The Roman Empire 2
Landscape resulting from the ruina montium mining technique at Las Médulas, Roman Spain, one of the most important gold mines in the Roman Empire
The main mining regions of the Empire were Spain (gold, silver, copper, tin, lead); Gaul (gold, silver, iron); Britain (mainly iron, lead, tin), the Danubian provinces (gold, iron); Macedonia and Thrace (gold, silver); and Asia Minor (gold, silver, iron, tin). Sony VGP-BPS13A/B Battery
Sony VGP-BPS13/Q Battery Intensive large-scale mining—of alluvial deposits, and by means of open-cast mining and underground mining—took place from the reign of Augustus up to the early 3rd century AD, when the instability of the Empire disrupted production. Sony VGP-BPS13B/B Battery
Sony VGP-BPS13B/Q Battery The gold mines of Dacia, for instance, were no longer available for Roman exploitation after the province was surrendered in 271. Mining seems to have resumed to some extent during the 4th century.[222] Sony VGP-BPS13/B Battery
Hydraulic mining, which Pliny referred to as ruina montium ("ruin of the mountains"), allowed base and precious metals to be extracted on a proto-industrial scale.[223] The total annual iron output is estimated at 82,500 tonnes.[2Sony VGP-BPS13B/S Battery
24] Copper was produced at an annual rate of 15,000 t,[225] and lead at 80,000 t,[226] both production levels unmatched until the Industrial Revolution;[227] Spain alone had a 40 percent share in world lead production.[2Sony SVS13A1X9E battery
Sony VPCSB4X9E battery 28] The high lead output was a by-product of extensive silver mining which reached 200 t per annum.[229] At its peak around the mid-2nd century AD, the Roman silver stock is estimated at 10,000 t, five to ten times larger than the combined silver mass of medieval Europe and the Caliphate around 800 AD.[23Sony SVS1312J3E battery
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Sony VPCSB4M9E battery0] As an indication of the scale of Roman metal production, lead pollution in the Greenland ice sheet quadrupled over its prehistoric levels during the Imperial era, and dropped again thereafter.[231]
Transportation and communication[edit]
See also: Roman roads
Gallo-Roman relief depicting a river boat transporting wine barrels, an invention of the Gauls that came into widespread use during the 2nd century; above, wine is stored in the traditional amphorae, some covered in wicker[232] Sony SVS1313C5E battery
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The Roman Empire completely encircled the Mediterranean, which they called "our sea" (mare nostrum).[233] Roman sailing vessels navigated the Mediterranean as well as the major rivers of the Empire, including the Guadalquivir, Ebro, Rhône, Rhine, Tiber and Nile.[234] Transport by water was preferred where possible, and moving commodities by land was more difficult.[235] Vehicles, wheels, and ships indicate the existence of a great number of skilled woodworkers.[23Sony SVS1313S9E battery
Sony VPCSB3X9E battery6]
Land transport utilized the advanced system of Roman roads. The in-kind taxes paid by communities included the provision of personnel, animals, or vehicles for the cursus publicus, the state mail and transport service established by Augustus.[193] Relay stations were located along the roads every seven to twelve Roman miles, and tended to grow into a village or trading post.[237] Sony SVS1511S9E battery
A mansio (plural mansiones) was a privately run service station franchised by the imperial bureaucracy for the cursus publicus. The support staff at such a facility included muleteers, secretaries, blacksmiths, cartwrights, a veterinarian, and a few military police and couriers. The distance between mansiones was determined by how far a wagon could travel in a day.[237Sony SVS1512X9E battery
Sony VPCSB3T9E battery] Mules were the animal most often used for pulling carts, traveling about 4 mph.[238] As an example of the pace of communication, it took a messenger a minimum of nine days to travel to Rome from Mainz in the province of Germania Superior, even on a matter of urgency.[23Sony SVS13 battery
Sony VPCSB3S9E battery9] In addition to the mansiones, some taverns offered accommodations as well as food and drink; one recorded tab for a stay showed charges for wine, bread, mule feed, and the services of a prostitute.[240] Sony SVS1511S3R battery
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Trade and commodities[edit]
See also: Roman commerce and Indo-Roman trade and relations
Roman provinces traded among themselves, but trade extended outside the frontiers to regions as far away as China and India.[24Sony VPCSA3T9E battery
Sony VPCSB3M9E battery1] The main commodity was grain.[242] Also traded were olive oil, various foodstuffs, garum (fish sauce), slaves, ore and manufactured metal objects, fibers and textiles, timber, pottery, glassware, marble, papyrus, spices and materia medica, ivory, pearls, and gemstones.[243]
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Though most provinces were capable of producing wine, regional varietals were desirable, and wine was a central item of trade. Shortages of vin ordinaire were rare.[244] The major suppliers for the city of Rome were the west coast of Italy, southern Gaul, the Tarraconensis region of Spain, and Crete. Alexandria, the second-largest city, imported wine from Laodicea in Syria and the Aegean.[245]
Sony VPCSB2M9E battery At the retail level, taverns or specialty wine shops (vinaria) sold wine by the jug for carryout and by the drink on premises, with price ranges reflecting quality.[246]
Labour and occupations[edit]
Workers at a cloth-processing shop, in a painting from the fullonica of Veranius Hypsaeus in Pompeii
Inscriptions record 268 different occupations in the city of Rome, and 85 in Pompeii.[247] Professional associations or trade guilds (collegia) are attested for a wide range of occupations, including fishermen (piscatores), Sony VPCSB1X9E battery
Sony VPCSB2C5023W batterysalt merchants (salinatores), olive oil dealers (olivarii), entertainers (scaenici), cattle dealers (pecuarii), goldsmiths (aurifices), teamsters (asinarii or muliones), and stonecutters (lapidarii).[248] These are sometimes quite specialized: one collegium at Rome was strictly limited to craftsmen who worked in ivory and citrus wood.[249] Sony VPCSB1Z9E battery
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Work performed by slaves falls into five general categories: domestic, with epitaphs recording at least 55 different household jobs; imperial or public service; urban crafts and services; agriculture; and mining.[250] Convicts provided much of the labour in the mines or quarries, where conditions were notoriously brutal.[25Sony VPCSE2E1E battery
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1] In practice, there was little division of labour between slave and free. The greatest number of common labourers were employed in agriculture: in the Italian system of industrial farming (latifundia),
Sony SVS1511V9ES battery these may have been mostly slaves, but throughout the Empire, slave farm labour was probably less important than other forms of dependent labour by people who were technically not enslaved.[252] Sony vgp-bps24 battery
Textile and clothing production was a major source of employment. Both textiles and finished garments were traded among the peoples of the Empire, whose products were often named for them or a particular town, rather like a fashion "label".[2Sony vgp-bpsc24 battery
Sony SVS1511V9EB battery53] Better ready-to-wear was exported by businessmen (negotiatores or mercatores) who were often well-to-do residents of the production centers.[254] Finished garments might be retailed by their sales agents, Sony VPCSD1S1C battery
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who traveled to potential customers, or by vestiarii, clothing dealers who were mostly freedmen; or they might be peddled by itinerant merchants.[254] In Egypt, textile producers could run prosperous small businesses employing apprentices, Sony VPCSA2Z9E battery
Sony SVS1511T9ES battery free workers earning wages, and slaves.[255] The fullers (fullones) and dye workers (coloratores) had their own guilds.[256] Centonarii were guild workers who specialized in textile production and the recycling of old clothes into pieced goods.[257] Sony SVS13AA11M battery
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GDP[edit]
For more details on this topic, see Roman economy#Gross domestic product.
Economic historians vary in their calculations of the gross domestic product of the Roman economy.[258] In the sample years of 14, 100, Sony SVS131B12M battery
Sony SVS1511M3EW battery and 150 AD, estimates of per capita GDP range from 166 to 380 HS. The GDP per capita of Italy is estimated as 40[259] to 66 percent[260] higher than in the rest of the Empire, due to tax transfers from the provinces and the concentration of elite income in the heartland.
