Dining
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill: I think one of the surprising things that you see in Pompeii is that the ordinary people as well as the wealthy people dined in the same ritual style... Because just like going to the baths, having dinner in the proper way is the sign of being a proper Roman. It's a ritual which they all needed to participate in.
Most Romans ate a light breakfast and lunch — ientaculum and prandium — with the main meal — cena — eaten at night. On any given day citizens ate, drank and socialized in the cafés and taverns that lined the streets.
Dinner was an artful affair. When eating at home, upper class Romans reclined on couches, and were served by slaves while enjoying music, poetry, wine, and endless delicacies. Wealthy families were usually served three courses: gustatio — appetizers such as eggs, shellfish or vegetables; prima mensa — cooked vegetables and meat; mensa secunda — sweets, such as fruit or pastry.
The Roman triclinium — dining room — held an arrangement of three couches around a square table (or in later years, horseshoe-shaped couches with a round table). Diners would recline comfortably on their left elbows, facing towards the common table, eating with their fingers (using a small knife when necessary). Servants or slaves served the diners via the empty fourth side of the table. Wealthy Romans might have several triclinia, for entertaining varied numbers of guests, or for enjoying a garden view or outside meal in warm weather.
When entertaining guests, Roman hosts made their dinners elaborate affairs. Seating was hierarchical, and carefully scrutinized by those seeking to move up the social ranks. The most prestigious position was on the middle couch, to the immediate right of the host. Many intricate courses were served, entertainments were offered between courses, and the meal was often followed by a literary performance. Excessive, elaborate, and gluttonous parties were seen as visible demonstrations of power, and none more so than at an Emperor's parties. Unusual menu items such as ostrich or flamingo were added simply for their novelty.
Poorer families ate mostly porridge and bread for each meal, supplemented by meat and vegetables whenever money allowed. Despite the simplicity of their diet, however, they tried to emulate the same dining traditions as their richer countrymen. Roman Baths
Young and old, rich and poor, men and women — every day in mid-afternoon, countless people around the empire ended their work and made their way to the baths. Most bath complexes were large, congenial places, known as Thermae, where all classes mingled in one of the great unifying rituals of Roman life. They included outdoor areas for exercise and sports, food stands for snacks, and attendants who offered every sort of service. Seneca writes of a visit to the baths:
Consider all the hateful voices I hear! When the brawny men exercise with their lead weights, I hear their groans and gasps. Or when someone else comes in to get a vulgar massage, I hear the slap of a hand on his shoulders. Add those who leap into the pool with a huge splash. Besides these, who at least have normal voices, consider the hair plucker, always screeching for customers, and never quiet except when he's making someone else cry.
Bathing was, to Romans, a symbol of Rome. Their cleanliness was something distinctly Roman, something which they felt made them different — and superior — to other cultures. As the Empire spread across Europe, the Baths themselves came to represent Roman civilization.
The Baths themselves were a series of rooms and pools, all heated by an architectural innovation called "hypocaust heating." Water was heated in fiery furnaces under the raised floors of the Baths, and the resulting steam was channeled through special chambers which spread under the floors and climbed into the walls. This system worked so well that Bath floors had to be very thick, so they would not be too hot to walk on. Baths were also often placed to take advantage of the heat of the sun.
In the daily ritual of bathing, Romans went through a succession of rooms in a specific order:
• Apodyterium - the dressing room, where the bather would leave his or her clothing (a servant or slave would watch over the belongings)
• Palaestra (also known as Gymnasium) - here a bather's body would be oiled, and exercises could be done
• Frigidarium - "Cold Room," which contained a cold plunge bath
• Tepidarium - "Warm Room"
• Caldarium - "Hot Room," which might contain a labrum, a hot plunge bath. After spending time in the steamy room, the oil would be scraped off the bather's skin by a servant, using a special tool called a strigil. The bather would then return to the Apodyterium by way of the Tepidarium and Frigidarium.
• Natatio - outside swimming pool
Keith Bradley: Bathing was a central social institution for the Romans. It was not just a means of keeping the body clean. It was not just a process of hygiene. But the baths were places of social activity and social intercourse where people exercised, amused themselves, engaged in conversations, did all kinds of things that we might associate with some form of social club today rather than simply thinking of it as a place in which to cleanse the body.
Bread and Circuses
The Romans' love of spectacular entertainment is perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects of Roman social life. Puzzling in their brutality and fascinating in their opulence, Roman spectacles have retained a place in popular imagination to this day.
Judith Hallett: The Romans, I think, did not expect to live as long as we do, and they did not expect to enjoy their loved ones, for as long as we do. And, I think, they tried to enjoy life a lot more intensely than we do, because they recognized the time was very limited. It's everywhere in their philosophy. Carpe deim, Seize the moment.
The Plebeian and freed population of Rome vastly outnumbered the Equestrian and Patrician classes, and their lives were much harder. Many had no jobs, little money and little food.
