Family Life
The oldest male, or the father, was in charge of the family household. Roman men were expected to provide all the requirements for his family. However, even if the father cared for some of his, family, he didn’t care for all of it. If his newborn baby didn’t look strong or healthy enough, and the father didn’t approve, he would leave his child outside to die or become a slave. Romans found it strange that other people kept all of their children. Babies were born at home, and if they were kept, at the the age of nine, they were conducted a special ceremony. On this ceremony, a good luck charm, or bulla was placed around the babies neck. When the child grew up, between the ages of 14 and 18, if he was male, he would be in another ceremony, this one for becoming a man. In this ceremony, he takes off his bulla and along with his childhood toys and clothes, and gives them to the gods. There is no special ceremony for female Romans. They just became adults once they got married, which was usually between the ages 12 and 18. Weddings were held at temples. The bride and groom both wore all white, but the groom also had leather shoes, shined with animal fat.
Dining in Rome
The most common foods in ancient Rome were bread, beans, spices, a few vegetables, cheese, and meats. Drinks included plain water or hot water with honey and spices. Breakfast was usually bread and beans or porridge. Lunch could be cheese and bread, and possible side dishes were olives or celery. Dinner might include pieces of fish with asparagus and a fig for the lower class Romans. Richer Romans could get better meals, such as mice with honey, or roasted parrots with dates, salted jellyfish, or snails dipped in milk. Only the rich had kitchens in their home. Poorer Romans usually cooked on small grills. |
Housing Housing in Rome was an extreme difference between housing for rich and housing for the poor. The rich lived in the big open, airy houses with big walls, unlike the poor the small cramped rooms that the city's poor lived in. For the rich Romans, houses were gigantic mansions of white marble and stone with fountains and many servants. But in the city, the less fortunate crowded into small apartment buildings or atop the places they worked. The poor ate off little grills which filled the already cramped rooms with thick smoke making these buildings even more unhealthy for the residents. Rats carried diseases that killed many people in these cramped buildings. Another danger was fire, if even a little ash flew onto the floor, the brittle building could alight into a ball of flame. As seen in 64 C.E. when a fire was started on grills that burned down most of the city. |