Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that existed in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East between 753 BC and its downfall in AD 476. For several centuries, the Romans controlled the whole of Western Europe, as well as the entire area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea and some of the area surrounding the Black Sea.

Society

Classes

The free citizens of Rome were divided into two classes: patricians and plebeians. The patricians were the dominant class. Originally, only they could be elected for office. Intermarrying between the classes was forbidden and the patrician title could only be inherited, not earned. During the Roman Republic, a series of struggles led to plebeians gaining equal, or nearly equal, rights.

Related Topics:
Patrician - Plebeians - Roman Republic

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Late in the republic, the distinction between patricians and plebeians started to lose its meaning. A new ruling class, the optimates, were those families, patrician or plebeian, who had produced a consul. During the empire, the class division fell into disuse and was largely forgotten.

Related Topics:
Republic - Optimates - Consul - Empire

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In the early Republic citizens were also divided into classes according to the armament they could afford to buy for themselves for military service. The richest class was the equestrians or knights, who could afford a war horse. There were both patrician and plebeian equestrians. Later in the Republic fixed amounts of wealth replaced military equipment as the basis of classification. Higher classes had more political power and prestige than lower classes. This system also lost its meaning after the abolition of the Republic.

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Family

The basic units of Roman society were households and families. Household included the head of the household (paterfamilias), his wife, children, and other relatives. In the upper classes slaves and servants were also part of the household. Romans certainly did not see the family as those of the suburban West do today - their family was more far reaching in definition. The head of the household had great power over those living with him: could force marriage and divorce, sell his children into slavery and possibly even had the right to kill family members (this has been recently disputed in academic circles). This particular manifestation of familial power was called "patria potestas", literally "fathers power". One interesting point of note is that wives did not always count as family, as they could choose to continue recognising their father's family as their true family, and not necessarily adopt their husband's family.

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Groups of related households formed a family (gens). Families were based on blood ties (or adoption), but were also political and economic alliances. Especially during the Roman Republic some powerful families, or Gentes Maiores came to dominate political life.

Related Topics:
Gens - Roman Republic

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Weddings

Upper class Roman fathers usually began seeking husbands for their daughters when they reached an age between twelve and fourteen. The husband was almost always older than the bride; he might be two years older or three times her age. She was expected to give little or no objection in the bargaining between families - although there is proof that some daughters had more say in their choice of husbands than we might expect (Cicero's daughter and wife planned the daughter's husband, all the time assuming that Cicero would just say yes - and he did). While upper class girls married very young, there is evidence that lower class women - plebeians, freedwomen etc - often married in their late teens or early twenties. Marriage for them was not about economic and political gain in the cut throat world of Roman politics, so it was not as urgent.

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Friends and family attended an engagement ceremony before the wedding. Here the father was asked whether he promised to give his daughter ("Spondesne?") and he was expected to say he did ("Spondeo"). The bride-to-be then received financial gifts including a ring to wear on her middle finger, which many believed contained a nerve that ran straight to the heart.

Related Topics:
Wedding - Ring - Middle finger - Nerve - Heart

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Baths

Most Romans visited public or private baths daily, not just to get clean but for social reasons as well. The baths contained three main facilities for bathing. After undressing in the apodyterium or changing room, Romans would proceed to the tepidarium or warm room. In the moderate dry heat of the tepidarium, some performed warm-up exercises and stretched while others oiled themselves or had slaves oil them. The tepidarium’s main purpose was to promote sweating to prepare for the next room, the caldarium or hot room. The caldarium, unlike the tepidarium, was extremely humid and hot. Temperatures in the caldarium could reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). Many contained steam baths and a cold-water fountain known as the labrum. The last room was the frigidarium or cold room, which offered a cold bath for cooling off after the caldarium.

Related Topics:
Baths - Apodyterium - Tepidarium - Caldarium - Celsius - Labrum - Frigidarium

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