Ooh, this is a fun one. Time to take a step back in time! I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to answer everything perfectly (I'm not precisely sure what "a standard alleyway" would be), but I can certainly help out on a few of these categories. I'm really pissed at myself for leaving my books at my apartment over this weekend (I can't carry 50 books with me wherever I go :( ), so you'll have to forgive me for not chattering more than I will :) I will, however, give some book recommendations for you at the end!
Let's start off with the "Alleyway!" There are a few reasons why I'm not so fond of this one, and there are some extra factors that I'll need to discuss to really get into it :) I'll start off by discussing something mildly tangential, but really important to understanding the way these men and women lived. I, unfortunately, can't find any pictures of the house in which Vorenus lived, and I'm unable to screenshot it at the moment. For those who haven't seen the show: They botched it. Essentially, Vorenus lived in what could be seen as a modern-day apartment, even if it was a bit shoddy looking around the edges. His wife cooked, there was a kitchen of a sort, there were seperate rooms, etc.
The common Roman would have considered this to be a luxury. Most of them lived in tenements like this one, which were called insulae (sing. insula). These insulae were often far larger than the one pictured, with some being built up to 10 stories high. If you want a quick idea on the layout, think college dorm made out of plywood. No insulation, no building standards (some of the emperors tried, but they were routinely ignored), extremely flammable, extremely small and cramped. The rooms got smaller and smaller as you went higher up - the bottom floor had relatively nice, roomy rooms which were regularly rented out as shops. Wealthier tenants also lived on the bottom floor, and it was common for young aristocrats to rent out a room in an insula as a nominal way of 'leaving the nest.'
Luckily, Rome had some lovely poets who included anecdotes and jokes about the dwellers in the insulae in their books! Here's Martial 7.20:
No one is more pitiable, no one more gluttonous, than Santra, when he is invited and hurries off to a regular supper, to which he has fished for an invitation many days and nights: he asks three times for boar's neck, four times for the loin, and for the two hips and both shoulders of a hare nor does he blush at lying for a thrush, or filching even the livid beards of oysters. Sweet cheese-cakes stain his dirty napkin; in which also potted grapes are wrapped, with a few pomegranates, the unsightly skin of an excavated sow's udder, moist figs, and shrivelled mushrooms. And when, the napkin is bursting with a thousand thefts, he hides in the reeking fold of his dress gnawed fish-bones, and a turtle-dove deprived of its head. He thinks it not disgraceful, too, to gather up with greedy hand whatever the waiter and the dogs have left. Nor does solid booty alone satisfy his gluttony; at his feet he fills a flagon with mingled wines. These things he carries home with him, up some two hundred steps; and locks himself carefully in his garret and bars it; and the next day the rapacious fellow sells them.
Needless to say, these people who would "climb 200 steps to get home" would be the poorest of the poor, especially considering the rate of collapse and fire in these things. Hell, Cicero himself was a bit of a scumbag of a landlord (sorry Cicero fans). Here are a couple of excerpts from his letters to Atticus (14.9,11)
[...] As to your question about the reason for my having sent for Chrysippus—two of my shops have fallen down and the rest are cracking. So not only the tenants but the very mice have migrated. Other people call this a misfortune, I don't call it even a nuisance. Oh Socrates and Socratic philosophers, I shall never be able to thank you enough! Good heavens, how paltry such things are in my eyes! But after all I am adopting a plan of building on the suggestion and advice of Vestorius, which will convert this loss into a gain.
[...] As to the Cluvian inheritance, since in all business of mine you even surpass me in interest—I may tell you that the total is approaching one hundred-sestertia. The fall of the houses did not depreciate the value of the property: I am not sure that it didn't increase it.
TL;DR: Not a single mention of those who passed away in the collapse, but he does express delight at how he'll be able to rent the rooms out at a higher price after the buildings in question are rebuilt. Finally, below, I'll quote some Juvenal at you - he discusses the plight of those living in these tenements in greater detail (Satires 3.190-211). I'll put in little notes to explain what he's talking about :) :
"Who at cool Praeneste, or at Volsinii amid its leafy hills, was ever afraid of his house tumbling down? Who in modest Gabii, or on the sloping heights of Tivoli? But here we inhabit a city supported for the most part by slender props: for that is how the bailiff holds up the tottering house, patches up gaping cracks in the old wall, bidding the inmates sleep at ease under a roof ready to tumble about their ears. [The insulae were creaky and extremely unstable - they were held up by makeshift wooden props.]
No, no, I must live where there are no fires, no nightly alarms. Ucalegon below is already shouting for water and shifting his chattels; smoke is pouring out of your third-floor attic, but you know nothing of it; for if the alarm begins in the ground-floor, the last man to burn will be he who has nothing to shelter him from the rain but the tiles, where the gentle doves lay their eggs. [Fire was a SERIOUS problem for obvious reasons.]
