It was a different story for the city’s poorer inhabitants.They were crammed into the working-class residential areas, the narrow, noisome streets which were lined with ramshackle apartment buildings put up by speculators. It was here that the ordinary Roman had his small, dark apartment, separated from his neighbors by the flimsiest of walls. It was not unusual for a building to collapse, and because the Romans used earthenware stoves for cooking and heating and oil lamps for light, fires were a common occurrence. When a fire broke out, the fire brigade (founded by the emperor Augustus) was mobilized, but because water had to be carried by bucket from the Tiber River, it was often impossible to extinguish the fire completely. Instead, the fire would simply be contained until it burned itself out. In the earliest days of the empire, around a million citizens crowded the narrow streets of Rome by day, which made getting around difficult. The wealthy Romans, carried in sedan chairs, forced their way through the throng. The worst chaos was on the famous Argiletum, where Romans congregated to do their daily shopping. Located between the forum and the Tiber River, there was a large and thriving trading district. All kinds of goods, brought by river from the harbor town of Ostia, were bought and sold. Artisans and craftsmen had their own district, where shoemakers, wool merchants, barbers, smiths, flaxworkers, and others worked side by side. Those people who were engaged in the same trade joined together in a collegium, an early form of a trade guild.
The teeming mass of people constituted a potential hotbed of disaffection and disorder, and to appease them, the authorities laid on plenty of entertainment. The poet Juvenal (c. 55–140 CE) said that all that the Roman populace wanted was panem et circenses (bread and circuses). For generations, the Roman emperors gave them both. Even in the time of the republic, officials tried to win popularity with grain handouts, enormous spectacles, and huge public sporting events. The practice of making distributions of grain was made necessary by the fact that the urban poor had very little regular work, owing to the limited opportunities open to them in commerce and industry.The custom took various forms over the centuries. In the second century BCE, the tribune Gaius Gracchus arranged for grain to be sold at fixed low prices. In 60 BCE, Publius Clodius Pulcher organized a system of free handouts. This practice was continued by the emperors as a way of pacifying their poorest subjects.
The grim life of the poor in Rome could also be enlivened by public spectacles, and the typical Roman year offered ample opportunities for celebration. Some of the festivities dated as far back as the time of the kings and were mentioned in the calendar of the legendary King Numa Pompilius. Other festivities had been instituted by the people to appease the gods in difficult times. The popular ludi magni (big games) dated from the year 217 BCE, when the Carthaginian leader Hannibal had threatened Rome’s existence. Games honoring Caesar and Augustus were instituted by their successors, and in the era of the emperors, new celebrations were added continually. In the second and third centuries CE, the Roman year included almost as many holidays as working days. Each district had its own guardian spirit, and its altar was the focal point of the annual festivities organized by the local residents in its honor.These festivals grew so out of hand that the state had to create rules to regulate them.
The government also had to establish rules for the festivities organized by the collegia of the various trades. When these festivities fell too close together, they could cause mayhem. On the ninth of June, for example, the collegium of millers and bakers held its celebrations, while on the thirteenth, the collegium of musicians held its equivalent. In both festivities, the drunken participants wandered through the streets creating havoc.