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Architecture and engineering[edit]
Main articles: Ancient Roman architecture, Roman engineering, and Roman technology
Construction on the Flavian Amphitheatre, more commonly known as the Colosseum, began during the reign of Vespasian
The chief Roman contributions to architecture were the arch and the dome. Even after more than 2,000 years some Roman structures still stand, due in part to sophisticated methods of making cements and concrete.[261][262
Sony SVS1311P9EB battery] Roman roads are considered the most advanced roads built until the early 19th century. The system of roadways facilitated military policing, communications, and trade. The roads were resistant to floods and other environmental hazards. Even after the collapse of the central government, some roads remained usable for more than a thousand years. Sony SVS151A11M battery
Roman bridges were among the first large and lasting bridges, built from stone with the arch as the basic structure. Most utilized concrete as well. The largest Roman bridge was Trajan's bridge over the lower Danube, constructed by Apollodorus of Damascus, Sony SVS151A12M battery
Sony SVS1311E3EW batterywhich remained for over a millennium the longest bridge to have been built both in terms of overall and span length.[263]
The Romans built many dams for water collection, such as the Subiaco Dams, two of which fed the Anio Novus, one of the largest aqueducts of Rome.[26Sony VPCSA3Q9E battery
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4] They built 72 dams just on the Iberian peninsula, and many more are known across the Empire, some still in use. Several earthen dams are known from Roman Britain, including a well-preserved example from Longovicium (Lanchester). Sony VPCSB4S9E battery
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The Pont du Gard aqueduct, which crosses the Gardon River in southern France, is on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites
The Romans constructed numerous aqueducts. A surviving treatise by Frontinus, who served as curator aquarum (water commissioner) under Nerva, reflects the administrative importance placed on ensuring the water supply. Raised stone channels on a precise grade relied on gravity to carry water from mountain springs along raised stone channels. Sony VPCSE2F1E battery
Sony SVE1512M1E batteryAfter the water passed through the aqueduct, it was collected in tanks and fed through pipes to public fountains, baths, toilets, or industrial sites.[265] The main aqueducts in the city of Rome were the Aqua Claudia and the Aqua Marcia.[ Sony VPCSE2V9E battery
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266] The complex system built to supply Constantinople had its most distant supply drawn from over 120 km away along a sinuous route of more than 336 km.[267] Roman aqueducts were built to remarkably fine tolerance, and to a technological standard that was not to be equaled until modern times.[268]
Sony SVE1512K1E battery The Romans also made use of aqueducts in their extensive mining operations across the empire, at sites such as Las Medulas and Dolaucothi in South Wales.[269]
Insulated glazing (or "double glazing") was used in the construction of public baths. Elite housing in cooler climates might have hypocausts, a form of central heating. The Romans were the first culture to assemble all essential components of the much later steam engine, when Hero built the aeolipile.[270] Sony PCG-4121EM battery
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Daily life[edit]
Main article: Culture of ancient Rome
Cityscape from the Villa Boscoreale (60s AD)
City and country[edit]
In the ancient world, a city was viewed as a place that fostered civilization by being "properly designed, ordered, and adorned."[2Sony PCG-41213M battery
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71] Augustus undertook a vast building program in Rome, supported public displays of art that expressed the new imperial ideology, and reorganized the city into neighborhoods (vici) administered at the local level with police and firefighting services.[272] Sony PCG-41414M battery
Sony SVE1512C6E batteryA focus of Augustan monumental architecture was the Campus Martius, an open area outside the city center that in early times had been devoted to equestrian sports and physical training for youth. The Altar of Augustan Peace (Ara Pacis Augustae) was located there,
Sony SVE1512B1E batteryas was an obelisk imported from Egypt that formed the pointer (gnomon) of a giant sundial. With its public gardens, the Campus became one of the most attractive places in the city to visit.[273]
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City planning and urban lifestyles had been influenced by the Greeks from an early period,[274] and in the eastern Empire, Roman rule accelerated and shaped the local development of cities that already had a strong Hellenistic character. Sony PCG-41214M battery
Cities such as Athens, Aphrodisias, Ephesus and Gerasa altered some aspects of city planning and architecture to conform to imperial ideals, while also expressing their individual identity and regional preeminence.[27Sony PCG-4121GM battery
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5] In the areas of the western Empire inhabited by Celtic-speaking peoples, Rome encouraged the development of urban centers with stone temples, forums, monumental fountains, and amphitheatres, often on or near the sites of the preexisting walled settlements known as oppida.[276] Urbanization in Roman Africa expanded on Greek and Punic cities along the coast.[277] Sony SVE1511F1E battery
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Aquae Sulis in Bath, England: architectural features above the level of the pillar bases are a later reconstruction
The network of cities throughout the Empire (coloniae, municipia, civitates or in Greek terms poleis) was a primary cohesive force during the Pax Romana.[278] Romans of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD were encouraged by imperial propaganda to "inculcate the habits of peacetime".[279] As the classicist Clifford Ando has noted: Sony SVE1511K1E battery
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Sony SVE1511Q1E batteryMost of the cultural appurtenances popularly associated with imperial culture—public cult and its games and civic banquets, competitions for artists, speakers, and athletes, as well as the funding of the great majority of public buildings and public display of art—were financed by private individuals, Sony SVE1511M1E battery
Sony SVE1511P1E battery whose expenditures in this regard helped to justify their economic power and legal and provincial privileges.[280]
Even the Christian polemicist Tertullian declared that the world of the late 2nd century was more orderly and well-cultivated than in earlier times: "Everywhere there are houses, everywhere people, everywhere the res publica, the commonwealth, everywhere life."[281Sony SVE14 battery
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] The decline of cities and civic life in the 4th century, when the wealthy classes were unable or disinclined to support public works, was one sign of the Empire's imminent dissolution.[282]
Public toilets (latrinae) from Ostia Antica
In the city of Rome, most people lived in multistory apartment buildings (insulae) that were often squalid firetraps. Public facilities—such as baths (thermae), toilets that were flushed with running water (latrinae), Sony SVE14A1S1E battery
conveniently located basins or elaborate fountains (nymphea) delivering fresh water,[283] and large-scale entertainments such as chariot races and gladiator combat—were aimed primarily at the common people who lived in the insulae.[284] Similar facilities were constructed in cities throughout the Empire, and some of the best-preserved Roman structures are in Spain, southern France, and northern Africa. Sony SVE14A3C5E battery
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The public baths served hygienic, social and cultural functions.[285] Bathing was the focus of daily socializing in the late afternoon before dinner.[286] Roman baths were distinguished by a series of rooms that offered communal bathing in three temperatures, with varying amenities that might include an exercise and weight-training room, Sony SVE15 battery
Sony VPCCB2M1E batterysauna, exfoliation spa (where oils were massaged into the skin and scraped from the body with a strigil), ball court, or outdoor swimming pool.[287] Baths had hypocaust heating: the floors were suspended over hot-air channels that circulated warmth.[ Sony SVE1713Z1E battery
Sony VPCCB2M0E battery288] Mixed nude bathing was not unusual in the early Empire, though some baths may have offered separate facilities or hours for men and women. Public baths were a part of urban culture throughout the provinces, but in the late 4th century, individual tubs began to replace communal bathing.[28Sony SVE17 battery
9] Christians were advised to go to the baths for health and cleanliness, not pleasure,[290] but to avoid the games (ludi), which were part of religious festivals they considered "pagan". Tertullian says that otherwise Christians not only availed themselves of the baths, but participated fully in commerce and society.[291] Sony VPCCA1C5E battery
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Reconstructed peristyle garden based on the House of the Vettii
Rich families from Rome usually had two or more houses, a townhouse (domus, plural domūs) and at least one luxury home (villa) outside the city. The domus was a privately owned single-family house, and might be furnished with a private bath (balneum),[29Sony VPCCA1S1E battery
Sony VPCCA3 battery2] but it was not a place to retreat from public life.[293] Although some neighborhoods of Rome show a higher concentration of well-to-do houses, the rich did not live in segregated enclaves. Sony VPCCA2 battery
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Sony VPCCA2Z0E batteryTheir houses were meant to be visible and accessible. The atrium served as a reception hall in which the paterfamilias (head of household) met with clients every morning, from wealthy friends to poorer dependents who received charity.[294Sony VPCCB4X1E battery
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] It was also the center of family religious rites, containing a shrine and the images of family ancestors.[295] The houses were located on busy public roads, and ground-level spaces facing the street were often rented out as shops (tabernae).[296] In addition to a kitchen garden, or windowboxes in the insulae, Sony SVE171A11M battery
Sony VPCCB3M1E batterytownhouses typically enclosed a peristyle garden that brought a tract of nature, made orderly, within walls.[297]
Birds and fountain within a garden setting, with oscilla (hanging masks)[298] above, in a painting from Pompeii
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The villa by contrast was an escape from the bustle of the city, and in literature represents a lifestyle that balances the civilized pursuit of intellectual and artistic interests (otium) with an appreciation of nature and the agricultural cycle.[299] Ideally a villa commanded a view or vista, carefully framed by the architectural design.[3Sony SVE151C11M battery
Sony SVE1511J1EW battery00] It might be located on a working estate, or in a "resort town" situated on the seacoast, such as Pompeii and Herculaneum.
The programme of urban renewal under Augustus, and the growth of Rome's population to as many as 1 million people, Sony SVE1711T1EB battery
Sony SVE1511H1ESI batterywas accompanied by a nostalgia for rural life expressed in the arts. Poetry praised the idealized lives of farmers and shepherds. The interiors of houses were often decorated with painted gardens, fountains, landscapes, vegetative ornament,[300] and animals, especially birds and marine life, Sony SVE1711K1EW battery
Sony SVE1511H1EW battery rendered accurately enough that modern scholars can sometimes identify them by species.[301] The Augustan poet Horace gently satirized the dichotomy of urban and rural values in his fable of the city mouse and the country mouse, which has often been retold as a children's story.[302] Sony SVE1711V1EB battery
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On a more practical level, the central government took an active interest in supporting agriculture.[303] Producing food was the top priority of land use.[304] Larger farms (latifundia) achieved an economy of scale that sustained urban life and its more specialized division of labor.[303]
Sony SVE1511S1EB battery Small farmers benefited from more local markets in towns and trade centers. Agricultural techniques such as crop rotation and selective breeding were disseminated throughout the Empire, and new crops were introduced from one province to another, such as peas and cabbage to Britain.[305] Sony SVE1711X1EB battery
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Maintaining an affordable food supply to the city of Rome had become a major political issue in the late Republic, when the state began to provide a grain dole (annona) to citizens who registered for it.[3
Sony SVE1511S1EW battery03] About 200,000–250,000 adult males in Rome received the dole, amounting to about 33 kg. per month, for a per annum total of about 100,000 tons of wheat primarily from Sicily, north Africa, and Egypt.[306] Sony SVE1511G1EW battery
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Sony SVE1511G1EB battery The dole cost at least 15 percent of state revenues,[303] but improved living conditions and family life among the lower classes,[307] and subsidized the rich by allowing workers to spend more of their earnings on the wine and olive oil produced on the estates of the landowning class.[303] Sony PCG-41311M battery
