Lives Of The Romans

One hundred biographies reveal the mightiest civilization of the ancient world through the lives of its citizens. At its peak Rome's empire stretched across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, yet it started as a primitive encampment above a riverside marsh. This book spans the great chronological and geographical sweep of the Roman age and brings the reader face to face with those who helped create the empire, from consuls and commanders to ordinary soldiers, voters, and taxpayers. An extraordinary range of viewpoints is explored in these biographies. A centurion and a plasterer's wife share pages with the orator Cicero and the scholar Pliny the Elder, while a vestal virgin shares a chapter with Antinous, the boy-lover of Hadrian. Augustine, the church patriarch, and Constantine, Rome's first "Christian" emperor, rub shoulders with Julian the Apostate and Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, leader of the pagans. Roman women were the most liberated in the ancient world. They could wield massive power and influence, yet are often overlooked. Meet Servilia, Caesar's lover; Sulpicia, the teenage poet; Amazonia, the sword-swinging gladiator; and Cloelia, the girl who escaped captivity by swimming the Tiber. Lavishly illustrated with magnificent works of art, including portraits, sculptures, and Renaissance paintings of Roman scenes, this book reveals the real-life stories behind the rise and fall of Rome. Philip Matyszak teaches Roman History for the Institute of Continuing Education at Cambridge. He has written extensively on the ancient world. Joanne Berry teaches ancient history at Swansea University and is the author of The Complete Pompeii.

"Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans is superbly out of the ordinary. John Clarke's significant and intriguing book takes stock of a half-century of lively discourse on the art and culture of Rome's non-elite patrons and viewers. Its compelling case studies on religion, work, spectacle, humor, and burial in the monuments of Pompeii and Ostia, which attempt to revise the theory of trickle-down Roman art, effectively refine our understanding of Rome's pluralistic society. Ordinary Romans-whether defined in imperialistic monuments or narrating their own stories through art in houses, shops, and tombs-come to life in this stimulating work."—Diana E. E. Kleiner, author of Roman Sculpture "John R. Clarke again addresses the neglected underside of Roman art in this original, perceptive analysis of ordinary people as spectators, consumers, and patrons of art in the public and private spheres of their lives. Clarke expands the boundaries of Roman art, stressing the defining power of context in establishing Roman ways of seeing art. And by challenging the dominance of the Roman elite in image-making, he demonstrates the constitutive importance of the ordinary viewing public in shaping Roman visual imagery as an instrument of self-realization."—Richard Brilliant, author of Commentaries on Roman Art, Visual Narratives, and Gesture and Rank in Roman Art "John Clarke reveals compelling details of the tastes, beliefs, and biases that shaped ordinary Romans' encounters with works of art-both public monuments and private art they themselves produced or commissioned. The author discusses an impressively wide range of material as he uses issues of patronage and archaeological context to reconstruct how workers, women, and slaves would have experienced works as diverse as the Ara Pacis of Augustus, funerary decoration, and tavern paintings at Pompeii. Clarke's new perspective yields countless valuable insights about even the most familiar material."—Anthony Corbeill, author of Nature Embodied: Gesture in Ancient Rome "How did ordinary Romans view official paintings glorifying emperors? What did they intend to convey about themselves when they commissioned art? And how did they use imagery in their own tombstones and houses? These are among the questions John R. Clarke answers in his fascinating new book. Charting a new approach to people's art, Clarke investigates individual images for their functional connections and contexts, broadening our understanding of the images themselves and of the life and culture of ordinary Romans. This original and vital book will appeal to everyone who is interested in the visual arts; moreover, specialists will find in it a wealth of stimulating ideas for further study."—Paul Zanker, author of The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity

Describes the people, places, and events of Ancient Rome, describing travel, trade, language, religion, economy, industry and more, from the days of the Republic through the High Empire period and beyond.

Despite the fact that the majority of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire lived an agricultural existence and thus resided outside of urban centers, there is no denying the fact that the core of Roman civilization—its essential culture and politics—was based in cities. Even at the furthest boundaries of the Empire, Roman cities shared a remarkable and consistent similarity in terms of architecture, art, infrastructure, and organization which was modeled after the greatest city of all, Rome itself. In Gregory Aldrete's exhaustive account, readers will have the opportunity to peer into the inner workings of daily life in ancient Rome, to witness the full range of glory, cruelty, sophistication, and deprivation that characterized Roman cities, and will perhaps even gain new insight into the nature and history of urban existence in America today. Included are accounts of Rome's history, infrastructure, government, and inhabitants, as well as chapters on life and death, the dangers and pleasures of urban living, entertainment, religion, the emperors, and the economy. Additional sections explore two other important Roman cities: Ostia, an industrial port town, and Pompeii, the doomed playground of the rich. This volume is ideal for high school and college students, as well as for anyone interested in examining the realities of life in ancient Rome. A chronology of the time period, maps, illustrations, a bibliography, and an index are also included.

Robert Knapp seeks out the ordinary people who formed the fabric of everyday life in ancient Rome and the outlaws and pirates who lay beyond it. They are the housewives, prostitutes, freedmen, slaves, soldiers, and gladiators who lived commonplace lives and left almost no trace in history - until now. But their words are preserved in literature, letters, inscriptions and graffiti and their traces can be found in the histories, treatises, plays and poetry created by the elite. A world lost from view for two millennia is recreated through these, and other, tell-tale bits of evidence cast off by the visible mass of Roman history and culture. Invisible Romans reveals how everyday Romans sought to survive and thrive under the afflictions of disease, war, and violence, and to control their fates under powers that both oppressed and ignored them. Their lives - both familiar and foreign to ours today - are shown against the tumult of a great empire that shaped their worlds as it forged the wider world around them.

STools of the Ancient Romans: A Kid’s Guide to the History and Science of Life in Ancient Rome explores the history and science of the most powerful empire the world has ever known. Through biographical sidebars, interesting facts, anecdotes, and 15 hands-on activities that put kids in ancient Roman shoes, readers will learn about Roman innovations and ideas of government, science, religion, sport, and warfare that have shaped world history and our own world view.

Use this fascinating reference resource to find out what it meant to be a typical Ancient Roman. Using plenty of anecdotal material written by Romans themselves, this volume explores the ins and outs of daily living for ordinary people, from their homes, to the foods they ate, to the sports and games they enjoyed. The ancient civilization is brought to life, and students can easily make comparisons between the people of that culture and the people of our own, discovering the similarities and differences between the two. Many different aspects of life in Ancient Rome are presented to provide a full and varied picture. Discover what the education system was like and what the critics had to say about it. Find out who the most successful gladiators and charioteers were, the equivalent of our modern-day sports superstars. Examine what life was like for slaves. These details and more help to provide an understanding of this ancient society that at first glance may seem very foreign but that upon closer study seems to have much in common with modern day society.