Of all the public spectacles, the blood games were the most popular. There were three main types of combat: man to man, in which gladiators fought each other; man to animal, in which wild animals were brought out to fight gladiators; and animal to animal. All these games were held in an amphitheater, in which the audience sat in tiered rows around an arena, where the action took place. Gladiatorial combat had a religious background. The Etruscan people, who lived on the Italian Peninsula before the Romans, had organized fights to the death between prisoners of war at the funerals of prominent men. The victims were intended as human sacrifices to the dead. When the Romans adopted this practice around the third century BCE, the fights developed into a bloody spectator sport, a new and extremely popular form of mass entertainment. Schools were founded to train the gladiators, and the games organizers could “order” particular gladiators from these schools for special performances. Originally, the combatants were prisoners of war, convicted criminals, or slaves rented or sold to the schools. Some of the gladiators were volunteers who were seeking excitement and adventure or the riches a successful combatant could gain, despite the fact that most gladiators met a grisly death in the arena. The audiences enjoyed these exhibitions, eagerly discussing the performances of the combatants and placing bets on their favorites. To add to the spectacle, the gladiators were often dressed in striking costumes, perhaps in an expensive suit of armor or as Neptune with a net and trident. At the end of the fight, the victor would sometimes keep his opponent pinned to the ground while the audience decided the loser’s fate, indicating whether they wanted him to live or die by motioning with their thumbs. It is believed that if the crowd turned their thumbs down, the defeated man would be spared. However, if the audience turned their thumbs up, it was an indication that he should die. The victor received tumultuous applause and was rewarded with a cash prize. Occasionally, after a series of wins, a gladiator might be set free, to live on his earnings for the rest of his life or become a trainer of other gladiators. The average Roman saw nothing wrong with gladiatorial combat and would even take his children to watch the games, believing that it was a good thing for children to be confronted with violence at an early age. Only a few intellectuals were repelled by these exhibitions, because they found them boring or thought them bad for the soul. Nobody pitied the gladiators themselves, much less the animals.
Another popular sport was chariot racing. Every city had its own racetrack, or circus. The Circus Maximus, lying between the Palatine and Aventine hills in Rome, was used from around 600 BCE to the sixth century CE and was famous throughout the empire. At the height of its popularity, in the second century CE, the Circus Maximus could accommodate 250,000 spectators. The arena was 1,850 feet (564 m) long and 280 feet (85 m) wide and was entirely surrounded by three tiers of seats, except for a stall at one end for horses and chariots. A low wall, called the spina (spine), ran down the center of the arena, and racing horses and chariots ran around it. The chariot races were traditionally a religious spectacle, dedicated to the gods. Each race day in Rome started with a solemn procession, in which statues of the gods were carried around the racetrack, while the official who had organized the event dressed up as Jupiter. Each race, in which four or more chariots took part, consisted of seven laps. As many as 24 races could be held in a day. Each driver wore the colors of the circus school or party to which his horses belonged. These colors were originally green, blue, red, and white, but under the later emperors, only green and blue were used. The audience was divided into groups of supporters for each color. Even the emperor picked a team. The chariots were usually pulled by four horses. The driver, who was generally a young freedman, was strapped to his horses, and if he fell, he had to cut the straps if he was to survive. The chariots often crashed into each other, and injuries and fatal accidents were common. The drivers hung amulets around their necks and on their horses for luck and used incantations to summon demons against their opponents. The emperor was always present at the races, to receive the cheers of the crowd and to show that he enjoyed the same sport as his people.
The Theater
During the days of the empire, theaters existed right alongside the circuses and the amphitheaters. Theaters could also accommodate large numbers of people, but the masses were more interested in the delights of the arena than those of the stage. While Greek theaters had been built into hillsides, Roman theaters were freestanding. The earliest examples were temporary wooden structures; anything more permanent was considered unnecessarily extravagant. The first permanent Roman theater was built in 55 BCE on the orders of Pompey. To justify the expense of the theater’s construction, Pompey erected a temple in the theater and dedicated it to his patron goddess, Venus Victrix. Pompey filled his theater and its gardens with artifacts looted from Greece, creating a monument both to Roman might and to his own achievements. There was little original Roman writing for the theater. Audiences were more interested in the traditional pieces with which they were familiar.Theatrical performances consisted of endless repeats, which the public watched in order to compare the talents of the actors.To add interest, directors increased the role of the chorus, and the sung text—the canticum—began to overshadow the rest of the play. Eventually, the spoken text was abandoned altogether in favor of mime, and the leading actor performed the play without words, to the accompaniment of music and the canticum. It was from these origins that opera and ballet later developed.