Bread stall, from a Pompeiian wall painting
The grain dole also had symbolic value: it affirmed both the emperor's position as universal benefactor, and the right of all citizens to share in "the fruits of conquest".[303] The annona, public facilities, and spectacular entertainments mitigated the otherwise dreary living conditions of lower-class Romans, and kept social unrest in check. Sony PCG-41313M battery
The satirist Juvenal, however, saw "bread and circuses" (panem et circenses) as emblematic of the loss of republican political liberty:[308]
The public has long since cast off its cares: the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things: bread and circuses.[309] Sony PCG-41314M battery
Food and dining[edit]
Main article: Food and dining in the Roman Empire
See also: Grain supply to the city of Rome and Ancient Rome and wine
Most apartments in Rome lacked kitchens, though a charcoal brazier could be used for rudimentary cookery.[3Sony PCG-41315M battery
Sony VGP-BPS20/B battery10] Prepared food was sold at pubs and bars, inns, and food stalls (tabernae, cauponae, popinae, thermopolia).[311] Carryout and restaurant dining were for the lower classes; fine dining could be sought only at private dinner parties in well-to-do houses with a chef (archimagirus) and trained kitchen staff, Sony PCG-4R2M battery
Sony VGP-BPL20 battery [312] or at banquets hosted by social clubs (collegia).[313] Frequenting taverns, where prostitutes sometimes worked, was among the moral failings that louche emperors and other public figures might be accused of.[314]
Most people would have consumed at least 70 percent of their daily calories in the form of cereals and legumes.[3Sony PCG-4R2M battery
Sony VPCZ23K9E battery15] Puls (pottage) was considered the aboriginal food of the Romans.[316] The basic grain pottage could be elaborated with chopped vegetables, bits of meat, cheese, or herbs to produce dishes similar to polenta or risotto.[317]
A Pompeiian taberna for eating and drinking; the faded painting over the counter pictured eggs, olives, fruit and radishes[318]
Urban populations and the military preferred to consume their grain in the form of bread.[319] Mills and commercial ovens were usually combined in a bakery complex.[32Sony PCG-4U2M battery
Sony VPCZ13Z9E/X battery0] By the reign of Aurelian, the state had begun to distribute the annona as a daily ration of bread baked in state factories, and added olive oil, wine, and pork to the dole.[321]
The importance of a good diet to health was recognized by medical writers such as Galen (2nd century AD), whose treatises included one On Barley Soup. Views on nutrition were influenced by schools of thought such as humoral theory.[322] Sony PCG-6Z4M battery
In upperclass households, the evening meal (cena) had important social functions.[323] The ideal number of guests for a dinner party (convivium, "life-sharing" or "a living together") was nine.[323] Guests were entertained in a finely decorated dining room (triclinium), Sony PCG-6112M battery
Sony PCG-6124M batteryoften with a view of the peristyle garden. Diners lounged on couches, leaning on the left elbow. By the late Republic, if not earlier, women dined, reclined, and drank wine along with men.[324] Sony PCG-6121M battery
Roman literature focuses on the dining habits of the upper classes,[325] and the most famous description of a Roman meal is probably Trimalchio's dinner party in the Satyricon, a fictional extravaganza that bears little resemblance to reality even among the most wealthy.[326] The poet Martial describes serving a more plausible dinner, Sony PCG-6122M battery
Sony PCG-6123M battery beginning with the gustatio ("tasting" or "appetizer"), which was a composed salad of mallow leaves, lettuce, chopped leeks, mint, arugula, mackerel garnished with rue, sliced eggs, and marinated sow udder. The main course was succulent cuts of kid, beans,
greens, a chicken, and leftover ham, followed by a dessert of fresh fruit and vintage wine.[327] The Latin expression for a full-course dinner was ab ovo usque mala, "from the egg to the apples," equivalent to the English "from soup to nuts."[328]
Still life on a 2nd-century mosaic
A book-length collection of Roman recipes is attributed to Apicius, a name for several figures in antiquity that became synonymous with "gourmet."[329] Roman "foodies" indulged in wild game, fowl such as peacock and flamingo, large fish (mullet was especially prized), and shellfish. Luxury ingredients were brought by the fleet from the far reaches of empire, from the Parthian frontier to the Straits of Gibraltar.[330] Sony VPCZ11X9E/B battery
Refined cuisine could thus be moralized as a sign of either civilized progress or decadent decline.[331] The early Imperial historian Tacitus contrasted the indulgent luxuries of the Roman table in his day with the simplicity of the Germanic diet of fresh wild meat, foraged fruit, and cheese, unadulterated by imported seasonings and elaborate sauces.[ Sony VPCZ11Z9E/B battery
Sony VPCZ23N9E battery332] Most often, because of the importance of landowning in Roman culture, produce—cereals, legumes, vegetables, and fruit—was considered a more civilized form of food than meat. The Mediterranean staples of bread, wine, Sony VPCZ12C7E/B battery
Sony VPCZ23M9E batteryand oil were sacralized by Roman Christianity, while Germanic meat consumption became a mark of paganism,[333] as it might be the product of animal sacrifice.
Some philosophers and Christians resisted the demands of the body and the pleasures of food,
Sony VPCZ21X9R batteryand adopted fasting as an ideal.[334] Food became simpler in general as urban life in the West diminished, trade routes were disrupted,[335] and the rich retreated to the more limited self-sufficiency of their country estates.[33Sony VPCZ12M9E battery
Sony VPCZ21V9E battery6] As an urban lifestyle came to be associated with decadence, the Church formally discouraged gluttony,[336] and hunting and pastoralism were seen as simple but virtuous ways of life.[337]
Recreation and spectacles[edit]
See also: Ludi, Chariot racing, and Gladiator
Model of Imperial Rome showing the Circus Maximus and the Colosseum
When Juvenal complained that the Roman people had exchanged their political liberty for "bread and circuses", he was referring to the state-provided grain dole and the circenses, events held in the entertainment venue called a circus in Latin. Sony VPCZ12V9E/B battery
Sony VPCZ12Z9E/X battery The largest such venue in Rome was the Circus Maximus, the setting of horse races, chariot races, the equestrian Troy Game, staged beast hunts (venationes), athletic contests, gladiator combat, and historical reenactments. From earliest times, several religious festivals had featured games (ludi), Sony VPCZ12X9E/B battery
Sony VPCZ12Z9E/B battery primarily horse and chariot races (ludi circenses).[338] Although their entertainment value tended to overshadow ritual significance, the races remained part of archaic religious observances that pertained to agriculture, initiation, and the cycle of birth and death.[339] Sony VGN-TT1RLN/B battery
Under Augustus, public entertainments were presented on 77 days of the year; by the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the number of days had expanded to 135.[340] Circus games were preceded by an elaborate parade (pompa circensis) that ended at the venue.[341Sony VGN-TT1RVN/X battery
] Competitive events were held also in smaller venues such as the amphitheatre, which became the characteristic Roman spectacle venue, and stadium. Greek-style athletics included footraces, boxing, wrestling, and the pancratium.[342] Aquatic displays, such as the mock sea battle (naumachia) and a form of "water ballet", Sony VGN-TT11LN/B battery
Sony VGP-BPS14/B batterywere presented in engineered pools.[343] State-supported theatrical events (ludi scaenici) took place on temple steps or in grand stone theatres, or in the smaller enclosed theatre called an odeum.[344]
Wall painting depicting a sports riot at the amphitheatre of Pompeii, which led to the banning of gladiator combat in the town[345]
Circuses were the largest structure regularly built in the Roman world,[346] though the Greeks had their own architectural traditions for the similarly purposed hippodrome. The Flavian Amphitheatre, better known as the Colosseum, became the regular arena for blood sports in Rome after it opened in 80 AD.[347Sony VGN-TT11RM/R battery
Sony VGP-BPL14/S battery] The circus races continued to be held more frequently.[348] The Circus Maximus could seat around 150,000 spectators, and the Colosseum about 50,000 with standing room for about 10,000 more.[349] Many Roman amphitheatres, circuses and theatres built in cities outside Italy are visible as ruins today.[3Sony VGN-TT11VN/X battery
Sony VGP-BPL14/B battery50] The local ruling elite were responsible for sponsoring spectacles and arena events, which both enhanced their status and drained their resources.[351]
The physical arrangement of the amphitheatre represented the order of Roman society: the emperor presiding in his opulent box; senators and equestrians watching from the advantageous seats reserved for them; women seated at a remove from the action; slaves given the worst places, and everybody else packed in-between.[35Sony VGN-TT11WN/B battery
Sony VGN-TT battery2] The crowd could call for an outcome by booing or cheering, but the emperor had the final say. Spectacles could quickly become sites of social and political protest, and emperors sometimes had to deploy force to put down crowd unrest, most notoriously at the Nika riots in the year 532, when troops under Justinian slaughtered thousands.[353]
A victor in his four-horse chariot
The chariot teams were known by the colors they wore, with the Blues and Greens the most popular. Fan loyalty was fierce and at times erupted into sports riots.[354] Racing was perilous, but charioteers were among the most celebrated and well-compensated athletes.[3
Sony VGN-TT46MG/W battery55] One star of the sport was Diocles, from Lusitania (present-day Portugal), who raced chariots for 24 years and had career earnings of 35 million sesterces.[356] Horses had their fans too, Sony VGN-TT11XN/B battery
Sony VGN-TT46GG/W battery and were commemorated in art and inscriptions, sometimes by name.[357] The design of Roman circuses was developed to assure that no team had an unfair advantage and to minimize collisions (naufragia, "shipwrecks"),[358] which were nonetheless frequent and spectacularly satisfying to the crowd.[3Sony VGN-TT21JN/B battery
Sony VGN-TT21WN/B battery59] The races retained a magical aura through their early association with chthonic rituals: circus images were considered protective or lucky, curse tablets have been found buried at the site of racetracks, and charioteers were often suspected of sorcery.[36
Sony VGN-Z11VN/X battery0] Chariot racing continued into the Byzantine period under imperial sponsorship, but the decline of cities in the 6th and 7th centuries led to its eventual demise.[361]
The Zliten mosaic, from a dining room in present-day Libya, depicts a series of arena scenes: from top, musicians playing a Roman tuba, a water pipe organ and two horns; six pairs of gladiators with two referees; four beast fighters; and three convicts condemned to the beasts[362] Sony VGN-Z11MN/B battery
The Romans thought gladiator contests had originated with funeral games and sacrifices in which select captive warriors were forced to fight to expiate the deaths of noble Romans. Some of the earliest styles of gladiator fighting had ethnic designations such as "Thracian" or "Gallic."[363] The staged combats were considered munera, "services, offerings, benefactions", initially distinct from the festival games (ludi).[36Sony VGN-Z11WN/B battery
Sony VGN-Z51XTG/B battery4] Throughout his 40-year reign, Augustus presented eight gladiator shows in which a total of 10,000 men fought, as well as 26 staged beast hunts that resulted in the deaths of 3,500 animals.[365Sony VGN-Z21 battery
] To mark the opening of the Colosseum, the emperor Titus presented 100 days of arena events, with 3,000 gladiators competing on a single day.[366] Roman fascination with gladiators is indicated by how widely they are depicted on mosaics, wall paintings, lamps, and even graffiti drawings.[367] Sony VGN-Z21WN/B battery
Gladiators were trained combatants who might be slaves, convicts, or free volunteers.[368] Death was not a necessary or even desirable outcome in matches between these highly skilled fighters, whose training represented a costly and time-consuming investment.[3Sony VGN-Z21XN battery
Sony VGN-Z41WD/B battery69] By contrast, noxii were convicts sentenced to the arena with little or no training, often unarmed, and with no expectation of survival. Physical suffering and humiliation were considered appropriate retributive justice for the crimes they had committed.[370] These executions were sometimes staged or ritualized as reenactments of myths, Sony VGN-Z31 battery
Sony VGP-BPS12/Q batteryand amphitheatres were equipped with elaborate stage machinery to create special effects.[371] Tertullian considered deaths in the arena to be nothing more than a dressed-up form of human sacrifice.[372] Sony VGN-Z31VN/X battery
Modern scholars have found the pleasure Romans took in the "theater of life and death"[373] to be one of the more difficult aspects of their civilization to understand and explain.[374] The younger Pliny rationalized gladiator spectacles as good for the people, Sony VGN-Z31WN/B battery