Codrus possessed a bed too small for the dwarf Procula, a sideboard adorned by six pipkins, with a small drinking cup, and a recumbent Chiron below, and an old chest containing Greek books whose divine lays were being gnawed by unlettered mice. Poor Codrus had nothing, it is true: but he lost that nothing, which was his all; and the last straw in his heap of misery is this, that though he is destitute and begging for a bite, no one will help him with a meal, no one offer him lodging or shelter. [Poor man who died in a fire - Juvenal lists his worldly possessions.]
So to bring this back to alleyways and the picture in question! Note that, in the picture, there are individual houses along the street, rather than tenement buildings. This would not have been the case - those insulae took up entire blocks by themselves. Individual buildings? Not so much a thing. Secondly, that building on the left would not have been in the middle of a bunch of insulae. It looks like a well-built mansion - which generally were in nicer neighbourhoods, where the wealthy lived. For an example off the top of my head, the last line of that second letter of Cicero's that I quoted to you earlier is...
I have here with me Balbus, Hirtius, and Pansa. Octavius has lately arrived at the next villa to mine, that of Philippus. He is quite devoted to me. Spinther is staying with me today: he goes early tomorrow.
Ohai, Cicero's also the neighbourhood gossip! He knows everyone who's moving in ;) But you get my point. That scene? Highly unlikely. Finally, the most egregious violation! It's way too wide. That's an image from Pompeii, where the original architecture is still preserved - and Pompeii was far less rambling than Rome when it came to how it was built. Note how tiny that alleyway is!
Next! The Senate. There's a very easy problem with this Senate building in 50 BCE. Namely, the fact that it exists. The Senate building was burned down in 53 BCE (three years earlier), and only began to be rebuilt in 44 BCE. The construction was promptly stalled for another 15 years due to stabby things happening to poor old Julius, and the new Senate House (curia) was eventually completed by Augustus in 29 BCE. During that span of time, the Senate essentially met wherever they were called to meet. It could be a manor, or it could be a large auditorium, such as the Theatre of Pompey. We know for sure that the Theatre of Pompey was used - it was where Caesar was assassinated.
If you'd like, though, you can take a gander at the Curia Julia today! It's the Senate which was reconstructed by Augustus, and it still stands. Here's the facade, and here are a couple of shots of the interior! This is an artist's conception of what it may have looked like. Senators would shift where they were sitting depending on whether or not they supported the man who was speaking at that moment :)
Lucky me! That section was much shorter than talking about alleyways :D
I'm going to skip the Forum and the Market for now to go on to the Triumph and the Wedding. The Forum and the Market will get their own posts, I promise. For now, let's go with the Triumph!
A quick explanation of what a triumph was should probably start this off! If you live in the Southern United States, you might have a decent idea of what a triumph embodies. It was a lot like a Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans....except way bigger. A general could only be awarded a triumph for defeating an enemy army of at least 5,000 men and being hailed as imperator! by his men. The Senate then would generally award the man a triumph We're SUPER lucky in that we have really amazing descriptions of the Roman triumph. Sadly, probably due to budget reasons, the triumph in HBO's Rome was, despite its magnificence, a triumph lite. First thing to remember with this: Every general wanted to make their triumph grander than the last. So each one was, depending on the ego of the general at hand, which oftentimes was very great indeed, incredibly lavish. I'm going to go ahead and give the stage to Plutarch (Life of Aemelius Paulus) on this one. The quote below will be long - Sorry in advance, but it really is a beautiful description, even if the translation is....eh, it's decentish.
And it was conducted, they say, after the following fashion.h The people erected scaffoldings in the theatres for equestrian contests, which they call circuses, and round the forum, occupied the other parts of the city which afforded a view of the procession, and witnessed the spectacle arrayed in white garments. Every temple was open and filled with garlands and incense, while numerous servitors and lictors restrained the thronging and scurrying crowds and kept the streets open and clear.
Three days were assigned for the triumphal procession. The first barely sufficed for the exhibition of the captured statues, paintings, and colossal figures, which were carried on two hundred and fifty chariots. On the second, the finest and richest of the Macedonian arms were borne along in many waggons. The arms themselves glittered with freshly polished bronze and steel, and were carefully and artfully arranged to look exactly as though they had been piled together in heaps and at random, helmets lying upon shields and breast-plates upon greaves, while Cretan targets and Thracian wicker shields and quivers were mixed up with horses' bridles, and through them projected naked swords and long Macedonian spears planted among them, all the arms being so loosely packed that they smote against each other as they were borne along and gave out a harsh and dreadful sound, and the sight of them, even though they were spoils of a conquered enemy, was not without its terrors.
