The singular _ludus*, "play, game, sport, training," had a wide range of meanings such as "word play," "theatrical performance," "board game," "primary school," and even "gladiator training school" (as in Ludus Magnus). Activities for children and young people in the Empire included hoop rolling and knucklebones (astragali or "jacks"). Girls had dolls made of wood, terracotta, and especially bone and ivory. Ball games include trigon and harpastum. People of all ages played board games, including latrunculi ("Raiders") and XII scripta ("Twelve Marks"). A game referred to as alea (dice) or tabula (the board) may have been similar to backgammon. Dicing as a form of gambling was disapproved of, but was a popular pastime during the festival of the Saturnalia.
After adolescence, most physical training for males was of a military nature. The Campus Martius originally was an exercise field where young men learned horsemanship and warfare. Hunting was also considered an appropriate pastime. According to Plutarch, conservative Romans disapproved of Greek-style athletics that promoted a fine body for its own sake, and condemned Nero's efforts to encourage Greek-style athletic games. Some women trained as gymnasts and dancers, and a rare few as female gladiators. The "Bikini Girls" mosaic shows young women engaging in routines comparable to rhythmic gymnastics. Women were encouraged to maintain health through activities such as playing ball, swimming, walking, or reading aloud (as a breathing exercise).
Main article: Clothing in ancient Rome
Further information: Roman hairstyles, Roman jewelry, and Cosmetics in ancient Rome
In a status-conscious society like that of the Romans, clothing and personal adornment indicated the etiquette of interacting with the wearer. Wearing the correct clothing reflected a society in good order. There is little direct evidence of how Romans dressed in daily life, since portraiture may show the subject in clothing with symbolic value, and surviving textiles are rare.
The toga was the distinctive national garment of the male citizen, but it was heavy and impractical, worn mainly for conducting political or court business and religious rites. It was a "vast expanse" of semi-circular white wool that could not be put on and draped correctly without assistance. The drapery became more intricate and structured over time. The toga praetexta, with a purple or purplish-red stripe representing inviolability, was worn by children who had not come of age, curule magistrates, and state priests. Only the emperor could wear an all-purple toga (toga picta).
Ordinary clothing was dark or colourful. The basic garment for all Romans, regardless of gender or wealth, was the simple sleeved tunic, with length differing by wearer. The tunics of poor people and labouring slaves were made from coarse wool in natural, dull shades; finer tunics were made of lightweight wool or linen. A man of the senatorial or equestrian order wore a tunic with two purple stripes (clavi) woven vertically: the wider the stripe, the higher the wearer's status. Other garments could be layered over the tunic. Common male attire also included cloaks and in some regions trousers. In the 2nd century, emperors and elite men are often portrayed wearing the pallium, an originally Greek mantle; women are also portrayed in the pallium. Tertullian considered the pallium an appropriate garment both for Christians, in contrast to the toga, and for educated people.
Roman clothing styles changed over time. In the Dominate, clothing worn by both soldiers and bureaucrats became highly decorated with geometrical patterns, stylized plant motifs, and in more elaborate examples, human or animal figures. Courtiers of the later Empire wore elaborate silk robes. The militarization of Roman society, and the waning of urban life, affected fashion: heavy military-style belts were worn by bureaucrats as well as soldiers, and the toga was abandoned, replaced by the pallium as a garment embodying social unity.
Main articles: Roman art and Art collection in ancient Rome
Greek art had a profound influence on Roman art. Public art---including sculpture, monuments such as victory columns or triumphal arches, and the iconography on coins---is often analysed for historical or ideological significance. In the private sphere, artistic objects were made for religious dedications, funerary commemoration, domestic use, and commerce. The wealthy advertised their appreciation of culture through artwork and decorative arts in their homes. Despite the value placed on art, even famous artists were of low social status, partly as they worked with their hands.
Main article: Roman portraiture
Portraiture, which survives mainly in sculpture, was the most copious form of imperial art. Portraits during the Augustan period utilize classical proportions, evolving later into a mixture of realism and idealism. Republican portraits were characterized by verism, but as early as the 2nd century BC, Greek heroic nudity was adopted for conquering generals. Imperial portrait sculptures may model a mature head atop a youthful nude or semi-nude body with perfect musculature. Clothed in the toga or military regalia, the body communicates rank or role, not individual characteristics. Women of the emperor's family were often depicted as goddesses or divine personifications.
Portraiture in painting is represented primarily by the Fayum mummy portraits, which evoke Egyptian and Roman traditions of commemorating the dead with realistic painting. Marble portrait sculpture were painted, but traces have rarely survived.
Main articles: Roman sculpture and Ancient Roman sarcophagi
Examples of Roman sculpture survive abundantly, though often in damaged or fragmentary condition, including freestanding statuary in marble, bronze and terracotta, and reliefs from public buildings and monuments. Niches in amphitheatres were originally filled with statues, as were formal gardens. Temples housed cult images of deities, often by famed sculptors.
Elaborately carved marble and limestone sarcophagi are characteristic of the 2nd to 4th centuries. Sarcophagus relief has been called the "richest single source of Roman iconography," depicting mythological scenes or Jewish/Christian imagery as well as the deceased's life.
Initial Roman painting drew from Etruscan and Greek models and techniques. Examples of Roman paintings can be found in palaces, catacombs and villas. Much of what is known of Roman painting is from the interior decoration of private homes, particularly as preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius. In addition to decorative borders and panels with geometric or vegetative motifs, wall painting depicts scenes from mythology and theatre, landscapes and gardens, spectacles, everyday life, and erotic art.
