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The ancient Romans believed it was important to start their day with breakfast.

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The ancient Romans believed it was important to start their day with breakfast.

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Breakfast
Lower class Romans would breakfast on bread with maybe some cheese or olives added.  The bread was dipped in wine to soften it.  If a workman was in a hurry or running late, he might stop at a bread shop to grab a loaf to eat on the way.  Bread was so important to the ancient Romans that they gave bread away free of charge to unemployed Roman people.  This, plus free admission to the gladiatorial contests, gave rise to the term bread and circuses.

Upper class Romans had a slightly different breakfast.  They might have some type of meat or fish, and fresh fruit or vegetables to go with their bread.  They did not have sugar so they used honey to sweeten their food.  They ate lying down on couches.  Since there was no such thing as forks, they had slaves to cut their food and clean up afterwards.  There was always a wet towel to wash with after any meal, including breakfast.

Lunch
In the afternoon, wealthy Romans took a break called a siesta.  Even children in school went home during siesta.  During the siesta, everyone went home and ate lunch, then took a nap or just relaxed with family and friends.  During siesta, the streets of Rome were deserted.  Siesta usually lasted about two hours.  After siesta, wealthy Romans went back to work or school or whatever they were doing that day.

For lunch, the wealthy would eat a meal of bread, salad, olives, cheese, fruit and nuts, and cold meat or fish left over from the previous night.  The poor would make do with some vegetables, porridge, or bread and cheese.

Dinner
During the time of the Republic, for their afternoon and evening meals, Romans ate mostly vegetables and dined very simply.

The women of the house, or the slaves under their direction, would prepare the meals, which were then served by the children of the house.

In the atrium, a dining table would be set up for meals and the family would sit on stools around it.  After serving the adults the children would serve themselves and take their seats with the rest of the family.  The whole family ate together.

The Romans did not have forks.  They did use spoons and knives while eating.  Mostly food was eaten using your hands or a spoon.

Over time for the Patrician class this simple style of living changed.  Romans no longer sat at a table, instead they lay down on special dining couches.  Food was still mostly eaten with your fingers.

Patricians would frequently throw elaborate dinner parties.  In the early empire period these were separated into men's parties and women's parties.  The two did not mix.  A dinner might last several hours and usually included some type of entertainment.  They still used dining couches and ate with their hands.  During the later empire period, the family again dined together.

Plebeians might have a dinner of porridge made of vegetables, or, when they could afford it, fish, bread, olives, and wine, and meat on occasion.  The really poor made do with whatever they could buy or whatever the government gave them.

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The very early Romans wore a garment called a toga.  A toga was made of about 9 yards of one piece of cloth that was wound and draped across the body in a very special way so the the open end was across your left arm.  But putting on a toga took time.  It was not a very practical garment and it really didn't keep you warm.  The Romans gave them up very quickly except as ceremonial or party clothes.

In place of the toga, the Romans started wearing tunics.  A tunic looks like a long tee shirt.  Summer tunics were made of linen and winter tunics were made of wool.  During the colder months, they also wore something that looked like trousers.  The Romans also invented socks, which they wore during colder times.

Fashion for Roman Men: Roman men of good taste would wear a single ring as a fashion accessory.  To flout good taste, men wore rings on every finger and even arm bracelets.  They never wore wrist bracelets since that reminded people of the chains of slaves, and no free Roman wanted to be mistaken for a slave.  Hair styles changed with the times.  At times long hair was the thing with beards and mustaches.  At other times being clean shaven with short hair was in style.  Sometimes men even curled and braided their hair.

Fashion for Roman Women: Women enjoyed gazing at themselves in mirrors of highly polished metal (not glass).  The ancient Roman women loved ornate necklaces, pins, earrings, bracelets and friendship rings.  Pearls were favorites.

Women often dyed their hair, usually golden-red.  They used false hairpieces to make their hair thicker or longer.  Sometimes, Roman women wore their hair up, in carefully arranged styles, held with jeweled hairpins.  Sometimes they wore it down, curled in ringlets.

Parasols were used, or women might carry fans made of peacock feathers, wood, or stretched linen.

Women's street shoes were made of leather, like a man's.  In the house, most Romans (men and women) wore sandals.  Women's sandals were brightly colored.  Some were even decorated with pearls.

Roman Boys: Boys wore a tunic down to their knees.  It was white, with a crimson border.  Once a boy became a man, he put aside his childish clothes, and wore an all-white tunic.

A boy became a citizen at age 16 or 17.  The year was selected by choosing the date which came closest to March 17th.

Coming of age, becoming a citizen, was quite a celebration.  On a boy's sixteenth or seventeenth birthday, the boy dressed himself in a white tunic, which his father adjusted.  The day ended with a dinner party, given by the father, in honor of the new Roman citizen.

Roman Girls: Girls wore a simple tunic with a belt at the waist.  When they went outside, they wore a second tunic that reached their feet.

Bulla: Children wore a special locket around their neck, given to them at birth, called a bulla.  It contained an amulet as a protection against evil and was worn on a chain, cord, or strap.