a way "to inspire them to face honourable wounds and despise death, by exhibiting love of glory and desire for victory even in the bodies of slaves and criminals".[375] Some Romans such as Seneca were critical of the brutal spectacles, but found virtue in the courage and dignity of the defeated fighter rather than in victory[376] Sony VGN-Z51 battery
Sony VGP-BPL12 battery—an attitude that finds its fullest expression with the Christians martyred in the arena. Even martyr literature, however, offers "detailed, indeed luxuriant, descriptions of bodily suffering",[377] and became a popular genre at times indistinguishable from fiction.[378]
Personal training and play[edit] Sony VGN-Z51WG battery
Boys and girls playing ball games (2nd century relief from the Louvre)
In the plural, ludi almost always refers to the large-scale spectator games. The singular ludus, "play, game, sport, training," had a wide range of meanings such as "word play," "theatrical performance," "board game," "primary school," and even "gladiator training school" (as in Ludus Magnus, the largest such training camp at Rome).[379] Sony SVE1511A1EW battery
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Activities for children and young people included hoop rolling and knucklebones (astragali or "jacks"). The sarcophagi of children often show them playing games. Girls had dolls, typically 15–16 cm tall with jointed limbs, made of materials such as wood, terracotta, and especially bone and ivory.[ Sony SVE1511K1E battery
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380] Ball games include trigon, which required dexterity, and harpastum, a rougher sport.[381] Pets appear often on children's memorials and in literature, including birds, dogs, cats, goats, sheep, rabbits and geese.[382]
So-called "bikini girls" mosaic from the Villa del Casale, Sicily
After adolescence, most physical training for males was of a military nature. The Campus Martius originally was an exercise field where young men developed the skills of horsemanship and warfare. Hunting was also considered an appropriate pastime. Sony SVE1511M1E battery
Sony SVE1512C6E battery According to Plutarch, conservative Romans disapproved of Greek-style athletics that promoted a fine body for its own sake, and condemned Nero's efforts to encourage gymnastic games in the Greek manner.[383] Sony SVE1511P1E battery
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Some women trained as gymnasts and dancers, and a rare few as female gladiators. The famous "bikini girls" mosaic shows young women engaging in apparatus routines that might be compared to rhythmic gymnastics.[3Sony SVE1511Q1E battery
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Sony SVE1511W1E battery84] Women in general were encouraged to maintain their health through activities such as playing ball, swimming, walking, reading aloud (as a breathing exercise), riding in vehicles, and travel.[385]
Stone game board from Aphrodisias: boards could also be made of wood, with deluxe versions in costly materials such as ivory; game pieces or counters were bone, glass, or polished stone, and might be colored or have markings or images[386] Sony SVE1713S1E battery
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People of all ages played board games pitting two players against each other, including latrunculi ("Raiders"), a game of strategy in which opponents coordinated the movements and capture of multiple game pieces, and XII scripta ("Twelve Marks"), involving dice and arranging pieces on a grid of letters or words.[3Sony SVE1511A1EB battery
Sony SVE15 battery87] A game referred to as alea (dice) or tabula (the board), to which the emperor Claudius was notoriously addicted, may have been similar to backgammon, using a dice-cup (pyrgus).[388] Sony SVE14A1S1EB battery
Sony SVE14A3C5E battery Playing with dice as a form of gambling was disapproved of, but was a popular pastime during the December festival of the Saturnalia with its carnival, norms-overturned atmosphere. Sony SVE14A1S1EP battery
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Clothing[edit]
Main article: Clothing in ancient Rome
In a status-conscious society like that of the Romans, clothing and personal adornment gave immediate visual clues about the etiquette of interacting with the wearer.[389] Wearing the correct clothing was supposed to reflect a society in good order.[3Sony SVE1511Q1EB battery
Sony SVE14 battery90] The toga was the distinctive national garment of the Roman male citizen, but it was heavy and impractical, worn mainly for conducting political business and religious rites, and for going to court.[391] Contrary to popular perception, the clothing Romans wore ordinarily was dark or colorful, and the most common male attire seen daily throughout the provinces would have been tunics, cloaks, and in some regions trousers.[39Sony SVE1511R9ESI battery
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Sony SVE1511W1ESI battery2] The study of how Romans dressed in daily life is complicated by a lack of direct evidence, since portraiture may show the subject in clothing with symbolic value, and surviving textiles from the period are rare.[393] Sony SVE17 battery
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Women from the wall painting at the Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii
The basic garment for all Romans, regardless of gender or wealth, was the simple sleeved tunic. The length differed by wearer: a man's reached mid-calf, but a soldier's was somewhat shorter; a woman's fell to her feet, and a child's to its knees.[394Sony VPCCA1S1E battery
VPCCB3P1E battery] The tunics of poor people and laboring slaves were made from coarse wool in natural, dull shades, with the length determined by the type of work they did. Finer tunics were made of lightweight wool or linen. A man who belonged to the senatorial or equestrian order wore a tunic with two purple stripes (clavi) woven vertically into the fabric: Sony VPCCA2 battery
Sony VPCCB3 batterythe wider the stripe, the higher the wearer's status.[395] Other garments could be layered over the tunic.
The Imperial toga was a "vast expanse" of semi-circular white wool that could not be put on and draped correctly without assistance.[396] Sony VPCCA2S0E battery
Sony VPCCB2S1E battery In his work on oratory, Quintilian describes in detail how the public speaker ought to orchestrate his gestures in relation to his toga.[397] In art, the toga is shown with the long end dipping between the feet, a deep curved fold in front, and a bulbous flap at the midsection.[398] The drapery became more intricate and structured over time, with the cloth forming a tight roll across the chest in later periods.[3Sony VPCCA2Z0E battery
Sony VPCCB2M1E battery99] The toga praetexta, with a purple or purplish-red stripe representing inviolability, was worn by children who had not come of age, curule magistrates, and state priests.[400] Only the emperor could wear an all-purple toga (toga picta).[401]
Toga (at left)
and pallium
Claudius wearing an early Imperial toga (see a later, more structured toga above), and the pallium as worn by a priest of Serapis,[402] sometimes identified as the emperor Julian
In the 2nd century, emperors and men of status are often portrayed wearing the pallium, an originally Greek mantle (himation) folded tightly around the body. Women are also portrayed in the pallium. Sony VPCCA3 battery
Sony VPCCB2 batteryTertullian considered the pallium an appropriate garment both for Christians, in contrast to the toga, and for educated people, since it was associated with philosophers.[403] By the 4th century, the toga had been more or less replaced by the pallium as a garment that embodied social unity.[404] Sony VPCCB4X1E battery
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Roman clothing styles changed over time, though not as rapidly as fashions today.[405] In the Dominate, clothing worn by both soldiers and government bureaucrats became highly decorated, with woven or embroidered stripes (clavi) and circular roundels (orbiculi) Sony SVS13A1S9E battery
Sony VPCSB1X9E batteryapplied to tunics and cloaks. These decorative elements consisted of geometrical patterns, stylised plant motifs, and in more elaborate examples, human or animal figures.[406] The use of silk increased, and courtiers of the later Empire wore elaborate silk robes. The militarization of Roman society, and the waning of cultural life based on urban ideals, affected habits of dress: heavy military-style belts were worn by bureaucrats as well as soldiers, and the toga was abandoned.[407] Sony SVS13A1X9E battery
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The arts[edit]
Main article: Roman art
The Wedding of Zephyrus and Chloris (54-68 AD, Pompeian Fourth Style) within painted architectural panels from the Casa del Naviglio
People visiting or living in Rome or the cities throughout the Empire would have seen art in a range of styles and media on a daily basis. Public or official art—including sculpture, Sony SVS1312J3E battery
monuments such as victory columns or triumphal arches, and the iconography on coins—is often analyzed for its historical significance or as an expression of imperial ideology.[408] At Imperial public baths, a person of humble means could view wall paintings, mosaics, statues, and interior decoration often of high quality.[40Sony SVS1312P9E battery
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Sony VPCSA battery9] In the private sphere, objects made for religious dedications, funerary commemoration, domestic use, and commerce can show varying degrees of aesthetic quality and artistic skill.[410] A wealthy person might advertise his appreciation of culture through painting, sculpture, and decorative arts at his home—though some efforts strike modern viewers and some ancient connoisseurs as strenuous rather than tasteful.[ Sony SVS1313C5E battery
Sony SVS1511S3R battery411] Greek art had a profound influence on the Roman tradition, and some of the most famous examples of Greek statues are known only from Roman Imperial versions and the occasional description in a Greek or Latin literary source.[412] Sony SVS1313S9E battery
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Despite the high value placed on works of art, even famous artists were of low social status among the Greeks and Romans, who regarded artists, artisans, and craftsmen alike as manual laborers. At the same time, the level of skill required to produce quality work was recognized, and even considered a divine gift.[413] Sony SVS1511S9E battery
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Portraiture[edit]
Main article: Roman portraiture
Two portraits circa 130 AD: the empress Vibia Sabina (left); and the Antinous Mondragone, one of the abundant likenesses of Hadrian's famously beautiful male companion Antinous
Portraiture, which survives mainly in the medium of sculpture, Sony VPCSB2M9E battery
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was the most copious form of imperial art. Portraits during the Augustan period utilize youthful and classical proportions, evolving later into a mixture of realism and idealism.[414] Republican portraits had been characterized by a "warts and all" verism, but as early as the 2nd century BC, the Greek convention of heroic nudity was adopted sometimes for portraying conquering generals.[415Sony VPCSB3M9E battery
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Sony VPCSA4W9E battery] Imperial portrait sculptures may model the head as mature, even craggy, atop a nude or seminude body that is smooth and youthful with perfect musculature; a portrait head might even be added to a body created for another purpose.[416] Clothed in the toga or military regalia, the body communicates rank or sphere of activity, not the characteristics of the individual.[417]
Women of the emperor's family were often depicted dressed as goddesses or divine personifications such as Pax ("Peace"). Sony VPCSB3S9E battery
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Portraiture in painting is represented primarily by the Fayum mummy portraits, which evoke Egyptian and Roman traditions of commemorating the dead with the realistic painting techniques of the Empire. Marble portrait sculpture would have been painted, Sony VPCSB3X9E battery
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Sony VPCSA3X9E battery and while traces of paint have only rarely survived the centuries, the Fayum portraits indicate why ancient literary sources marveled at how lifelike artistic representations could be.[418]
The bronze Drunken Satyr, excavated at Herculaneum and exhibited in the 18th century, inspired an interest among later sculptors in similar "carefree" subjects[419]
Sculpture[edit] Sony VPCSB4M9E battery
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Main article: Roman sculpture
Examples of Roman sculpture survive abundantly, though often in damaged or fragmentary condition, including freestanding statues and statuettes in marble, bronze and terracotta, and reliefs from public buildings, temples, and monuments such as the Ara Pacis, Sony VPCSE1E1E battery
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Sony VPCSA3N9E battery Trajan's Column, and the Arch of Titus. Niches in amphitheatres such as the Colosseum were originally filled with statues,[420] and no formal garden was complete without statuary.[421]
Temples housed the cult images of deities, often by famed sculptors.[422] The religiosity of the Romans encouraged the production of decorated altars, small representations of deities for the household shrine or votive offerings, and other pieces for dedicating at temples. Sony VPCSE1V9E battery
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Sony VPCSA3M9E batteryDivine and mythological figures were also given secular, humorous, and even obscene depictions.
