Private Life in Ancient Rome

Catalog description

What was it like to live in the Roman world? What did that world look, taste and smell like? How did Romans raise their families, entertain themselves, understand death, and interact with their government? What were Roman values and how did they differ from our own? This course takes as its subject the everyday lives of individuals and explores those lives using the combined tools of archaeology, art and written sources. In doing so, it seeks to integrate the well-known monuments of Roman civilization into a world of real people. Some of the topics explored will include Roman houses, diet, leisure, gender and sexuality, slavery, and poverty.