Girls wore their bulla until the eve of their wedding day, when their bulla was set aside with other childhood things, like her toys.

Boys wore their bulla until they day they became a citizen.  Boys' bullas were put aside and carefully saved.  A boy's bulla could be worn by the owner again if he won special honors.  For example, if he became a successful general, and won the honor of triumph, he would wear his bulla in ceremonial parades, to protect him from the evil jealously of men or gods.

Do you have time to explore more? http://www.roman-empire.net/society/soc-dress.html  Check here for some examples of Roman clothing.

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In the early days, when Rome was a kingdom, kids did not go to school.  Education took place in the home and was done by the family.  If a family had someone who knew how to read and write, the boys were taught how.  They were also taught how to be warriors.  Finally, they were taught how to manage the farm or business and how to behave in society.  All this teaching was done by other males in the household.

Girls were taught by the females in the household.  They were taught how to run a household and how to be a good wife.

If they could afford it the family might hire a tutor to teach math and oration, but mostly the teaching was by the family.

This changed during the republic.  The Romans saw how the Greeks taught their children using paid teachers to educate groups of students.  The Romans figured that this was a pretty good system so they adopted it.  However, school was not free.  You had to pay the teacher, so poor children still did not go to school.

Teachers taught more than just reading and writing.  They also taught math and Greek literature.  But the main subject was Oration or public speaking.

School started before sunrise with students working using candles or oil lamps.  They took a break for lunch and siesta, then worked again until late afternoon.

The goal of education in ancient Rome was to be an effective speaker.

At age 12 or 13, the boys of the upper classes attended "grammar" school, where they studied Latin, Greek, grammar, and literature. At age 16, some boys went on to study public speaking at the rhetoric school, to prepare for a life as an orator.

Here’s how it worked:

School: Children, educated outside of the home, were sent to the house of a tutor, who would group-tutor.

Tutors: Wealthy parents might hire a private tutor. Intelligent and gifted slaves also taught children, educated in the home.

Parents: Children, in poorer homes, did not have slaves to teach them; their parents taught them, as they did in early Roman days.

You may have heard that the ancient Romans could not read or write. Actually, the ancient Romans wrote quite a bit. Much of their pottery was signed. Very often, the bricks used to make buildings were stamped with their maker’s name. Lead pipes leading to these buildings, by law, were stamped. Scholars have found 200,000 Latin inscriptions and, incredibly, several thousands are still being found every year! From a stash of letters preserved by being waterlogged from being dumped in a well in Scotland, it would appear that some men in the regular Roman army could read and write. Scholarly estimates are at around 30% of all adult men in ancient Rome had the ability to read and write. That’s a lot, considering school was not free.

Reading, writing and arithmetic were important, but they were not as important as learning to become an effective speaker. The main goal of education was the same for everyone. The goal of education in ancient Rome was to become an effective speaker.

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Once they got dressed, the adults might wander down to the Forum to do their shopping, banking, and worshiping. 

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Once they got dressed, the adults might wander down to the Forum to do their shopping, banking, and worshiping. 

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The Forum was one of the important centers of Roman daily life. The Forum was a big open area, ringed by Roman banks, temples, baths, and businesses. The center open area held the marketplace. Roman adults from both classes might wander down to the Forum, to do their shopping and banking, trading and marketing.
But the Forum had another purpose that we might find unusual.

It was in the Forum where anyone who felt like it could stand and talk to the crowd and express their views on any subject.  This was called Orating and the Romans loved it.  Teachers of speech-making would bring their students to the forum and assign them to try and convince the crowd that a specific idea was the correct and proper idea.  Politicians gave speeches here.  Any adult male Roman citizen could speak in the Forum. The ancient Romans were great orators. The job of their orators was not to argue, but to argue persuasively! People thronging the Forum would stop and listen to anyone Orating, then wander away to do their shopping, and perhaps leave a gift at a temple for one of their gods.

The Forum was also used for festivals and religious ceremonies. It was a very busy place.

Next stop, the temples

The Romans had thousands of gods.  They believed that there were spirits and guardian gods for everything.  Trees, rocks, streams, bridges, everything had its own guardian spirit or god.  There were guardians gods for your house and even for the different parts of the house.  There was a kitchen god, a door god, a bath god, and of course a sleeping god.  The gods had a job - to take care of the people of the house, to watch over and protect them.  If you or your family were forgetful about proper worship or the giving of sacrifices to the gods, then bad things would happen to you.  The Romans blamed everything that went bad on people forgetting to worship the gods properly.

As Rome expanded and grew, the Romans came in contact with people who worshiped other gods.  If those people had fought extremely well, the Romans figured that their gods must be pretty good, so the Romans adopted those gods and made them Roman gods as well.  They gave those gods Roman names. The Romans loved the Greek gods so much that they adopted the gods and all the myths and legends about them.  They changed some of the personalities of the ancient Greek gods to better fit the Roman way of life.

Temples and festivals: The Romans built huge and fancy temples to their gods wherever they went.  Every city in the Roman empire had a forum, which was ringed by temples to the gods.  There were impressive temples all over the Roman Empire.  Every day, the ancient Romans brought offerings of meat and other items to at least one nearby temple.  Usually they visited more than one temple every day.

