WHEN IN ROME

QUALITY OF LIFE REPORT

The ancient city of Rome at one time boasted 2 million residents.

The forum was the main focal point and meeting place of a Roman city and the site of religious and civic buildings.

Roman law stated that prostitutes were to either dye their hair blond or wear a blond wig to separate themselves from the respectable brunette female citizens of Rome.

Wealthy Romans, both men and women, would have all their body hair plucked, including pubic hair.

Unwanted Roman babies were usually left on rubbish heaps to die.

It was an offense to obstruct the flow of water, punishable by a fine of 10,000 sesterces.

Rome’s Circus Maximus was the biggest stadium, with seating for 250,000, and was mainly used for chariot racing.

The Romans wrote a set of laws that became the basis for many of the legal systems of Europe and Latin America. They were the first to create sculptures that actually resembled people they were supposed to portray. They also developed Roman numerals, which are still used today.

The Romans enjoyed a variety of ball games, including handball, expulsim ludere, soccer, and field hockey. They also played a wide variety of board games, including dice (tesserae), Roman chess (latrunculi), merels, duodecim scripta, tic-tac-toe (terni lapilli), Roman backgammon (tabula), and others.

Capital punishment was often carried out in the am phitheater as part of the morning entertainment, requiring condemned criminals to either face wild animals without the benefit of weapons and armor or, unprotected by any kind of armor, fight each other with swords to the death.

While “roman” is actually the root word for “romance,” there wasn’t a lot of it in ancient Rome when it came to marriage. Roman girls were not allowed to fall in love and choose their own husbands—marriages were arranged for them by their families. There was no religious ceremony, and no legal record made of the marriage apart from an oral contract. A marriage was recognized when a man and woman agreed to live together, or when there was evidence of a dowry having been paid.

In the second century, Romans produced glass vessels at a rate that would not be seen again in the civilized world for more than a thousand years.

In ancient Rome, there were two ways of telling time: the sundial or the water clock. The day had 12 hours and the night had 12 hours. Noon was always the sixth hour of the day, and midnight the sixth hour of the night, no matter what the season, or the fact that the length of hours changed according to the time of year.

In ancient Rome, it was considered a sign of leadership to be born with a crooked nose.

Roman boys were educated and expected to be able to read, write, and count, and, most important, to be effective speakers. Other important subjects taught to boys were law, history, Roman customs, and respect for the Roman gods. Physical education and training were also important as the ancient Romans expected their young citizens to be prepared to serve and, if necessary, fight in the army.

Most boys of wealthy Roman families were educated in schools away from the home, while boys from poorer Roman families were educated at home by their fathers. Roman boys who did go to school went seven days a week—there were no days off at the weekend. But they would get a day off when there was a religious festival or celebration.

For recreation, Roman boys played at war, using wooden swords. They played board games, walked on stilts, flew kites, and made models. They also played with hobby horses and hoops.

When a Roman boy reached adulthood sometime between the ages of 14 and 17, he was entitled to wear the pure white toga of a man and Roman citizen.

The Romans used to clean themselves with olive oil since they did not have any soap. They would pour the oil on their bodies, and then use a strigil, a type of blade, to scrape off any dirt along with the oil.

PRIVY MATTERS

Some Roman toilets had seats with basins underneath that emptied into the sewer system. In rare buildings there was evidence of a cistern above the seats, so that the toilet could be flushed. As far as public facilities were concerned, urinal pots and public toilets served the public need. Public toilets—rectangular-shaped rooms, some seating up to one hundred people—contained rows of long stone benches, each with a row of keyhole-shaped openings cut into it. Water running down drains underneath the benches would flush waste away into the sewers. Sponge-sticks were used instead of toilet paper.

Urine from men’s public urinals was sold as a commodity. Fullers (the Roman version of a dry cleaner) would empty the urinal pots and use the ammonia-rich urine for laundering and bleaching togas and tunics. Ancient Romans at one time used human urine as an ingredient in their toothpaste and as a hair product.

I’M A SLAVE FOR YOU

Slaves are thought to have constituted up to 40 percent of the Roman population.

The slaves’ standard sales contract stated that they were “non-returnable, except for epilepsy.”

Slaves generally came from conquered peoples, but even a free man unable to pay back his debts could be sold into slavery.

Spartacus was an escaped Roman slave who led an army of 90,000 escaped slaves against the might of the Romans. He was eventually defeated and killed in 72 BC.

ILL TREATMENT

Romans used to believe that walnuts could cure head ailments, since their shape was similar to that of a brain.

Romans, in the third century, believed that the lemon was an antidote for all poisons.

One Roman “cure” for stomachache was to wash their feet and then drink the water. Another was to swallow a small amount of lead, which would cure their stomachache but could also kill them.

CHEF’S TABLE

Some Roman dishes were extremely exotic and included teats from a sow’s udder, or lamb’s womb stuffed with sausage meat. A recipe survives for a platter of small songbirds in asparagus sauce.

Roman emperors ate flamingo tongues, which were considered a delicacy. They also feasted on parrotfish livers, baked dormice, pheasant brains, badgers’ ear-lobes, and wolves’ nipples.

Asparagus was so prized a delicacy in ancient Rome that the emperors kept special boats to fetch it.

The Romans were as fond of “fast food” and “snack food” as modern people are. Thousands of corner food shops and taverns served food and wine in ancient Rome. People would buy food on the way to and from the games, and, sometimes, animals that had been slaughtered in the games were quickly cooked and served to the Romans—this included giraffe and lion meat.