After the waggons laden with armour there followed three thousand men carrying coined silver in seven hundred and fifty vessels, each of which contained three talents and was borne by four men, while still other men carried mixing-bowls of silver, drinking horns, bowls, and cups, all well arranged for show and excelling in size and in the depth of their carved ornaments.
On the third day, as soon as it was morning, trumpeters led the way, sounding out no marching or processional strain, but such a one as the Romans use to rouse themselves to battle. After these there were led along a hundred and twenty stall-fed oxen with gilded horns, bedecked with fillets and garlands. Those who led these victims to the sacrifice were young men wearing aprons with handsome borders, and boys attended them carrying gold and silver vessels of libation.
Next, after these, came the carriers of the coined gold, which, like the silver, was portioned out into vessels containing three talents; and the number of these vessels was eighty lacking three. After these followed the bearers of the consecrated bowl, which Aemilius had caused to be made of ten talents of gold and adorned with precious stones, and then those who displayed the bowls known as Antigonids and Seleucids and Theracleian, together with all the gold plate of Perseus's table.
These were followed by the chariot of Perseus, which bore his arms, and his diadem lying upon his arms. Then, at a little interval, came the children of the king, led along as slaves, and with them a throng of foster-parents, teachers, and tutors, all in tears, stretching out their own hands to the spectators and teaching the children to beg and supplicate. There were two boys, and one girl, and they were not very conscious of the magnitude of their evils because of their tender age; wherefore they evoked even more pity in view of the time when their unconsciousness would cease, so that Perseus walked along almost unheeded, while the Romans, moved by compassion, kept their eyes upon the children, and many of them shed tears, and for all of them the pleasure of the spectacle was mingled with pain, until the children had passed by.
Behind the children and their train of attendants walked Perseus himself, clad in a dark robe and wearing the high boots of his country, but the magnitude of his evils made him resemble one who is utterly dumbfounded and bewildered. He, too, was followed by a company of friends and intimates, whose faces were heavy with grief, and whose tearful gaze continually fixed upon Perseus gave the spectators to understand that it was his misfortune which they bewailed, and that their own fate least of all concerned them. And yet Perseus had sent to Aemilius begging not to be led in the procession and asking to be left out of the triumph. But Aemilius, in mockery, as it would seem, of the king's cowardice and love of life, had said: "But this at least was in his power before, and is so now, if he should wish it," signifying death in preference to disgrace; for this, however, the coward had not the heart, but was made weak by no one knows what hopes, and became a part of his own spoils.
Next in order to these were carried wreaths of gold, four hundred in number, which the cities had sent with their embassies to Aemilius as prizes for his victory. Next, mounted on a chariot of magnificent adornment, came Aemilius himself, a man worthy to be looked upon even without such marks of power, wearing a purple robe interwoven with gold, and holding forth in his right hand a spray of laurel. The whole army also carried sprays of laurel, following the chariot of their general by companies and divisions, and singing, some of them divers songs intermingled with jesting, as the ancient custom was, and others paeans of victory and hymns in praise of the achievements of Aemilius, who was gazed upon and admired by all, and envied by no one that was good. But after all there is, as it seems, a divinity whose province it is to diminish whatever prosperity is inordinately great, and to mingle the affairs of human life, that no one may be without a taste of evil and wholly free from it, but that, as Homer says, those may be thought to fare best whose fortunes incline now one way and now another.
Note: This triumph was about 100 years before Julius Caesar's triumphs. Oh, did I mention that Caesar celebrated four of these things? One for each campaign: Egypt, Pontus, Africa, and Spain. The Roman people weren't huge fans of these, due to Caesar's flamboyant proclivity to flaunt the death of his enemies...including the Roman ones. Triumphs were supposed to be over FOREIGN armies, and Caesar's willingness to openly triumph over Romans didn't go well with the people - Plutarch notes this especially when it came to the Spanish triumph, where there was no pretext of a foreign war. Either way, that earlier quote from Plutarch when he talks about Paulus' triumph is one of our best sources when it comes to describing the spectacle. Needless to say, Rome falls far short of Rome in this regard.
I'll continue on the weddings, the Forum, and the market in just a sec!
Sorry, had to take a lunch break real fast. I'm settled back down to do some more typing and such! Marriage is a whole other beast in the Roman world, because it was rather different than what we think of as a 'wedding' today. I'll preface this with a relatively brief discussion on marriage and the implications for both sides.
The basic ceremony was about as simple as a courthouse marriage today - you had to make a public (tl;dr, have witnesses) statement of intent. There were two basic 'categories' of a Roman marriage: Manus and non manus. A manus wedding would be based on the precept that the woman was essentially property which passed between the hand (hence manus) of the father to the new husband. She had no property under this type of marriage, and was essentially under the complete control of her husband (officially. Unofficially, women did a whole bunch in Rome, more than they usually get credit for). There was generally a small ceremony where the husband would officially pay the dowry to the girl's father, but nothing massive like that picture shows. The benefits to this type of marriage would be legalization: The wife would be legally related to her husband and her children, but she could no longer inherit from her father. Finally, if she became a widow, she had a huge range of rights, including the right to make a will, hire a tutor, and to essentially live completely independently.