On the Ludovisi sarcophagus, an example of the battle scenes favored during the Crisis of the Third Century, the "writhing and highly emotive" Romans and Goths fill the surface in a packed, anti-classical composition[423] Sony VPCSE2J9E battery
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Sarcophagi[edit]
Main article: Ancient Roman sarcophagi
Elaborately carved marble and limestone sarcophagi are characteristic of the 2nd to the 4th centuries[424] with at least 10,000 examples surviving.[42Sony VPCSE2L9E battery
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Sony VPCSB1S1E battery5] Although mythological scenes have been most widely studied,[426] sarcophagus relief has been called the "richest single source of Roman iconography,"[427] and may also depict the deceased's occupation or life course, military scenes, and other subject matter. The same workshops produced sarcophagi with Jewish or Christian imagery.[428] Sony VPCSE2S1E battery
The Primavera of Stabiae, perhaps the goddess Flora
Painting[edit]
Much of what is known of Roman painting is based on the interior decoration of private homes, particularly as preserved at Pompeii and Herculaneum by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. In addition to decorative borders and panels with geometric or vegetative motifs, Sony VPCSB1A9E battery
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wall painting depicts scenes from mythology and the theatre, landscapes and gardens, recreation and spectacles, work and everyday life, and frank pornography. Birds, animals, and marine life are often depicted with careful attention to realistic detail. Sony vgp-bps24 battery
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A unique source for Jewish figurative painting under the Empire is the Dura-Europos synagogue, dubbed "the Pompeii of the Syrian Desert,"[429] buried and preserved in the mid-3rd century after the city was destroyed by Persians.[430] Sony vgp-bpsc24 battery
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Mosaic[edit]
Main article: Roman mosaic
The Triumph of Neptune floor mosaic from Africa Proconsularis (present-day Tunisia), celebrating agricultural success with allegories of the Seasons, vegetation, workers and animals viewable from multiple perspectives in the room (latter 2nd century)[431]
Mosaics are among the most enduring of Roman decorative arts, and are found on the surfaces of floors and other architectural features such as walls, vaulted ceilings, and columns. The most common form is the tessellated mosaic, formed from uniform pieces (tesserae) of materials such as stone and glass.[ Sony VPCSD1S1C battery
Sony SVE1511G1ESI battery432] Mosaics were usually crafted on site, but sometimes assembled and shipped as ready-made panels. A mosaic workshop was led by the master artist (pictor) who worked with two grades of assistants.[433] Sony SVS15 battery
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Figurative mosaics share many themes with painting, and in some cases portray subject matter in almost identical compositions. Although geometric patterns and mythological scenes occur throughout the Empire, regional preferences also find expression. In North Africa, a particularly rich source of mosaics, Sony VPCSA2Z9E battery
Sony SVE1711X1EB batteryhomeowners often chose scenes of life on their estates, hunting, agriculture, and local wildlife.[431] Plentiful and major examples of Roman mosaics come also from present-day Turkey, Italy, southern France, Spain, and Portugal. More than 300 Antioch mosaics from the 3rd century are known. Sony SVE171A11M battery
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Opus sectile is a related technique in which flat stone, usually colored marble, is cut precisely into shapes from which geometric or figurative patterns are formed. This more difficult technique was highly prized, and became especially popular for luxury surfaces in the 4th century, an abundant example of which is the Basilica of Junius Bassus.[434] Sony SVE151C11M battery
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Decorative arts[edit]
See also: Ancient Roman pottery and Roman glass
Decorative arts for luxury consumers included fine pottery, silver and bronze vessels and implements, and glassware. The manufacture of pottery in a wide range of quality was important to trade and employment, as were the glass and metalworking industries. Imports stimulated new regional centers of production. Sony SVE1511S1EB battery
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Sony SVS1511W9EB battery Southern Gaul became a leading producer of the finer red-gloss pottery (terra sigillata) that was a major item of trade in 1st-century Europe.[435] Glassblowing was regarded by the Romans as originating in Syria in the 1st century BC, and by the 3rd century Egypt and the Rhineland had become noted for fine glass.[436]
Performing arts[edit]
Main articles: Theatre of ancient Rome and Music of ancient Rome
The Greek tradition of all-male literary theatre performed in masks continued into the Empire, represented in Latin literature by the tragedies of Seneca.[437] Sony SVE1511H1ESI battery
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The most popular form of theatre, however, was the genre-defying mimus, which featured scripted scenarios with improv, risqué language and jokes, sex scenes, action sequences, and political satire, along with dance numbers, juggling, acrobatics and tightrope walking, striptease, and trained bears.[438] Sony VPCCA4S1E battery
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Sony SVS1511V9ES battery Mimus was played without masks, and promoted stylistic realism in acting. Female roles were performed by women, not by men in drag.[439] Mimus was related to the genre called pantomimus, an early form of story ballet that contained no spoken dialogue. Pantomimus combined expressive dancing, instrumental music and a sung libretto, often mythological, that could be either tragic or comic.[440] Sony VPCCA3S1E battery
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All-male theatrical troupe preparing for a masked performance, on a mosaic from the House of the Tragic Poet
Although sometimes regarded as foreign elements in Roman culture, music and dance had existed in Rome from earliest times.[44Sony SVS13A1U9ES battery
Sony SVS1511T9ES battery1] Music was customary at funerals, and the tibia (Greek aulos), a woodwind instrument, was played at sacrifices to ward off ill influences.[442] Song (carmen) was an integral part of almost every social occasion.[ Sony SVS13AA11M battery
Sony SVS1511N3ES battery443] The Secular Ode of Horace, commissioned by Augustus, was performed publicly in 17 BC by a mixed children's choir. Music was thought to reflect the orderliness of the cosmos, and was associated particularly with mathematics and knowledge.[444]
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Various woodwinds and "brass" instruments were played, as were stringed instruments such as the cithara, and percussion.[445] The cornu, a long tubular metal wind instrument that curved around the musician's body, was used for military signals and on parade.[446Sony SVS131B12M battery
Sony SVS1511L3ES battery] These instruments are found in parts of the Empire where they did not originate, and indicate that music was among the aspects of Roman culture that spread throughout the provinces. Instruments are widely depicted in Roman art. Sony SVS151A11M battery
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The hydraulic pipe organ (hydraulis) was "one of the most significant technical and musical achievements of antiquity",[447] and accompanied gladiator games and events in the amphitheatre, as well as stage performances. It was among the instruments that the emperor Nero played.[447] Sony SVS151A12M battery
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Although certain forms of dance were disapproved of at times as non-Roman or unmanly, dancing was embedded in religious rituals of archaic Rome, such as those of the dancing armed Salian priests and of the Arval Brothers, priesthoods which underwent a revival during the Principate.[448Sony VPCSA3Q9E battery
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] Ecstatic dancing was a feature of the international mystery religions, particularly the cult of Cybele as practiced by her eunuch priests the Galli[449] and of Isis. In the secular realm, dancing girls from Syria and Cadiz were extremely popular.[450] Sony VPCSB4S9E battery
Llike gladiators, entertainers were infames in the eyes of the law, little better than slaves even if they were technically free. "Stars", however, could enjoy considerable wealth and celebrity, and mingled socially and often sexually with the upper classes, including emperors.[451] Performers supported each other by forming guilds, and several memorials for members of the theatre community survive.[4Sony VPCSE2F1E battery
Sony PCG-4121GM battery52] Theatre and dance were often condemned by Christian polemicists in the later Empire,[453] and Christians who integrated dance traditions and music into their worship practices were regarded by the Church Fathers as shockingly "pagan."[454] St. Augustine is supposed to have said that bringing clowns, actors, and dancers into a house was like inviting in a gang of unclean spirits.[455] Sony VPCSE2V9E battery
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Literacy, books, and education[edit]
Main article: Education in Ancient Rome
Pride in literacy was displayed in portraiture through emblems of reading and writing, as in this example of a couple from Pompeii
Estimates of the average literacy rate in the Empire range from 5 to 30 percent or higher, depending in part on the definition of "literacy".[45Sony PCG-4121DM battery
Sony PCG-41414M battery6] The Roman obsession with documents and public inscriptions indicates the high value placed on the written word.[457] The Imperial bureaucracy was so dependent on writing that the Babylonian Talmud declared "if all seas were ink, all reeds were pen, all skies parchment, and all men scribes, Sony PCG-4121EM battery
Sony PCG-41218M battery they would be unable to set down the full scope of the Roman government's concerns."[458] Laws and edicts were posted in writing as well as read out. Illiterate Roman subjects would have someone such as a government scribe (scriba) read or write their official documents for them.[4Sony PCG-41211M battery
Sony PCG-41213M battery59] Public art and religious ceremonies were ways to communicate imperial ideology regardless of ability to read.[460] Although the Romans were not a "People of the Book", they had an extensive priestly archive, and inscriptions appear throughout the Empire in connection with statues and small votives dedicated by ordinary people to divinities, as well as on binding tablets and other "magic spells",Sony PCG-41311M battery
Sony PCG-6124M battery with hundreds of examples collected in the Greek Magical Papyri.[461] The military produced a vast amount of written reports and service records,[462] and literacy in the army was "strikingly high".[46Sony PCG-41313M battery
