everyone. A woman had no authority. Her job was to take care of the house and to have children.

 

 

Two thousand years ago Rome was a busy place. It was a crowded, noisy, smoky, dusty city, with beautiful temple and public buildings. The rich had beautiful homes each with an entrance atrium, which was the centre  of family life. For those who were not quite as rich, there were apartment  buildings, nice ones and there were shalby tenements for the poor.

 

 

The Romans and the Greek

 

If you had lived in ancient times, you could have applied  to become a Roman citizen.

Not everyone  who applied was accepted, but anyone could apply. Would you have wanted to be a Roman citizen? Let's find out!

The ancient Romans were very different from the ancient Greek. The ancient Romans were realists, not idealists. You can see this in their statues. The Greeks made statues  resembling perfect people. The Romans created real life statues. A statue of one of the Roman emperors is a good example. His nose is huge! The ancient Greek would never have than that.

The Romans were fierce soldiers and wonderful builders. They built roads all over the empire and all roads led to Rome. The ancient Greek had roads, but these roads were not built nearly as well and did not connect in any particular order. What would they have to connect since each Greek city-state was its own unit?  In ancient Rome , Rome was the heart of the empire!

 

 

Entertainment in Ancient Rome

 

The ancient Romans enjoyed  many different kinds of entertainment.

Most events were free, which means poor people could attend as well as the rich.

Plays were performed in large open air theatres. There were lots of theatres and even the small ones could seat 7.000 people. Some events were scheduled during the day, some were scheduled at night.

If rich Romans stayed at  home, they lit oil lamps, to enjoy the evening. The poor, unless they went out, went to bed as soon as it got dark as they couldn't afford to keep oil lamps burning.