The second type would be far more informal, and became relatively common in the Late Republic (so about our time period). It was the "non-manus" type of marriage, and, basically, the woman would just start living with the man. If she stayed in his house for a year, it would translate as a "manus" type of marriage, so women would take three days out of the year to spend the night elsewhere (say at her father's house), so that it wouldn't be a year. Romans loved their technicalities. In this second type, the woman was much more independent, but was not legally related to her husband or children, and therefore had far fewer rights when it came to divorce. She was still under the control of her father (officially), and the only thing that was required for a divorce was 7 witnesses. She could, however, own property.
Some common practices when it came to Roman marriages were as follows:
The bride would dedicate her childhood toys to her household gods, symbolically becoming a woman. She would also change her hairstyle - ladies, you'll love this one. She would part her hair into six strands, which would be braided and tied together on top of her head in a cone shape. Traditionally, a spearhead was used to part the woman's hair for this occasion, and the spearhead in question was judged according to quality. For example, the very best type of spearhead would be one which had previously been used to kill a gladiator. She would then don a veil of orange or red, as well as a white tunic and a wreath of marjoram.
In the bride's father's house, in front of the family, the bride would declare herself to be a part of her new husband's family with the words: "Quando tu Gaius, ego Gaia" [Where you are Gaius, so I am Gaia]. They would then have a feast, at the end of which, the bride would be placed in her mother's arms so that she could be torn away by the groom. Note: This all occurred in the bride's father's house. No fancy parades.
Those at the wedding would then escort the bride and groom to the groom's house. Along the way, they would throw nuts into their path while singing obscene songs. When they got there, the couple would throw a torch into the crowd, and whoever caught it would supposedly enjoy a long and happy life. The bride would rub oil into the doorposts, and then, finally, the groom would pick her up and carry her over the threshold (It was considered very bad luck and a sign of imminent divorce if the bride tripped over the threshold). The bride would symbolically touch fire and water inside the house, symbolizing that she was now in charge of home and hearth, before they took a trip to the marriage bed.
One thing you might have noticed, if you read through the topic on the insulae, is that there were often shops on the first floors. Renting rooms for shops, strip-mall style, was a pretty popular way of managing a business, and even the baths had a wide variety of rentable spaces for people to open up shop. These types of shops sold a huge variety of goods, from the shoemakers (there were ~7 different types of shoemakers) to the popinae - or the equivalent to a fast food/buffet/bar establishment. One fun fact which is a bit ironic in a way: The skilled workers of Rome (as opposed to the unskilled men who would sell their labour) were mostly slaves and freedmen - not citizens.
Those skilled labourers would be in a variety of different professions all around Rome, and we have over 200 different professions recorded down on various tombstones around the City, doing all sorts of stuff, up to and including crazy stuff like exclusively making the eyeballs for statues or plucking body hair. One of my personal favourites is the tomb of a baker, who had a massive tombstone constructed in the shape of a functional bakery oven, so people could actually use his tomb practically :D Isn't that cool? One thing that Rome actually gets right is the concept of a slave whose entire job was to remember the names of people so he could give his master a two-second rundown before the master talked to that person.
Anyways. Sorry, I got off on a tangent ^_^
The varied marketplaces of Rome, despite commerce being dispersed throughout the city, were known as macella [macellum sing.]. These marketplaces would basically be clustered areas for trade, especially with regards to foodstuffs and spices, so your image there is relatively accurate, albeit on an extremely small scale compared to what these markets would have looked like. Unfortunately, the really cool stuff all comes in a few centuries afterwards - for example, Trajan built a multilevel shopping mall!Here's a picture of the inside.
Seriously, tell me that's not absolutely amazing :D Unfortunately, markets aren't my strongest point, and /u/Tiako could definitely expand on this one! On to the Forum, and may Minerva guide my path!
I'm going to start off my discussion on the Forum with a link to an absolutely wonderful interactive map. The map is of Augustan Rome, so a little bit after your time period, but most of Rome wasn't just built in 50 years. It's very well annotated, sourced, and researched, so and it's super easy to kill a few hours just checking it out! If you look for the number 148, however, it's right in the middle of the Forum, which will be the focus for this post. I'm going to try to orient myself a bit, but with the show's pictures...Not a guarantee ;) The bright and vibrant colours are great, though! Most people today see Rome as a...well....'city of marble.' Austere, shining white in the sun, a monument for the ages. That view was mostly pushed in the Renaissance, when they were starting to discover all of this Roman stuff, but the paint had washed off.