Sony PCG-6123M battery3] Urban graffiti, which include literary quotations, and low-quality inscriptions with misspellings and solecisms indicate casual literacy among non-elites.[464] In addition, numeracy was necessary for any form of commerce.[465] Slaves were numerate and literate in significant numbers, and some were highly educated.[466] Sony PCG-41314M battery
Books were expensive, since each copy had to written out individually on a roll of papyrus (volumen) by scribes who had apprenticed to the trade.[467Sony PCG-41315M battery
Sony PCG-6122M battery] The codex—a book with pages bound to a spine—was still a novelty in the time of the poet Martial (1st century AD),[468] but by the end of the 3rd century was replacing the volumen[469] and was the regular form for books with Christian content.[470] Commercial production of books had been established by the late Republic,[47Sony PCG-4R2M battery
Sony PCG-6121M battery1] and by the 1st century AD certain neighborhoods of Rome were known for their bookshops (tabernae librariae), which were found also in Western provincial cities such as Lugdunum (present-day Lyon, France).[ Sony PCG-4R2M battery
Sony PCG-6112M battery472] The quality of editing varied wildly, and some ancient authors complain about error-ridden copies,[473] as well as plagiarism or forgery, since there was no copyright law.[474] A skilled slave copyist (servus litteratus) could be valued as highly as 100,000 sesterces.[475] Sony PCG-4U2M battery
Reconstruction of a writing tablet: the stylus was used to inscribe letters into the wax surface for drafts, casual letterwriting, and schoolwork, while texts meant to be permanent were copied onto papyrus Sony VPCZ13 battery
Collectors amassed personal libraries,[476] such as that of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, and a fine library was part of the cultivated leisure (otium) associated with the villa lifestyle.[477] Significant collections might attract "in-house" scholars; Lucian mocked mercenary Greek intellectuals who attached themselves to philistine Roman patrons.[478Sony VPCZ13V9E battery
] An individual benefactor might endow a community with a library: Pliny the Younger gave the city of Comum a library valued at 1 million sesterces, along with another 100,000 to maintain it.[479] Imperial libraries housed in state buildings were open to users as a privilege on a limited basis, and represented a literary canon from which disreputable writers could be excluded.[480] Books considered subversive might be publicly burned,[481] and Domitian crucified copyists for reproducing works deemed treasonous.[482] Sony VPCZ21Q9E battery
Literary texts were often shared aloud at meals or with reading groups.[483] Scholars such as Pliny the Elder engaged in "multitasking" by having works read aloud to them while they dined, bathed or traveled, times during which they might also dictate drafts or notes to their secretaries.[484Sony VGP-BPL20 battery
Sony VPCZ23N9E battery] The multivolume Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius is an extended exploration of how Romans constructed their literary culture.[485] The reading public expanded from the 1st through the 3rd century, and while those who read for pleasure remained a minority, they were no longer confined to a sophisticated ruling elite, Sony VGP-BPS20/B battery
Sony VPCZ23M9E battery reflecting the social fluidity of the Empire as a whole and giving rise to "consumer literature" meant for entertainment.[486] Illustrated books, including erotica, were popular, but are poorly represented by extant fragments.[487]
Primary education[edit]
A teacher with two students, as a third arrives with his loculus, a writing case that would contain pens, ink pot, and a sponge to correct errors[488]
Traditional Roman education was moral and practical. Stories about great men and women, or cautionary tales about individual failures, were meant to instill Roman values (mores maiorum). Parents and family members were expected to act as role models, Sony VPCZ11X9E battery
Sony VPCZ21V9E battery and parents who worked for a living passed their skills on to their children, who might also enter apprenticeships for more advanced training in crafts or trades.[489] Formal education was available only to children from families who could pay for it, and the lack of state intervention in access to education contributed to the low rate of literacy.[490] Sony VPCZ11X9E/B battery
Young children were attended by a pedagogus, or less frequently a female pedagoga, usually a Greek slave or former slave.[491] The pedagogue kept the child safe, taught self-discipline and public behavior, attended class and helped with tutoring.[492] Sony VPCZ11Z9E/B battery
Sony VPCZ12Z9E/B battery The emperor Julian recalled his pedagogue Mardonius, a eunuch slave who reared him from the age of 7 to 15, with affection and gratitude.[493] Usually, however, pedagogues received little respect.[494] Sony VPCZ12M9E battery
Primary education in reading, writing, and arithmetic might take place at home for privileged children whose parents hired or bought a teacher.[495] Others attended a school that was "public," though not state-supported, organized by an individual schoolmaster (ludimagister) who accepted fees from multiple parents.[496] Sony VPCZ12M9E/B battery
Sony VPCZ12V9E/B battery Vernae (homeborn slave children) might share in home- or public-schooling.[497] Schools became more numerous during the Empire, and increased the opportunities for children to acquire an education.[498] Sony VGP-BPL14 battery
Sony VGP-BPS14/S battery School could be held regularly in a rented space, or in any available public niche, even outdoors. Boys and girls received primary education generally from ages 7 to 12, but classes were not segregated by grade or age.[499] For the socially ambitious, bilingual education in Greek as well as Latin was a must.[498] Sony VGP-BPL14/B battery
Quintilian provides the most extensive theory of primary education in Latin literature. According to Quintilian, each child has in-born ingenium, a talent for learning or linguistic intelligence that is ready to be cultivated and sharpened, as evidenced by the young child's ability to memorize and imitate.[500] The child incapable of learning was rare.[5Sony VGP-BPL14/S battery
Sony VGP-BPS14 battery01] To Quintilian, ingenium represented a potential best realized in the social setting of school, and he argued against homeschooling.[501] He also recognized the importance of play in child development,[5Sony VGN-Z battery
02] and disapproved of corporal punishment because it discouraged love of learning—in contrast to the practice in most Roman primary schools of routinely striking children with a cane (ferula) or birch rod for being slow or disruptive.[503] Sony VGP-BPL12 battery
The Jewish historian Josephus (1st century AD) asserted that the education of children was a foremost concern of Jewish families. Reading was necessary to know the Torah and observe the law, but an advanced ability to write was a specialized scribal skill.[5Sony VGN-TT1RLN/B battery
04] The conditions of literacy for Jewish families and within the Roman Empire as a whole contribute to questions about whether Jesus of Nazareth would have been able to read and write.[505] Sony VGN-TT1RVN/X battery
Secondary and higher education[edit]
Mosaic from Pompeii depicting the Academy of Plato
At the age of 14, upperclass males made their rite of passage into adulthood, and began to learn leadership roles in political, religious, and military life through mentoring from a senior member of their family or a family friend.[50Sony VGN-TT1RWN/X battery
Sony VGN-TT46GG/W battery6] Higher education was provided by grammatici or rhetores.[507] The grammaticus or "grammarian" taught mainly Greek and Latin literature, with history, geography, philosophy or mathematics treated as explications of the text.[508] Sony VGN-TT11LN/B battery
Sony VGN-TT21WN/B batteryWith the rise of Augustus, contemporary Latin authors such as Vergil and Livy also became part of the curriculum.[509] The rhetor was a teacher of oratory or public speaking. The art of speaking (ars dicendi) was highly prized as a marker of social and intellectual superiority, and eloquentia ("speaking ability, eloquence") Sony VGN-TT11M/N battery
Sony VGN-TT21VN/X batterywas considered the "glue" of a civilized society.[510] Rhetoric was not so much a body of knowledge (though it required a command of references to the literary canon[511]
Sony VGN-TT21JN/B battery) as it was a mode of expression and decorum that distinguished those who held social power.[512] The ancient model of rhetorical training—"restraint, coolness under pressure, modesty, and good humor"[513]—endured into the 18th century as a Western educational ideal
In Latin, illiteratus (Greek agrammatos) could mean both "unable to read and write" and "lacking in cultural awareness or sophistication."[515] Higher education promoted career advancement, particularly for an equestrian in Imperial service: "eloquence and learning were considered marks of a well-bred man and worthy of reward".[5.[514] Sony VGN-TT11RM/N battery
Sony VGN-TT11WN/B battery16] The poet Horace, for instance, was given a top-notch education by his father, a prosperous former slave.[517]
Urban elites throughout the Empire shared a literary culture embued with Greek educational ideals (paideia).[518] Hellenistic cities sponsored schools of higher learning as an expression of cultural achievement.[519] Sony VGN-TT11RM/R battery
Sony VGN-TT11VN/X batteryYoung men from Rome who wished to pursue the highest levels of education often went abroad to study rhetoric and philosophy, mostly to one of several Greek schools in Athens. The curriculum in the East was more likely to include music and physical training along with literacy and numeracy.[520Dell XPS 14 battery
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] On the Hellenistic model, Vespasian endowed chairs of grammar, Latin and Greek rhetoric, and philosophy at Rome, and gave teachers special exemptions from taxes and legal penalties, though primary schoolmasters did not receive these benefits. Dell XPS 15 battery
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Quintilian held the first chair of grammar.[521] In the eastern empire, Berytus (present-day Beirut) was unusual in offering a Latin education, and became famous for its school of Roman law.[522] The cultural movement known as the Second Sophistic (1st–3rd century AD) Dell XPS L401X battery
Dell XPS M1730 battery promoted the assimilation of Greek and Roman social, educational, and aesthetic values, and the Greek proclivities for which Nero had been criticized were regarded from the time of Hadrian onward as integral to Imperial culture.[523] Dell XPS L501X battery
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Educated women[edit]
Portrait of a literary woman from Pompeii (ca. 50 AD)
Literate women ranged from cultured aristocrats to girls trained to be calligraphers and scribes.[524] The "girlfriends" addressed in Augustan love poetry, although fictional, represent an ideal that a desirable woman should be educated, Dell XPS L701X battery
