Ancient Roman History

by Punksta, Feb 17, 2007

(contd.)

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The two consuls were the highest officers of the army; the two consuls were also leading members of the executive branch of the government. Each of these consuls controlled an army group of two legions. During wars the most power fullest civilian officers were also the military chiefs of the staff and commanding generals in battle, theses civilian officers only answered to the senate. The term of the service of rasing legions was only for one year, so after on year there would be a new general, but some generals get picked over and over again. Magistrates were responsible of picking a general to raise legions. So after all this we now realise that the Roman army wasn't just an army but also controlled almost everything in the Roman Empire.

Ancient Roman Entertainment

Life was not easy in Rome back in ancient times, so Roman people had entertainment. The Romans loved entertainment a lot. The only things Romans were interested in were food and entertainment. If you had lived in ancient Roman towns, there would be a regular amount of entertainment, these entertainments would be in arenas or theaters build in very big settlements of land. For Emperors to stay popular and loved by Roman people, they would give people free shows of entertainment, these types of entertainment was Roman Games. People that would fight to the death, were salves, they were trained to be Gladiators and fight till the end. All this was done just to entertain normal civilians. More shows were sea battles, animals hunt, chariot races and men fighting animals. During sea battles they would have to flood the whole entire arena. Build around 53BC was the first arenas and amphitheater. The Colosseum was the most popular amphitheater in Rome. There would be about fifty thousand spectators seated in the Colosseum, you could imagine how noisy it would have been. There were cells below the seats of the Colosseum were gladiators or animals were kept just before a battle. Chariot races were very popular with Roman spectators and there would be thousands watching.

Rome's oldest entertainment was chariot racing. Amphitheaters or arenas had many different entertainments, arena the word came from a Latin word meaning sand. Sand was placed at the bottom of the arena floor to soak up blood. The games had lost their ritualistic significance around the last first century BC. To avoid Gladiators school training there own private army, became under state control in the first century BC. The Gladiators had come from different varies of life. Gladiators were normally people who volunteered but ask for fees, prisoners of wars, salves and condemned crimes (damna it) There were different types of Gladiators, there were four types called, Murmillo, Thracian, Samnite and Retiaritus. Murmillo has a helmet crests with a fish on it and an oblong shield and sword. Murimillo usually fought a retiaritus. Retiaritus had a net and held a trident or dagger. Samnite had a Utilized sword and wore a visor or helmet and had an Oblong shield. Thracian had a round shield and a curved scimitar.

Roman (Way of Life Children)

Roman children went to school, but it was mainly boys who went. The girls would normally learn house keeping skills. Like today, school cost money to go to, and there were mainly wealthy students that attended. However school wasn't normally necessary if the farther knew how to read and write. If the farther knew how to read and write then his son would be taught by him. Mothers would normally teach there daughters about house keeping skills like sew, weave and spon etc. To what the Romans believed, gods wanted the children to learn about truthfulness, authority to obedience and respect for law. The whole goal of going to school was to be and effective speaker. Roman boys wore a white with a crimson border tunic that reached to their knees, when the boy goes into manhood he wore a fully white tunic. Girls only wore a plain tunic with a belt around there waist. When girls went out they wore a second tunic that reached down to there feet.

“The point of view of a Roman boy”

School was about to start for me, I wasn't really happy about starting school. When the 24th of March came it was my first day of school, my sister was lucky she gets to stay home with mum. When I got to school I heard that we had borrowed some of the Greek system of education. (This happened in 200BC) My farther told me that the goal of school was to be an effective speaker. I didn't realize that my sister was starting school with me (Girls went to school with there fathers permission at the age of six or seven) we learned how to read, write and count, we had to read scrolls and books and use pebbles to do math problems. We also had to write on a board covered with wax. We also learned numerals and had to memories lessons. By the time I was twelve I was lucky to have reached grammar school, because our family were in the upper class. In grammar school I learned literature, grammar, Greek and Latin. At the age of sixteen I decided to become an orator, so I went to a rhetoric school where I learned public speaking. Now that I was sixteen I was a Roman citizen.

“Comparison”

Children life in ancient Rome is extremely different to today. First the Roman children had to be a plain tunic, today children were what ever they like. In ancient Rome only a few wealthy children went to school, today every child has to go to school. Not many subjects were taught in ancient Rome, today all subjects are taught. So everything has become more modern since ancient time.