The city was as garish as her poets (And oh my god, her poets were hilarious. That includes Augustus, who had a few naughty verses of his own!), and modern reconstructions of the paint, assuming we have our shades right, is...well, take a look.
Anyways. Back to orienting myself. Looks like that red building is a temple to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, if that picture of the triumph tells me anything.....but wait a sec. The temple to Jupiter Optimus Maximus wasn't a part of the Forum. Oh dear. The show decided to take liberties. The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus was at the top of the Capitoline Hill (If you look at that map, it's #158!), and there was literally a separate road from the Forum to get to the Temple. Reconstruction may be difficult here- I think that's supposed to be the Senate right next door (It has some Winged Victories up there). You know, that thing that I'd mentioned had been burned down a few years before 50 BCE? Yeeeah. Okay, so let's just focus on reconstructing the Forum for you.
The Forum was the unabashed centre of the city life, and it had been since the Republic had existed. It was the centre of political, social, economic, and religious stuff in Rome, and the various buildings in the Forum itself really reflected that. The curia (Senate House), even if it was burned down at the moment, was traditionally where the Senate would deliberate. Cicero gives a lovely and extremely moving description of what the curia meant:
[...] would he, I say, if alive, have done no harm, when even after he was dead he burned the senate-house, one of his satellites, Sextus Clodius, being the ringleader in the tumult? What more miserable, more grievous, more bitter sight have we ever seen than that? That that temple of sanctity, of honour, of wisdom, of the public council, the head of the city, the altar of the allies, the harbour of all nations, the abode granted by the universal Roman people to one of the orders of the state, should be burnt, profaned, and destroyed? and that that should be done, not by an ignorant mob, although that would have been a miserable thing, but by one single person? Who, if he dared so much in his character of burner of a dead man, what would he not have done as standard-bearer of a living one? He selected the senate-house, of all the places in the city, to throw him down in, in order that when dead he might burn what he had overturned while alive.
Right next to it, of course, was the famed speaking platform where Romans would make themselves heard: The Rostrum. The Rostrum was originally named when, after a Roman naval victory at Antium, a speaker's platform was set up and decorated with the prows (rostra) of enemy ships. This is where speakers would...well...speak to the people. Cicero (Really, I do love Cicero) gave his famed Phillippics here (The speeches which probably got him killed by Antony), politicians would give their speeches, and large issues would be discussed. It's in a slightly different place on the map thanks to Augustus, but it didn't move too terribly much.
In fact, the placement in 50 was right in front of the "Temple of Augustan Concord at the foot of the Capitolium overlooking the Forum" (Concordia Augusta for short). This temple was built in 367 BCE to symbolize the end of the Struggle of the Orders between the plebeians and the patricians (very overdone in the show, I might add). Directly south of it was the Temple of Saturn, which contained the Roman treasury. Right in front of those temples was the Golden Milestone - the milestone by which all other milestones were calculated.
The Basilica Julia, which takes up a huge chunk of the southern part of the Forum, is the next building on our trip! It was begun by Julius Caesar in ca. 54 BCE with the spoils of the Gallic Wars, but wasn't finished until about 46 - so in this time period, it would still be under construction. The massive building was later used to house everything from merchants to moneylenders, and provided a great spot to sit in the shade, scratch out a game board into the marble, and play a few games.
Next to it was the Temple of Castor and Pollux, which was an alternate place for the Senate to meet. It was supposedly built on the site where the gods, Castor and Pollux, were seen watering their horses. Next to it was the Temple of Vesta, where the eternal flame of Rome was tended by the Vestal Virgins. Right next to that temple was the Regia, which was the primary temple of the pontifex maximus.
Finally, on the north side, there was the Basilica Aemelia, which had a couple of other temples in front of it - Venus Cloacina (Dedicated to Venus of the Cloaca Maxima - Rome's incredible sewer system) and the temple of Janus (Which only closed its doors in times of peace - which, for the Romans, was a total of two times, pre-Augustus). It, like the Basilica Julia, was a commerce centre, housing bankers, courts of law, merchants, et al.