Another popular form of theater was the tragedy, particularly that of the first-century-CE playwright and Stoic philosopher Seneca.The characters in his plays tended to have introspective natures and to exhibit Stoic fatalism. His tragedies were written in verse, and the plots were adapted from Greek legends. The plays were revived during the Renaissance and influenced later European drama.
Poetry
The rich and educated Romans spent much of their free time attending recitals of poetry and prose. According to Pliny the Younger, such events could be extremely boring. He recorded that the year 97 CE “brought us a fine crop of poets. During the month of April we had a reading by one or other poet almost every day. Most of the invited guests stay in the foyer, chatting, and only go in toward the end, hoping against hope that the author has finished.” Poetry competitions were held occasionally in Rome and in other cities. The panel of judges usually consisted of priests—not perhaps the best experts to assess poetry. Little is known about any prize-winning poets, but Florus, a poet who published several small works in the time of Hadrian, was once refused a prize.The audience revered him most of all, he recorded, but the emperor did not want to reward Florus because he was not a pure Roman.
Education
Education was generally reserved for the sons of upper-class families. Some sons were sent to school, although Roman schools, often run by discharged soldiers trying to make a living, were not very impressive. There were few books, and those were very expensive, so most learning was done by rote. Apart from the basic skills of reading and writing, little else was taught. Wealthy families often engaged an educated slave who was familiar with literature and philosophy to teach their sons. Such teachers were known as pedagogues. The writings of Virgil, Lucan, and Horace were important texts for pupils in the emperor Vespasian’s day, while Greek masters would place great emphasis on Homer and Menander. The study of these great writers was usually as far as education went. However, some older pupils might go on to a school of rhetoric, where they would be taught the art of public speaking, together with some history, which would be useful in political debate.
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Collegia
The collegium was an early form of trade guild that functioned primarily as a social club. However, collegia also provided other services for their members. For example, records found in Lavinium show that one of the main objects of the Brotherhood of Diana and Antinous was to ensure that its members received a decent burial. Each member of the brotherhood paid a joining fee of 20 gold pieces and an amphora of good wine. Thereafter, he paid an annual subscription of 3 gold pieces. In return, the brotherhood provided a funeral for 60 gold pieces. The brotherhood appointed a new chairman every five years. His duties were not onerous. He had to supervise the affairs of the club and organize a meeting of the members six times a year. Every two months, the members met up to attend a drunken feast. Some brotherhoods also became involved in local politics. Graffiti on a wall in the city of Pompeii reads, “We don’t want any Egyptian judges.” This message may refer to a brotherhood devoted to the Egyptian goddess Isis, some of whose members had put themselves forward for the city council.
Roman cities were dirty, dusty, and hot, so, like their Greek equivalents, the Roman authorities built public baths for their citizens.The baths soon developed into community centers, where people met socially, bathed, swam, had massages, or performed gymnastic exercises. There were even opportunities for study, because there was often a well-stocked library in the bath complex. The baths found at Pompeii, which date from around 75 BCE, included the extensive dressing rooms and the cold, warm, and hot baths that were typical of that era. Far more magnificent were the huge, marble-lined and vaulted Baths of Caracalla, completed in Rome in 216 CE.They could accommodate 1,600 bathers and provided swimming pools, exercise facilities, lounges, and lecture halls.
Stoicism
Stoicism was the most influential school of philosophy in Rome during the first and second centuries CE. It played a crucial role in the development of the concept of natural law that underlay all Roman legal theory. The school of Stoicism was founded by the Greek philosopher Zeno of Citium, who lived in the fourth and third centuries BCE.The Stoics were primarily concerned with the study of ethics.They believed that to live in accordance with nature or reason is to live in accordance with the divine order of the universe.
In 'Ancient Rome: An Illustrated History', Michele Ronnick (editor), Marshall Cavendish, New York, 2011, p. 116-125. Edited and adapted to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.
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