Augustus, realizing that the masses of average Romans had to be kept both fed and happy enough to remain peaceful, began the system of patronage we now refer to as "bread and circuses." He gave the people food — by means of grain distribution and legislation of food prices — and free entertainment such as chariot races, gladiators, and lavish spectacles in amphitheaters and the Circus Maximus.
Karl Galinsky: Tacitus says, "Through the sweetness of leisure, Augustus seduced one and all." And what Tacitus basically implies here is that he bought them off. He gave them bread and circuses... Augustus is buying everybody off, and everybody is happy again. And in the meantime, he is grabbing on all the power.
Gladiators
Ritualized violence had been a favorite entertainment of the Roman populace for centuries. Criminals, slaves and war captives were often sent to the arena where they fought to the death before roaring crowds.
Keith Bradley: We have to recognize that with gladiators in particular that [Romans] actually enjoyed the spectacle of seeing people die. This is one of the fundamental characteristics of Rome and Roman society. Violence is there. They were a militaristic society from their very beginnings. They always maintained that sense of a mission to conquer and to be conquerors. And when they saw gladiatorial combat, they were seeing in many ways a symbol of their own martial prowess and enjoying the blood lust that was always part of the national character.
Gladiatorial games originally began as an ancient Etruscan funeral practice, where men fought to the death by the tomb of a newly-deceased chief as a blood sacrifice offering to his spirit. Over time, the nobility began to put on gladiatorial exhibitions in memory of the dead, and by Julius Caesar's era these had become public spectacles.
The games took place in amphitheaters, in the arena, named for the sand which covered the ground — a necessity to soak up the blood. Gladiators were usually condemned criminals, slaves or prisoners of war, but there were freedmen who joined the gladiator ranks as a means to achieve wealth or fame, or simply because they enjoyed fighting. Some long-time survivors ultimately retired and became instructors at gladiator training schools, which were maintained under state control so they could not be used to train private armies.
Keith Bradley: In many ways gladiators were like movie stars today. They could achieve great fame, great success and become extremely wealthy. So from a participant's point of view there was almost a show business atmosphere to what went on there, and the desire for popularity certainly must have impelled many gladiators to go out into the amphitheater and fight despite all the risks that were involved.
There were five specific types of gladiators, each with their own special equipment:
• Mirmillones — heavily armed men, who wore helmets decorated with fish
• Thracians — lightly armed men, who carried a shield and scimitar
• Retiarii — men armed with only a net, a long trident and a dagger
• Samnite — men armed with a sword, and protected by a visored helmet and oblong shield
• Bestiarii — men who fought against wild animals
By the time of Nero, some Romans were beginning to tire of the brutality of the games. In a letter to a friend, the philosopher Seneca criticizes popular enthusiasm for the violent sport, and advises his social peers against attendance. But the games would continue to be popular for centuries.
Chariot Races
The Roman Circus Maximus — or racetrack — was a rough and raucous place, which seated nearly 200,000 people. The Circus was long and oval shaped, with two long parallel sides and one rounded end, with seating all around. The farthest end of the oval was filled with stables and starting boxes. Down the center of the racecourse ran a low wall called the spina, which contained decorative sculptures that would be tilted to let spectators know how many laps had been completed.
As many as twelve chariots raced at one time in a seven-lap mad dash around the track. The races were extremely dangerous, and often deadly for the drivers; the chariots were by necessity very light vehicles, and drivers thrown from a broken or overturned chariot were frequently trampled and killed by the charging horses, or became caught in the reins and were dragged to their deaths.
There were several popular teams — Red, White, Blue and Green — each with its own organization for finding riders and horses. The chariot drivers themselves were usually slaves or freedmen, and their loyal fans often cursed rival teams with ferocious partisanship, as attested in curse tablets:
I entreat you O Demon whoever you are and demand of you from this hour, from this very moment, you crucify the horses of the Green and White teams. And that you kill the drivers Clarus and Felix and crush them. Do not leave any breath in them!
Not everyone embraced the sport with such enthusiasm, however, and racing was associated with mob behavior. Pliny the Younger wrote:
Recently, I have spent all my time among writing tablets and books. "How is that possible with the races on?" you ask. They're not the kind of spectacle that I find tempting. I marvel that thousands are so childish and long to see — again and again galloping horses pulling men standing in chariots.
Nero's enthusiasm for the sport of commoners scandalized Rome's elite, but it endeared him to the masses. "For such is a crowd — eager for excitement and thrilled if the Emperor shares their tastes," sneered the stately historian, Tacitus. Seutonius noted:
Nero had been passionate about horses from early childhood. At the beginning of his reign, he played every day with toy chariots made of ivory. Soon he wished to drive a chariot himself. So first practicing with his slaves, he appeared before the whole city in the circus.
Chariot racing was a very expensive entertainment to provide, and evolved into a highly organized, profitable business, with scouts always on the lookout for the fastest horses and the bravest men.