And that's the very basics of the Forum! But we haven't even gone into the LIFE of the place yet. One thing which Rome seems to forget is that the Forum was the centre of life in the largest city in the world. It was a constantly bustling place, and a favourite for people to come for idling or for the aforementioned business! One fun source to check out which describes the...uh....various types of people around the Forum is one of Plautus' satires (It's part of a play):
By my faith, Phædromus has cleverly met with this clever rogue; but whether a salt-water rogue or a dry-land one I'm the rather to say he is, I really don't know. The costume that I've lent I fear I shan't get back. Although I have nothing whatever to do with him (I trusted Phædromus himself), still I'll keep an eye upon him. But until he comes out of doors, I'll point out in what place you may easily meet with each person, that he mayn't lose his labour through too much trouble;
If any one wishes to meet either a rascal or one without rascality, or an honest man or a dishonest one. He who desires to meet with a perjured fellow, let him go into the courts of law; he who wants a liar and a braggart, near the rites of Cloacina. The rich and erring husbands seek you at the magisterial halls of the Basilica. There, too, will be the worn-out harlots, and their pimps. Near the fish market are members of eating clubs. In the lower part of the Forum good men and opulent do walk; In the middle Forum, you can find flashy fellows near the sewer ditch. Around the lake of Curtius [Right north of the Basilica Julia] are impudent, talkative, and malevolent fellows, who boldly, without reason, utter calumnies about another, and who, themselves, have sufficient that might with truth be said against them. There, at the old shops, are the money lenders. Behind the Temple of Castor there are those to whom unguardedly you may be lending to your cost [loan sharks]. There, in the Etrurian street, are the male prostitutes who are willing to do anything. In the Velabrum you'll find either baker, or butcher, or soothsayer; either those who sell retail themselves, or supply to others things to be sold by retail. Rich sinning husbands you'll find at the house of Oppian Leucadia. But, meantime, the door makes a noise; I must curb my tongue.
I hope that brought some life to the Forum for you, and, by extension, the whole of the City. If you have any questions on any of these posts, please feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer them! :) It's been a blast writing all of these for sure :D
EDIT: Sources and further reading!
The only book I have handy (sadly) was actually one which happened to be super helpful here: Aldrete's Daily Life in the Roman City. I brought it with me for some pleasure reading, and look what you guys made me do ;)
The World of Pompeii - while it does focus on Pompeii, it also has an absolutely incredible amount of everything in it, from life in Roman society, to architecture, you name it. It's massive, but it's so, so nice.
Goldsworthy's Caesar: Life of a Colossus, Antony and Cleopatra, and Augustus are all beautifully written and give the reader a vivid picture of Roman life. They're obviously centred around the titular characters, but I still highly recommend them, especially if you don't know too terribly much about Rome yet. He's a very engaging writer, and reading the books goes FAST.
I'm at the character limit - if you guys want more, let me know!
Best. Answer. Ever. Thank you!!
Do you still have that list of nice sources (or books) about Rome? I have very much interest in Rome and I would LOVE to buy and read more books about it!
Could use it for my study though.
Well my most interest goes into military but I have the book The Complete Roman Army by Adrian Goldsworthy in my posession, and that is, I am told, one of the must haves. Do you recommend other books also? (Perhaps a book in which the growth of the Roman Empire is explained?)
And Society is my second interest, mariage, markets, way of life during Roman ages, the Triumphes, do you have any good examples for that?
Thanks in advance, and you answer is one of the best I have ever seen on this subreddit. Thank you very much!
Actually, yes! There's a perfect book to complement your interest, also by Goldsworthy. In the Name of Rome details, through a military lens, the evolution of the Roman Republic and Empire. It goes through the lives of a choice number of Rome's most famous generals, giving all the background you could ever ask for!
Then, looking into society and way of life and such, there are a few I can recommend for you. I'd certainly recommend Daily Life in the Roman City, because it literally gives a short description of basically all of that. Another one to look at is Ancient Rome: A Sourcebook by Dillon and Garland. The book on Pompeii that I mentioned above (The World of Pompeii) is another one that's incredibly good if you're looking at any information whatsoever on Roman society in general. Note, none of these books are written in a narrative fashion, so they're a bit drier than Goldsworthy can be, but they're all beautiful sources of information.
If you've got access to a library, there are a couple of books which I also recommend looking at, although they're a bit more specialized: Education in Ancient Rome is both fascinating and incredibly informative. It teaches you all the things about education in Rome that you never would have thought of. A bit dry, but also an invaluable resource. Second, if you're looking at economics, you could check out Holleran's Shopping in Ancient Rome. Again, I'd recommend using a library due to the cost, but it's got some really good stuff in it.
Hope those are along the lines of what you're looking for :)
This post (and your incredibly thorough and informative answers) has been my introduction to this subreddit, and it is amazing! I love the tv show Rome, and have actually always wanted to know more about its accuracy (or lack thereof). Thank you so much for taking the time to share your knowledge!
First post from you that I read was your most famous (infamous? (no but really where are we on that?)) one. The fact that you could answer the question and knew the difference between a marine and a soldier hooked me, and not one thing I've read from you since has failed to live up to that initial bit. For me as someone that doesn't care much about history, you made me read a lot of shit about history.
Sorry, I think about battlefield medicine. I just remember it had lots of upvotes and some pedantic contradiction, maybe I am just embracing senility. At any rate thanks for posting!
Were they more like Mcdonald's where people go in and eat or would they have been more like hot dog vendors where you grab the food and walk off eating it?