Dell XPS M1530 batterywell-versed in the arts, and independent to a frustrating degree.[525] Education seems to have been standard for daughters of the senatorial and equestrian orders during the Empire.[497] A highly educated wife was an asset for the socially ambitious household, but one that Martial regards as an unnecessary luxury.[526] Dell XPS L702X battery
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The woman who achieved the greatest prominence in the ancient world for her learning was Hypatia of Alexandria, who educated young men in mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy, and advised the Roman prefect of Egypt on politics. Dell XPS M1210 battery
Dell XPS M1330 batteryHer influence put her into conflict with the bishop of Alexandria, Cyril, who may have been implicated in her violent death in 415 at the hands of a Christian mob.[527]
Decline of literacy[edit]
Literacy began to decline, perhaps dramatically, during the socio-political Crisis of the Third Century.[528] Dell Latitude E4200 battery
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Dell Latitude E6320 batteryAlthough the Church Fathers were well-educated, they regarded Classical literature as dangerous, if valuable, and reconstrued it through moralizing and allegorical readings. Julian, the only emperor after the conversion of Constantine to reject Christianity, banned Christians from teaching the Classical curriculum, on the grounds that they might corrupt the minds of youth.[529] Dell Latitude E5410 battery
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While the book roll had emphasized the continuity of the text, the codex format encouraged a "piecemeal" approach to reading by means of citation, fragmented interpretation, and the extraction of maxims.[530] In the 5th and 6th centuries, reading became rarer even for those within the Church hierarchy.[531] Dell Latitude E5500 battery
Literature[edit]
Main article: Latin literature
See also: Roman historiography and Church Fathers
Statue in Constanţa, Romania (the ancient colony Tomis), commemorating Ovid's exile
In the traditional literary canon, literature under Augustus, along with that of the late Republic, has been viewed as the "Golden Age" of Latin literature, embodying the classical ideals of "unity of the whole, the proportion of the parts, and the careful articulation of an apparently seamless composition."[53Dell Latitude E6400 battery
Dell Latitude E6210 battery2] The three most influential Classical Latin poets—Vergil, Horace, and Ovid—belong to this period. Vergil wrote the Aeneid, creating a national epic for Rome in the manner of the Homeric epics of Greece. Horace perfected the use of Greek lyric meters in Latin verse. Ovid's erotic poetry was enormously popular, Dell Latitude E6400 ATG battery
Dell Latitude E6120 batterybut ran afoul of the Augustan moral programme; it was one of the ostensible causes for which the emperor exiled him to Tomis (present-day Constanţa, Romania), where he remained to the end of his life. Ovid's Metamorphoses was a continuous poem of fifteen books weaving together Greco-Roman mythology from the creation of the universe to the Dell Latitude E6500 battery
Dell Latitude E6510 batterydeification of Julius Caesar. Ovid's versions of Greek myths became one of the primary sources of later classical mythology, and his work was so influential in the Middle Ages that the 12th and 13th centuries have been called the "Age of Ovid."[533] Dell Latitude E4300 battery
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The principal Latin prose author of the Augustan age is the historian Livy, whose account of Rome's founding and early history became the most familiar version in modern-era literature. Vitruvius's book De Architectura, the only complete work on architecture to survive from antiquity, also belongs to this period. Dell Latitude E4320 battery
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Latin writers were immersed in the Greek literary tradition, and adapted its forms and much of its content, but Romans regarded satire as a genre in which they surpassed the Greeks. Horace wrote verse satires before fashioning himself as an Augustan court poet, and the early Principate also produced the satirists Persius and Juvenal. The poetry of Juvenal offers a lively curmudgeon's perspective on urban society. Dell Latitude E6400 XFR battery
The period from the mid-1st century through the mid-2nd century has conventionally been called the "Silver Age" of Latin literature. Under Nero, disillusioned writers reacted to Augustanism.[534] The three leading writers—Seneca the philosopher, Dell Latitude E6330 battery
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dramatist, and tutor of Nero; Lucan, his nephew, who turned Caesar's civil war into an epic poem; and the novelist Petronius (Satyricon)—all committed suicide after incurring the emperor's displeasure. Seneca and Lucan were from Roman Spain, Dell Latitude E6430 battery
Dell Latitude E5420 battery as was the later epigrammatist and keen social observer Martial, who expressed his pride in his Celtiberian heritage.[535] Martial and the epic poet Statius, whose poetry collection Silvae had a far-reaching influence on Renaissance literature,[536] wrote during the reign of Domitian. Dell Latitude E6430s battery
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The so-called "Silver Age" produced several distinguished writers, including the encyclopedist Pliny the Elder; his nephew, known as Pliny the Younger; and the historian Tacitus. The Natural History of the elder Pliny, who died during disaster relief efforts in the wake of the eruption of Vesuvius, is a vast collection on flora and fauna, gems and minerals, HP MU06 Battery
climate, medicine, freaks of nature, works of art, and antiquarian lore. Tacitus's reputation as a literary artist matches or exceeds his value as a historian;[537] his stylistic experimentation produced "one of the most powerful of Latin prose styles."[538] HP RM08 Battery
The Twelve Caesars by his contemporary Suetonius is one of the primary sources for imperial biography.
Among Imperial historians who wrote in Greek are Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the Jewish historian Josephus, and the senator Cassius Dio. HP BS06 Battery
HP HA06 BatteryOther major Greek authors of the Empire include the biographer and antiquarian Plutarch, the geographer Strabo, and the rhetorician and satirist Lucian. Popular Greek romance novels were part of the development of long-form fiction works, represented in Latin by the Satyricon of Petronius and The Golden Ass of Apuleius. HP VE12 Battery
From the 2nd to the 4th centuries, the Christian authors who would become the Latin Church Fathers were in active dialogue with the Classical tradition, within which they had been educated. Tertullian, a convert to Christianity from Roman Africa, HP MO06 Battery
HP MT06 Battery was the contemporary of Apuleius and one of the earliest prose authors to establish a distinctly Christian voice. After the conversion of Constantine, Latin literature is dominated by the Christian perspective.[539HP MO09 Battery
HP BX06 Battery] When the orator Symmachus argued for the preservation of Rome's religious traditions, he was effectively opposed by Ambrose, the bishop of Milan and future saint—a debate preserved by their missives.[540]
Brescia Casket, an ivory box with Biblical imagery (late 4th century)
In the late 4th century, Jerome produced the Latin translation of the Bible that became authoritative as the Vulgate. Augustine, another of the Church Fathers from the province of Africa, has been called "one of the most influential writers of western culture",HP EV12 Battery
HP PT06 Battery and his Confessions is sometimes considered the first autobiography of Western literature. In The City of God against the Pagans, Augustine builds a vision of an eternal, spiritual Rome, a new imperium sine fine that will outlast the collapsing Empire. HP CL09 Battery
In contrast to the unity of Classical Latin, the literary aesthetic of late antiquity has a tessellated quality that has been compared to the mosaics characteristic of the period.[541] A continuing interest in the religious traditions of Rome prior to Christian dominion is found into the 5th century, HP GB06 Battery
HP MN06 Battery with the Saturnalia of Macrobius and The Marriage of Philology and Mercury of Martianus Capella. Prominent Latin poets of late antiquity include Ausonius, Prudentius, Claudian, and Sidonius. Ausonius (d. ca. 394), HP Pavilion dv7-1027ca battery
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the Bordelaise tutor of the emperor Gratian, was at least nominally a Christian, though throughout his occasionally obscene mixed-genre poems, he retains a literary interest in the Greco-Roman gods and even druidism. The imperial panegyrist Claudian (d. 404) was a vir illustris who appears never to have converted. Prudentius (d. ca. 413), HP Pavilion dv7-1014ca battery
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HP Pavilion dv7-2044ca batteryborn in a province of Roman Spain and a fervent Christian, was thoroughly versed in the poets of the Classical tradition,[542] and transforms their vision of poetry as a monument of immortality into an expression of the poet's quest for eternal life culminating in Christian salvation.[543] Sidonius (d. 486), HP Pavilion dv7-1038ca battery
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HP Pavilion dv7-2173ca batterya native of Lugdunum, was a Roman senator and bishop of Clermont who cultivated a traditional villa lifestyle as he watched the Western empire succumb to barbarian incursions. His poetry and collected letters offer a unique view of life in late Roman Gaul from the perspective of a man who "survived the end of his world".[544] HP Pavilion dv7-1128ca battery
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Religion[edit]
A Roman priest, his head ritually covered with a fold of his toga, extends a patera in a gesture of libation (2nd–3rd century)
Main articles: Religion in ancient Rome and Imperial cult (ancient Rome)
See also: History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Early Christianity, and Religious persecution in the Roman Empire HP Pavilion dv7-3074ca battery
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Religion in the Roman Empire encompassed the practices and beliefs the Romans regarded as their own, as well as the many cults imported to Rome or practiced by peoples throughout the provinces. The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, and attributed their success as a world power to their collective piety (pietas) HP Pavilion dv7-3178ca battery
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HP Pavilion dv7-2111us battery in maintaining good relations with the gods (pax deorum). The archaic religion believed to have been handed down from the earliest kings of Rome was the foundation of the mos maiorum, "the way of the ancestors" or "tradition", viewed as central to Roman identity. There was no principle analogous to "separation of church and state". HP Pavilion dv7-3128ca battery
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HP Pavilion dv7-3028ca batteryThe priesthoods of the state religion were filled from the same social pool of men who held public office, and in the Imperial era, the Pontifex Maximus was the emperor.