The Romans also honored their gods by providing festivals for them.  All the major gods had a festival day.  Some of the gods even had more than one day in the year.  These festivals would be paid for by either wealthy Romans, who did it to earn favor from the gods, or by the government of Rome. Festivals were free to the general public. Since the Romans worshiped many gods, there were about 200 major festivals each year.

All Roman gods were able to interact with people if they chose to do so.

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Bathing was very important to the ancient Romans.  Romans would visit the public baths every day, even holy and feast days.  These were not co-ed.  Each public bathhouse either had separate pools for men and women or had different hours for men and women.

The bathhouse was more than just a place to wash.  It was similar to what shopping malls are today.  It was a place to meet friends, a place where you could get something to eat, a place to workout, even a place to read the day's news.  You could even get your hair cut and styled.  Inside the bathhouse were both hot and cold pools, saunas, workout rooms, reading rooms, restaurants and hair salons.  And of course there were many slaves to pamper you.

Unlike our shopping malls today, you had to pay to enter the public bath.  Children and slaves were not supposed to enter (of course if you had enough money or power you could bring your personal slaves with you).  The bathhouse was a very important part of every Roman's day.

Do you have time to explore more?  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostempires/roman/day.html  Click here for a detailed interactive map of a Roman bath.

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When the kids got home from school, they played with their friends, their toys, and their pets.

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When the kids got home from school, they played with their friends, their toys, and their pets.

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There are mosaics and paintings that show children of Rome playing various games.  There are even some writings that describe children at play.  The writings of Horace talks about children riding hobbyhorses, building play houses and even making little carts and hitching mice up to them to pull them around.

Roman children played with balls and kites and made hoops with pieces of metal on them so that when they rolled they chimed like bells.  Mostly though, boys played war type games.  They practiced with wooden swords and played conquer Troy.  Children would also make small figures and play with them.  Girls played with dolls.  Poorer children made rag dolls while the richer children had dolls of clay or wax some even had joints to bend and pose.

Dogs were a favorite pet of Romans.  Birds, including pigeons ducks and geese, were also pets.  Late in the empire period, cats became common and might have been pets.

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Entertainment in Rome was varied and everywhere.  There were plays in open air theaters.  There were festivals, both religious festivals and festivals put on by rich Romans.  There were chariot races and gladiatorial contests.  There were sports contests.  And they were all free.

Romans were also very social.  They visited friends, relatives and neighbors.  They met in the baths.  They might hold a dinner party for friends and important people.  If you were rich, you might stay up all night at a party, lit by oil lamps.  The poor couldn't afford the oil for the lamps so they usually went to bed when it got dark.

Circus Maximus
A chariot is a small two wheeled cart pulled by horses.  Romans loved racing.  They loved racing anything so of course they loved chariot races.  In the early days of Rome, young men would get into chariot races all over Rome.  This was very dangerous, not only for the racers but also for the people who might be out walking.

To end this practice, the Romans built a place to race chariots.  This was called the Circus Maximus.  The Circus Maximus was built during the 6th century BCE.  It was originally built out of wood, but after burning down a couple of times, the Romans rebuilt it using concrete and marble.

In the Circus Maximus, attendance was free.  Anyone could attend.  Men, women, children, even slaves were allowed to watch.  Almost 250,000 people could be seated in the Circus Maximus.

The Circus Maximus was not the only place to race chariots in the Roman Empire, but it was the biggest and best.  The Romans could even fill it with water and have boat races or fights inside it.  It was considered a great honor and the height of chariot racing if you were able to race your chariot in the Circus Maximus, instead of one of the smaller circuses (race tracks) that were built all over the Roman Empire. Only the best raced in the Circus Maximus.

The Colosseum
The definition of a coliseum is any large sports stadium.  The Colosseum was the name of the coliseum in city center ancient Rome.  The Colosseum is also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre.

The Colosseum had seats for about 45,000 people, but if you were not lucky enough to get a seat there was also a standing section.  When full, and it often was, it would hold 70,000 people.

The Colosseum was the site of most of the gladiatorial contests.  In these contests men fought other men or wild animals.  The Romans eagerly went to the Colosseum to watch bloody battles.  To the Romans seeing someone killed in the Colosseum was entertaining. Plus, admission was free and anyone could attend.

The Colosseum was built of concrete and stone and is still fairly intact even today.  You can go to Rome and take a tour of the Colosseum, and imagine yourself in the audience or even as a gladiator in this famous coliseum.

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Building the Arena of Death: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/launch_ani_colosseum.shtml

Roman Baths
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostempires/roman/day.html

Roman Clothing
http://www.roman-empire.net/society/soc-dress.html

Roman Myths
http://rome.mrdonn.org/romangods/thetruthaboutmyths.html

Chariot Race: Ben Hur Movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv7flBVmFgU&list=PLGwzgSYJgUIHxATJpwVhtYBJ6Y1lG1T2C&index=1
--There are three different clips on the right hand side to watch