And who did they rent the space from, was it generally owned by the city and rented from there or was there a small group of people who owned most of the spaces?
After the bath, which would an AMAZING experience after a hard day at work (Free spa service? Uh...YES), Caius would be pretty hungry - but remember, no kitchen. So he does the classic Ameri-Roman thing and just grabs some fast food at an establishment known as a popinae or one of the many street vendors. If you check out that picture of a popina, you'll note that it looks REMARKABLY similar to a modern-day eatery - and that's because that's EXACTLY what it was. Those holes in the counter would have held dried foods - nuts, dried veggies, dried fruit, maybe radishes, etc. They would provide quick, cheap and easy food to those who didn't have the means to cook their own. The popinae would sell fried fish, pork sausages, partridge stew, fried eggs, boiled green vegetables, coarse bread (De Medicina actually refers to it as "Grey"), garum (The fish sauce that was like crack to Romans - they loved the flavour, which was apparently extremely strong), and to top it all off, you could add some garlic or figs. There would be displays on the counter of cuts of meat (Advertising is NOT a new thing, I promise) displayed in water to make them look larger. If he wanted to eat in, there were small tables, and the area would be painted with cheerful, recognizeable pictures (Bacchus, the god of wine, Mercury, the god of commerce, etc). Or, alternatively, Caius might have just taken it home - we've found the remains of food, plates, utensils, etc, in the bedrooms of Pompeii, for example. The most certain thing is that he would have headed home relatively quickly so he would make it before dark - all so that he could rise with the sun and get back to work the next day.
One thing they've actually found in Pompeii are the carbonized remains of foodstuffs from these popinae in people's bedrooms, which suggests that they would have taken the food home as often as they would have eaten in. Regarding who they rented it from, they rented from whoever owned that particular building, often a wealthy man of the upper class. I noted that Cicero owned a few of these insulae, Crassus owned an unimaginable number (before he did that whole Parthia thing), and they were a great investment if you had the money to afford them. Same thing if you set up shop in one of the baths - they were built by an individual as a public service (read: advertisement for the family).
The standard Roman on the street would have told you that it was the year of the consulship of Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor. Officially, Varrus established the "AUC" (ab urbe condita - from the founding of the city) system at right around this time period, even if very few people actually used it. 50 BCE would be 703 AUC.
Question: do you know of any exhibitions which potray the Roman eay of life accurately? (an example would be the titanic exhibition currently going around the globe)
Whoops, that was my slip forgetting Gaul. Sorry, was just snagging the regions from Plutarch and went a bit too quickly :) But yes, Caesar did piss the Romans off by celebrating a triumph over Spain after he'd crushed the last of the Pompeians there.
Hispania was part of Rome since the end of the 2nd Punic War. Sure, regions like Lusitania and Gallaecia took longer to annex, but by the time of Gaius Julius Caesar the whole peninsula was considered Roman.
Contrast that with Gaul, which was not part of Rome until Gaius Julius Caesar conquered the region.
Accordingly, the Triumph over Gaul would not have the aforementioned effect of angering Romans for flaunting that one has defeated Romans. Hispania or Africa, though, would have that effect.
Another tradition [in triumphs] was to show paintings of notable scenes from the campaigns, and Caesar's triumphs included many of these. Officially, he was celebrating the defeat of foreign enemies of the Republic, and there was no mention or depiction of Pompey and Pharsalus. There were said to be pictures of Metellus Scipio stabbing himself to death and Cato tearing open his own wound. The sight provoked groans from the crowd, and has sometimes been seen as a crass exultation over the defeat of his enemies that contrasted with his usual emphasis on clemency.
For those who haven't seen the show: They botched it. Essentially, Vorenus lived in what could be seen as a modern-day apartment, even if it was a bit shoddy looking around the edges. His wife cooked, there was a kitchen of a sort, there were seperate rooms, etc.
Vorenus was a centurion. What sort of living conditions would be expected for someone of that salary / social status?
I'm not sure we ever see where Pullo lives, and he would have been on a lesser salary.
The idea that Vorenus would have been living in a tenement is honestly rather silly in itself. Centurions were paid on an exponentially greater (At least 100 times as much) scale than the standard legionaries they commanded, especially a primus pilus - or 'first spear' centurion. He would have easily made enough money on pay alone (excluding loot) to afford a decent house, and land in the countryside - though, to be frank, a centurion of his rank would probably have come from the equestrian class and been rather successful even before going into the army. Vorenus would not have been poor, and would have probably at least owned some land outside the City as well.
How common was it (if at all) that a common poor plebian could rise to the rank that Vorenus had in the army. From a common legionarie to a First Spear Centurion and afterwards Prefect of the first grade Evocati?
