Daily life in Ancient Rome

The Roman day was a daylight day, divided into twelve equal portions, so that an hour at midsummer, in Rome, would have been about thirty minutes longer than at midwinter. This time difference would have been even more exaggerated in the northern extremities of the Empire. The common way of measuring time was by water clocks, according to which the slow flow of water out of a container would be checked against a marked stick; this measure would therefore have had to be readjusted throughout the year, although mechanical water clocks existed that took account of this difficulty.

Midday was therefore at the end of the sixth hour, after which little or no work was done. Six hours’ solid work was regarded as something to aim for.

Breakfast was not a large meal for most, and the same was true for lunch, so these did not occupy much time.

The first two hours of the day were the time of the “salutatio”, when middle-class Romans would beg favours from upper-class Romans. This practice was originally of real benefit, for example to give people direct access to legal advice, but under the Empire it became a ritual of little purpose other than to cause annoyance and embarrassment all round, and providing encouragement to sycophants and hangers-on.  

In rural areas, most work was on the land. In the cities, it was trade and politics. We think of Romans as living in the big towns and cities, mainly because of the ruins that have survived, but far more people made their living from the land than in the cities. There was, indeed, little manual work for the freeborn city dweller to do, because there was an army of slaves to do it. Our knowledge of the daily routine of Roman citizens is therefore that of the upper strata of society, from whose ranks came the writers and poets whose documents have survived to inform us about their lives.

Roman children were educated at home by slaves when very young, and the routine of going to school would not affect children younger than nine or ten, and would not have involved girls at all. There were no schools in the modern sense, teaching a multitude of subjects according to a timetable, but many different masters teaching small groups in a single subject.

A boy of twelve might therefore spend an hour with a master of Latin or Greek grammar, before going on to a master of geometry, or of music. When older, at around fifteen years of age, he would probably go to a school of rhetoric, to learn public speaking. This was particularly important for sons of politicians who hoped to be senators themselves one day.

The time immediately after noon was given over to a siesta, except in winter, and then the average Roman would exercise. The Greek influence after the 2^nd century BC led to an interest in such pursuits as running, wrestling, discus and javelin throwing, boxing, gladiatorial-type contests and strenuous ball games for the young, gentler ones for older people. Emperor Augustus instituted the “Iuventus”, an early version of the Hitler Youth, in which the exercise was very strenuous indeed.

The public baths featured largely in the daily routine, and visits to the baths were family affairs, although the facilities for men and women were usually in separate chambers within the same building. The exercise spaces (“palaestrae”), where the young people tended to congregate, were often next to the baths, and use of the cold outdoor plunge pool (“piscina”) followed the athletic exertions. A large city would have many different bath complexes, reflecting the different social strata within a city. Rome itself had more than 900 baths during the late Empire.

The family, accompanied by its slaves if reasonably well-to-do, would therefore head for the baths after the siesta, and then each family member would go his or her own way, although mixed bathing was known to take place at the baths for the lower classes. The cleansing routine involved the use of pools at every temperature from hot (“caldarium”) to cold (“frigidarium”) and there were also sweating rooms (“laconia”) resembling modern saunas. Instead of soap, Romans used aromatic oils that were scraped from the skin, along with the dirt, by the use of strigils, which were blunt blades.

The baths, especially those for the higher orders, were also places of culture and social congress, and had the functions of modern art galleries, concert halls, libraries and meeting rooms. They also played the role of the modern golf course, in that a lot of business was conducted during the hours spent soaking, relaxing and socialising.

  

So that bathers could keep track of the time, a slave would shout out the hours as they passed, and by the ninth hour most people would have left to go home for dinner (“cena”), which was the only substantial meal of the day.

These were family occasions, with maybe a few guests, and the orgies of popular imagination were very rare occasions indulged in only by the ultra-rich. Three-course meals were typical, with an educated slave reading aloud when conversation flagged. After dinner, entertainment might be provided at a neighbour’s house by professional dancers or acrobats.

Lighting a house at night was inconvenient and expensive, so nightfall was soon followed by bedtime.

© John Welford