Daily Life in Ancient Rome
Daily Life in Ancient Rome by Florence Dupont reviews all aspects of what life was like for Romans in ancient times. Florence Dupont is Professor of Latin at University of Nice. This book starts of with a section on "The City and its People." Its subsections are titled "Naming and Honor", "Wealth and Poverty" and, "Slaves and Freedom." In this first subsection, "Naming and Honor", the great census was noted on. This census occurred every 5 years and all male Romans registered his family, wife, children, slaves, and riches, if not, he would be sold into slavery. This section also discusses how one in ancient Rome becomes famous or well known, by joining the army or by becoming a client to a more famous person than you such as a senate member. A client supports his patron by voting for him, going to court with him, and following him in public occasions. In return, the patron will bring him up in the social ladder. "Wealth and Poverty" largely deals with the fact that being poor does not necessarily mean you have a bad life. There was opulent poverty, an example would be someone who was born noble, lost his or her money but still was in the senate, and there was virtuous
Daily Life in Ancient Rome is an entirely comprehensive recount on Roman lifestyles; no characteristic of this subject matter is overlooked. However, Florence Dupont spent more time examining the first chapter than the others. Chapter one, the city and its people, had many more direct examples from Roman times and many more details. This detracts from the overall quality of the book, as this is not the main topic, but a section of the whole. The later chapters all seem relatively equal in terms of effort put into writing. Part two of Daily Life in Ancient Rome is "Places and Lives"; this piece was about how the town was set up physically and how the average family was constructed and run. All Roman towns, including army camps, were set up the same way, there were two roads intersecting in the middle of town called the cardo and the decumanus with gates at each end of the "+" shaped roads. The family usually had at least three generations and all of the paternal relatives living in the same house and having sexual relations with a cousin on your mother's side was not abnormal or considered morally wrong. I was very interested in how Roman society worked and now I am even more so, this book made me want to learn about Romans and I plan on doing that. I am now more interested in Roman life and will seek out a new source that is aimed towards someone of my education level and become better read in this topic. I also thought a Romans was pretty cut and dry but this book changed my mind, now I know that all men, including plebeians, led very complex lives always striving
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Approximate Word count = 1072
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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