Roman religion was practical and contractual, based on the principle of do ut des, "I give that you might give." Religion depended on knowledge and the correct practice of prayer, ritual, and sacrifice, not on faith or dogma, although Latin literature preserves learned speculation on the nature of the divine and its relation to human affairs. HP Pavilion dv7-3173ca battery
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HP Pavilion dv7-3024ca battery For ordinary Romans, religion was a part of daily life.[545] Each home had a household shrine at which prayers and libations to the family's domestic deities were offered. Neighborhood shrines and sacred places such as springs and groves dotted the city. Apuleius (2nd century) described the everyday quality of religion in observing how people who passed a cult place might make a vow or a fruit offering, HP Pavilion dv7-3153ca battery
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or merely sit for a while.[546] The Roman calendar was structured around religious observances. In the Imperial era, as many as 135 days of the year were devoted to religious festivals and games (ludi).[547] Women, slaves, and children all participated in a range of religious activities.
In the wake of the Republic's collapse, state religion had adapted to support the new regime of the emperors. As the first Roman emperor, HP Pavilion dv7-3170ca battery
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Augustus justified the novelty of one-man rule with a vast program of religious revivalism and reform. Public vows formerly made for the security of the republic now were directed at the wellbeing of the emperor. So-called "emperor worship" expanded on a grand scale the traditional Roman veneration of the ancestral dead and of the Genius, HP Pavilion dv7-1130us battery
HP Pavilion dv7-1253ca batterythe divine tutelary of every individual. Upon death, an emperor could be made a state divinity (divus) by vote of the Senate. Imperial cult, influenced by Hellenistic ruler cult, became one of the major ways Rome advertised its presence in the provinces and cultivated shared cultural identity and loyalty throughout the Empire. HP Pavilion dv7-3080ca battery
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HP Pavilion dv7-1448ca batteryCultural precedent in the Eastern provinces facilitated a rapid dissemination of Imperial cult, extending as far as the Augustan military settlement at Najran, in present-day Saudi Arabia.[548] Rejection of the state religion became tantamount to treason against the emperor. This was the context for Rome's conflict with Christianity, which Romans variously regarded as a form of atheism and novel superstitio. HP Pavilion dv7-1153ca battery
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Statuettes representing Roman and Gallic deities, for personal devotion at private shrines
The Romans are known for the great number of deities they honored, a capacity that earned the mockery of early Christian polemicists.[549HP Pavilion dv7-3060ca battery
HP Pavilion dv7-1428ca battery] As the Romans extended their dominance throughout the Mediterranean world, their policy in general was to absorb the deities and cults of other peoples rather than try to eradicate them.[550] One way that Rome promoted stability among diverse peoples was by supporting their religious heritage, building temples to local deities that framed their theology within the hierarchy of Roman religion. Inscriptions throughout the Empire record the side-by-side worship of local and Roman deities, including dedications made by Romans to local gods.[551] HP Pavilion dv7-1174ca battery
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HP Pavilion dv7-1270ca battery By the height of the Empire, numerous international deities were cultivated at Rome and had been carried to even the most remote provinces, among them Cybele, Isis, Epona, and gods of solar monism such as Mithras and Sol Invictus, HP Pavilion dv7-1223ca battery
HP Pavilion dv7-1262us battery found as far north as Roman Britain. Because Romans had never been obligated to cultivate one god or one cult only, religious tolerance was not an issue in the sense that it is for competing monotheistic systems.[552] HP Pavilion dv7-1240us battery
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Mystery religions, which offered initiates salvation in the afterlife, were a matter of personal choice for an individual, practiced in addition to carrying on one's family rites and participating in public religion. The mysteries, however, involved exclusive oaths and secrecy, conditions that conservative Romans viewed with suspicion as characteristic of "magic", HP Pavilion dv7-2270us battery
conspiracy (coniuratio), and subversive activity. Sporadic and sometimes brutal attempts were made to suppress religionists who seemed to threaten traditional morality and unity. In Gaul, the power of the druids was checked, first by forbidding Roman citizens to belong to the order, HP Pavilion dv7-2273ca battery
HP Pavilion dv7-2019ca batteryand then by banning druidism altogether. At the same time, however, Celtic traditions were reinterpreted within Imperial theology, and a new Gallo-Roman religion coalesced, with its capital at the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls in Lugdunum (present-day Lyon, France). The sanctuary established precedent for Western cult as a form of Roman-provincial identity.[553] Sony VPCSB2L1E battery
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Relief from the Arch of Titus in Rome depicting a menorah and other spoils from the Temple of Jerusalem carried in triumph
The monotheistic rigor of Judaism posed difficulties for Roman policy that led at times to compromise and the granting of special exemptions. Tertullian noted that the Jewish religion, unlike that of the Christians, was considered a religio licita, Sony VPCSB3L9E battery
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"legitimate religion." Wars between the Romans and the Jews occurred when conflict, political as well as religious, became intractable. When Caligula wanted to place a golden statue of his deified self in the Temple in Jerusalem, the potential sacrilege and likely war were prevented only by his timely death.[554] The Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD led to the sacking of the temple and the dispersal of Jewish political power. Sony VPCSB3M9E battery
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Christianity emerged in Roman Judea as a Jewish religious sect in the 1st century AD. The religion gradually spread out of Jerusalem, initially establishing major bases in first Antioch, then Alexandria, and over time throughout the Empire as well as beyond. Imperially authorized persecutions were limited and sporadic, with martyrdoms occurring most often under the authority of local officials.[555] Sony VPCSB3S9E battery
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This funerary stele from the 3rd century is among the earliest Christian inscriptions, written in both Greek and Latin: the abbreviation D.M. at the top refers to the Di Manes, the traditional Roman spirits of the dead, but accompanies Christian fish symbolism Sony VPCSB3X9E battery
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The first persecution by an emperor occurred under Nero, and was confined to the city of Rome. Tacitus reports that after the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, some among the population held Nero responsible and that the emperor attempted to deflect blame onto the Christians.[556] After Nero, a major persecution occurred under the emperor Domitian[557][558Sony VPCSB4M9E battery
Sony VPCSE1V9E battery] and a persecution in 177 took place at Lugdunum, the Gallo-Roman religious capital. A surviving letter from Pliny the Younger, governor of Bythinia, to the emperor Trajan describes his persecution and executions of Christians.[55Sony VPCSB4X9E battery
Sony VPCSE1J1E battery9] The Decian persecution of 246–251 was a serious threat to the Church, but ultimately strengthened Christian defiance.[560] Diocletian undertook what was to be the most severe persecution of Christians, lasting from 303 to 311. Sony VPCSE battery
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In the early 4th century, Constantine I became the first emperor to convert to Christianity, launching the era of Christian hegemony. The emperor Julian made a short-lived attempt to revive traditional and Hellenistic religion and to affirm the special status of Judaism, but in 391 under Theodosius I Christianity became the official state religion of Rome, Sony VPCSB battery
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to the exclusion of all others. From the 2nd century onward, the Church Fathers had begun to condemn the diverse religions practiced throughout the Empire collectively as "pagan."[561] Pleas for religious tolerance from traditionalists such as the senator Symmachus (d. Sony SVS13A1Y9E battery
Sony SVS151A12M battery402) were rejected, and Christian monotheism became a feature of Imperial domination. Heretics as well as non-Christians were subject to exclusion from public life or persecution, but Rome's original religious hierarchy and many aspects of its ritual influenced Christian forms,[562] and many pre-Christian beliefs and practices survived in Christian festivals and local traditions. Sony SVS13A1Z9E battery
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Political legacy[edit]
See also: Legacy of the Roman Empire
Several states claimed to be the Roman Empire's successors after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire, an attempt to resurrect the Empire in the West, was established in 800 when Pope Leo III crowned Frankish King Charlemagne as Roman Emperor on Christmas Day, though the empire and the imperial office did not become formalised for some decades. After the fall of Constantinople, the Russian Tsardom, Sony SVS1311G4E battery
Sony SVS151A11M battery as inheritor of the Byzantine Empire's Orthodox Christian tradition, counted itself the Third Rome (Constantinople having been the second). These concepts are known as Translatio imperii.[563] Sony SVS1311K9E battery
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When the Ottomans, who based their state on the Byzantine model, took Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed II established his capital there and claimed to sit on the throne of the Roman Empire.[564] He even went so far as to launch an invasion of Italy with the purpose of re-uniting the Empire and had invited European artists to Istanbul, including Gentile Bellini.[565]
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In the medieval West, "Roman" came to mean the church and the Pope of Rome. The Greek form Romaioi remained attached to the Greek-speaking Christian population of the Eastern Roman Empire, and is still used by Greeks in addition to their common appellation.[566]
The Roman Empire's territorial legacy of controlling the Italian peninsula would serve as an influence to Italian nationalism and the unification of Italy (Risorgimento) in 1861.[567] Sony SVS1311N9E battery
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The Virginia State Capitol (left), built in the late 1700s, was modeled after the Maison Carrée, a Gallo-Roman temple built around 16 BC under Augustus
In the United States, the founders were educated in the classical tradition,[568] and used classical models for landmarks and buildings in Washington, D.C., to avoid the feudal and religious connotations of European architecture such as castles and cathedrals.[ Sony SVS1311Q9E battery
Sony SVS15 battery569] In forming their theory of the mixed constitution, the founders looked to Athenian democracy and Roman republicanism for models, but regarded the Roman emperor as a figure of tyranny.[570] They nonetheless adopted Roman Imperial forms such as the dome, as represented by the U.S. Capitol and numerous state capitol buildings, to express classical ideals through architecture.[57Sony SVS1311S9E battery
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Sony VPCSD1S1C battery1] Thomas Jefferson saw the Empire as a negative political lesson, but was a chief proponent of its architectural models. Jefferson's design for the Virginia State Capitol, for instance, is modeled directly from the Maison Carrée, Sony vgp-bps24 battery
Sony vgp-bpsc24 battery a Gallo-Roman temple built under Augustus.[572] The renovations of the National Mall at the beginning of the 20th century have been viewed as expressing a more overt imperialist kinship with Rome.[573]