3.2 Life in the Roman Empire

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The Romans

3.2 Life in the Roman Empire

Welcome!

Grab your notebook, laptop and book

At the end of the lesson...

• You can explain what big economic change took place in the Roman countryside at the time of the Roman Republic.
  
• You can explain what consequences the changes in the Roman countryside had for the cities.
  
• You can give a description of the position of slaves and women in Roman society.

Today

• What do you know already (+- 10 min)
• Explanation (+- 25 min)
• Gladiator (+- 10 min)

Life in the Roman Empire

Life in the countryside 

• Many Romans lived as farmers in the countryside.
• 2nd century BC: Peasants had to fight in the army a lot.
• Large landowners: buy land from poor farmers and establish large agricultural companies there and build villas.

Big landowners: Someone who owns a lot of land and is therefore very rich and powerful.

Villa: A house in the country belonging to a big landowner.

This is a villa rustica, a kind of farm. In addition to this type of villa, there was also the villa urbana.

Most of the work around the villa was done by slaves.

Many villas had extensive bathrooms with underfloor heating

There were apartments for the villicus (the supervisor) and the actor (the bookkeeper) as well as sleeping quarters for the slaves.

A villa rustica often consisted of several buildings, such as the house, the stables and the storehouses.

Proletarians

• Proletarians are poor Romans who havepractically nothing.
• Sometimes they were farmers who were not able to  compete against the big farms
• Comes from proles (children): 'all they have are their children.' 
• Yet they are very important to wealthy Romans:
• They can vote and can make rich Romans powerful..
  

The houses of proletarians did not have their own toilets. You had to go to public toilets in Rome: everyone was gossiping together while you did  your business. It was not really clean: recent research made it clear that it was a huge source of parasites and infections.

Private toilets came later, and only for people who could afford them.

Dit is insula, een flatgebouw in Rome. De woningen werden gehuurd door de armere Romeinen. De meeste insulae waren 4 of 5 verdiepingen hoog. De bouwkwaliteit was niet best: bijna dagelijks waren er branden en instortingen.

De kamers bovenin een insula waren de slechtste kamers: hier woonden de proletariërs.

Hoewel er in sommige gebouwen stromend water was, moesten de bewoners van een insula het water vaak uit een fontein op straat halen.

Hoewel de meeste kamers in een insula klein en donker waren, was er wel verschil: de grotere kamers waren voor mensen met iets meer geld.

De meeste insulae hadden geen toiletten of keukens. Moest je naar de wc, dan ging je naar een openbaar toilet. En wilde je wat eten, dan ging je naar een thermopolium, een soort snackbar.

Women in Rome

• Roman women had more rights than women in Athens, for example.

• Women were allowed to go outside the home, but they had no political rights and often had no access to their own assets..

The Romans made beautiful mosaics. This mosaic is the oldest image of women in bikinis. It was on the floor of a Roman villa in Sicily (Italy), built in the third century AD.

The elite

• They were the richest and, for example, sat in the senate and headed the army.
• They tried to prevent the proletarians from revolting: food, aqueducts and entertainment.

Gladiators

• Although many gladiators were (or have been) slaves, they were real stars. 
• A good gladiator (the name comes from gladius, short sword) is therefore expensive.
• Fights to the death do occur, but are avoided if possible.

Clip from the movie 'Gladiator'

Here you see an example of a one-on-one battle.

In the video you can see fighting and blood. This has been re-enacted, but if you can't handle it, you shouldn't watch this video. The purpose of the video is to give you an idea of ​​the course of those gladiatorial games.

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