Life in Ancient Rome

Description

“This book will be of the greatest service . . . a scholarly and convenient presentation of a vast array of facts.” –Times Literary Supplement

In this well-written and well-researched social history, F. R. Cowell succeeds in making Life in Ancient Rome alive and dynamic. The combination of acute historical detail and supplementary illustrations makes this book perfectly suited for the student preparing to explore classics, as well as the tourist preparing to explore twentieth-century Rome. Lucid and engaging, Life in Ancient Rome is for anyone seeking familiarity with the greatness that was Rome.Preface
Acknowledgment
Map of Rome

I THE CITY OF ROME
The Rise and Growth of the City
Apartments and Houses
Furniture
Gardens

II GROWING UP IN ANCIENT ROME
Home Education
School and Schoolmasters
School Education
Telling the Time
The Calendar
Money
Weights and Measures
Higher Studies

III FAMILY LIFE
The Spirit of Home Life
Women at Home
Encouraging Large Families
Beauty Treatment
Barbers
Clothes
Meals, Food and Drink
Kitchens and Cooking
Making Bread
Wine
Health and Hygiene
Death and Burial

IV SLAVERY
Origins and Development of Slavery
Cost of Slaves
Slave Labour
Treatment of Slaves
Slave Revolts
Freedmen and Freedwomen

V EARNING A LIVING
Traditional Attitudes to Industry and Trade
Rome’s Imports and Their Transport
Building
Clothing, Milling and Baking
Market-Gardening in and around Rome
Shops and Markets
Professional Life
Lawyers
Doctors
Surgeons
Writers
Free Food
Inns, Taverns and Snack Bars
Roman Roads
Class Distinctions

VI LEISURE HOURS
Work and Leisure Hours
The Lure of Rome
The Baths
High Society
The Elegant Younger Set
Dances
Cultural Interests
Music
Oratory
Books and Reading
Shows and Spectacles
The Stage
Chariot Races
A Day at the Amphitheatre
Roman Dynamism

VII RELIGION
Traditional Beliefs
State Religion
Festivals and Games
Astrology
Mystery Cults
Isis and Osiris
Mithraism
The Rise of Christianity

Chronological Summary
A Note about Books
Index

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1 A sacrifice in front of the Temple of Juno Moneta
2 Part of Constantine’s triumphal procession passing through the Forum Romanum
3 Part of Constantine’s triumphal procession passing the Tabularium and ascending the steps of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus
4 The atrium, or central courtyard, of a Roman house
5 Hypocaust system of central heating
6 Chair
7 Couch
8 Roman lighting
9 Braziers
10 Earthenware cups and dishes
11 Jewellery
12 A peristyle
13 Lararium, or shrine of the Lar familiaris
14 Schoolmaster flogging a pupil
15 A banker
16 A schoolroom scene
17 Interior of a shop selling belts and pillows
18-22 Some coins of the early Empire
23 Wedding ceremony
24 A baker and his wife
25 A well-to-do lady being dressed by her slave girls
26 Beauty aids
27 Bronze hand-mirror
28 Beards of the Second Century A.D. and the late Republic
29 Fullers at work
30 Full Roman dress
31 Military dress
32 Glassware
33 A Roman kitchen
34 Kitchen utensils
35 Bronze urn
36 Earthenware jars for storing wine and oil
37 Small wine-table
38 Part of a funeral procession
39 Tombs of eminent citizens
40 Columbaria
41 Sale of a foreign slave
42 A rich lady being carried in a litter
43 An aqueduct
44 Slave driving his master’s coach
45 Manumission, or ceremonial freeing of a slave
46 Carrier’s wagon leaving a wine-merchant’s shop
47 A barge, laden with wine, being towed up the Tiber, from Ostia to Rome
48 Loading a barge at Ostia
49 Ass and slaves at work in a flour mill
50 A pharmacy
51 A retail merchant’s shop
52 The Forum Trajani, the market built by the Emperor Trajan in A.D. 114
53 A steelyard
54 A cobbler
55 A baker’s shop
56 The interior of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus
57 A selection of surgical instruments
58 Grain measures
59 An inn scene
60 The frigidarium of the Baths of Caracalla
61 Bathers wrestling in a palaestra
62 Masseur’s oil-container, strigils and oil-pan
63 A dinner party
64-7 Roman silverware of the second century A.D.
68 The triclinium of the Palace of Domitian
69 Silver cup
70 Drinking horns
71 Women’s hair styles
72 Street musicians and musical instruments
73 An orator
74 Writing equipment
75 The Theatre of Pompey, the Odeon and Stadium of Domitian, and the Baths of Nero and Agrippa
76 The Colosseum and the Colossus of Nero
77 The Circus Maximus
78 A four-horse chariot rounding one of the turning-posts in the circus
79 Gladiator’s arms
80 The Colosseum: duel between a retiarius and a mirmillo
81 Altar of Augustus and the Lares
82 Animals being led to sacrifice
83 A priest
84 Part of a Mithraic altar: Mithra slaying a bull
85 Part of the sarcophagus of a Christian and his wife, showing Christ the Good Shepherd

US

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