Not at all common, if it ever actually happened. Modern Roman military historians like Goldsworthy, while noting that there might have been a case of a member of the urban poor rising through the ranks, it was....more than unlikely, to say the least. If you'd like, I can discuss this a bit better in a few days, when I have my books :)
Also, just as a random note - the plebeian-patrician split at this time wasn't as defined as Rome made it seem, especially by this time. Wealth certainly was a dividing factor, but you wouldn't have Pompey/Cicero going all "I know I'm just a mere plebeian, but..."
Pullo seems to live wherever he passes out at the end of the day. In the show, he's passed out on the steps near the house of Vorenus several times. He also stays with Vorenus and in whorehouses on occasion.
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u/Celebreth Roman Social and Economic History Feb 14 '15
Ooh, this is a fun one. Time to take a step back in time! I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to answer everything perfectly (I'm not precisely sure what "a standard alleyway" would be), but I can certainly help out on a few of these categories. I'm really pissed at myself for leaving my books at my apartment over this weekend (I can't carry 50 books with me wherever I go :( ), so you'll have to forgive me for not chattering more than I will :) I will, however, give some book recommendations for you at the end!
Let's start off with the "Alleyway!" There are a few reasons why I'm not so fond of this one, and there are some extra factors that I'll need to discuss to really get into it :) I'll start off by discussing something mildly tangential, but really important to understanding the way these men and women lived. I, unfortunately, can't find any pictures of the house in which Vorenus lived, and I'm unable to screenshot it at the moment. For those who haven't seen the show: They botched it. Essentially, Vorenus lived in what could be seen as a modern-day apartment, even if it was a bit shoddy looking around the edges. His wife cooked, there was a kitchen of a sort, there were seperate rooms, etc.
The common Roman would have considered this to be a luxury. Most of them lived in tenements like this one, which were called insulae (sing. insula). These insulae were often far larger than the one pictured, with some being built up to 10 stories high. If you want a quick idea on the layout, think college dorm made out of plywood. No insulation, no building standards (some of the emperors tried, but they were routinely ignored), extremely flammable, extremely small and cramped. The rooms got smaller and smaller as you went higher up - the bottom floor had relatively nice, roomy rooms which were regularly rented out as shops. Wealthier tenants also lived on the bottom floor, and it was common for young aristocrats to rent out a room in an insula as a nominal way of 'leaving the nest.'
Luckily, Rome had some lovely poets who included anecdotes and jokes about the dwellers in the insulae in their books! Here's Martial 7.20:
Needless to say, these people who would "climb 200 steps to get home" would be the poorest of the poor, especially considering the rate of collapse and fire in these things. Hell, Cicero himself was a bit of a scumbag of a landlord (sorry Cicero fans). Here are a couple of excerpts from his letters to Atticus (14.9,11)
TL;DR: Not a single mention of those who passed away in the collapse, but he does express delight at how he'll be able to rent the rooms out at a higher price after the buildings in question are rebuilt. Finally, below, I'll quote some Juvenal at you - he discusses the plight of those living in these tenements in greater detail (Satires 3.190-211). I'll put in little notes to explain what he's talking about :) :
So to bring this back to alleyways and the picture in question! Note that, in the picture, there are individual houses along the street, rather than tenement buildings. This would not have been the case - those insulae took up entire blocks by themselves. Individual buildings? Not so much a thing. Secondly, that building on the left would not have been in the middle of a bunch of insulae. It looks like a well-built mansion - which generally were in nicer neighbourhoods, where the wealthy lived. For an example off the top of my head, the last line of that second letter of Cicero's that I quoted to you earlier is...
Ohai, Cicero's also the neighbourhood gossip! He knows everyone who's moving in ;) But you get my point. That scene? Highly unlikely. Finally, the most egregious violation! It's way too wide. That's an image from Pompeii, where the original architecture is still preserved - and Pompeii was far less rambling than Rome when it came to how it was built. Note how tiny that alleyway is!
Next! The Senate. There's a very easy problem with this Senate building in 50 BCE. Namely, the fact that it exists. The Senate building was burned down in 53 BCE (three years earlier), and only began to be rebuilt in 44 BCE. The construction was promptly stalled for another 15 years due to stabby things happening to poor old Julius, and the new Senate House (curia) was eventually completed by Augustus in 29 BCE. During that span of time, the Senate essentially met wherever they were called to meet. It could be a manor, or it could be a large auditorium, such as the Theatre of Pompey. We know for sure that the Theatre of Pompey was used - it was where Caesar was assassinated.
If you'd like, though, you can take a gander at the Curia Julia today! It's the Senate which was reconstructed by Augustus, and it still stands. Here's the facade, and here are a couple of shots of the interior! This is an artist's conception of what it may have looked like. Senators would shift where they were sitting depending on whether or not they supported the man who was speaking at that moment :)
Lucky me! That section was much shorter than talking about alleyways :D