Main article: Roman mosaic
Mosaics are among the most enduring of Roman decorative arts, and are found on floors and other architectural features. The most common is the tessellated mosaic, formed from uniform pieces (tesserae) of materials such as stone and glass. Opus sectile is a related technique in which flat stone, usually coloured marble, is cut precisely into shapes from which geometric or figurative patterns are formed. This more difficult technique became especially popular for luxury surfaces in the 4th century (eg the Basilica of Junius Bassus).
Figurative mosaics share many themes with painting, and in some cases use almost identical compositions. Geometric patterns and mythological scenes occur throughout the Empire. In North Africa, a particularly rich source of mosaics, homeowners often chose scenes of life on their estates, hunting, agriculture, and local wildlife. Plentiful and major examples of Roman mosaics come also from present-day Turkey (particularly the (Antioch mosaics), Italy, southern France, Spain, and Portugal.
Further information: Ancient Roman pottery and Roman glass
Decorative arts for luxury consumers included fine pottery, silver and bronze vessels and implements, and glassware. Pottery manufacturing was economically important, as were the glass and metalworking industries. Imports stimulated new regional centres of production. Southern Gaul became a leading producer of the finer red-gloss pottery (terra sigillata) that was a major trade good in 1st-century Europe. Glassblowing was regarded by the Romans as originating in Syria in the 1st century BC, and by the 3rd century, Egypt and the Rhineland had become noted for fine glass.
Main articles: Theatre of ancient Rome and Music of ancient Rome
In Roman tradition, borrowed from the Greeks, literary theatre was performed by all-male troupes that used face masks with exaggerated facial expressions to portray emotion. Female roles were played by men in drag (_travesti_). Roman literary theatre tradition is particularly well represented in Latin literature by the tragedies of Seneca.
More popular than literary theatre was the genre-defying mimus theatre, which featured scripted scenarios with free improvisation, risqué language and sex scenes, action sequences, and political satire, along with dance, juggling, acrobatics, tightrope walking, striptease, and dancing bears. Unlike literary theatre, mimus was played without masks, and encouraged stylistic realism. Female roles were performed by women. Mimus was related to pantomimus, an early form of story ballet that contained no spoken dialogue but rather a sung libretto, often mythological, either tragic or comic.
Although sometimes regarded as foreign, music and dance existed in Rome from earliest times. Music was customary at funerals, and the tibia, a woodwind instrument, was played at sacrifices. Song (carmen) was integral to almost every social occasion. Music was thought to reflect the orderliness of the cosmos. Various woodwinds and "brass" instruments were played, as were stringed instruments such as the cithara, and percussion. The cornu, a long tubular metal wind instrument, was used for military signals and on parade. These instruments spread throughout the provinces and are widely depicted in Roman art. The hydraulic pipe organ (hydraulis) was "one of the most significant technical and musical achievements of antiquity", and accompanied gladiator games and events in the amphitheatre. Although certain dances were seen at times as non-Roman or unmanly, dancing was embedded in religious rituals of archaic Rome. Ecstatic dancing was a feature of the mystery religions, particularly the cults of Cybele and Isis. In the secular realm, dancing girls from Syria and Cadiz were extremely popular.
Like gladiators, entertainers were legally infames, technically free but little better than slaves. "Stars", however, could enjoy considerable wealth and celebrity, and mingled socially and often sexually with the elite. Performers supported each other by forming guilds, and several memorials for theatre members survive. Theatre and dance were often condemned by Christian polemicists in the later Empire.
Estimates of the average literacy rate range from 5 to over 30%. The Roman obsession with documents and inscriptions indicates the value placed on the written word. Laws and edicts were posted as well as read out. Illiterate Roman subjects could have a government scribe _(scriba)* read or write their official documents for them. The military produced extensive written records. The Babylonian Talmud declared "if all seas were ink, all reeds were pen, all skies parchment, and all men scribes, they would be unable to set down the full scope of the Roman government's concerns."
Numeracy was necessary for commerce. Slaves were numerate and literate in significant numbers; some were highly educated. Graffiti and low-quality inscriptions with misspellings and solecisms indicate casual literacy among non-elites.
The Romans had an extensive priestly archive, and inscriptions appear throughout the Empire in connection with votives dedicated by ordinary people, as well as "magic spells" (eg the Greek Magical Papyri).
Books were expensive, since each copy had to be written out on a papyrus roll (volumen) by scribes. The codex---pages bound to a spine---was still a novelty in the 1st century, but by the end of the 3rd century was replacing the volumen. Commercial book production was established by the late Republic, and by the 1st century certain neighbourhoods of Rome and Western provincial cities were known for their bookshops. The quality of editing varied wildly, and plagiarism or forgery were common, since there was no copyright law.
Collectors amassed personal libraries, and a fine library was part of the cultivated leisure (otium) associated with the villa lifestyle. Significant collections might attract "in-house" scholars, and an individual benefactor might endow a community with a library (as Pliny the Younger did in Comum). Imperial libraries were open to users on a limited basis, and represented a literary canon. Books considered subversive might be publicly burned, and Domitian crucified copyists for reproducing works deemed treasonous.
Literary texts were often shared aloud at meals or with reading groups. Public readings (recitationes) expanded from the 1st through the 3rd century, giving rise to "consumer literature" for entertainment. Illustrated books, including erotica, were popular, but are poorly represented by extant fragments.
Literacy began to decline during the Crisis of the Third Century. The emperor Julian banned Christians from teaching the classical curriculum, but the Church Fathers and other Christians adopted Latin and Greek literature, philosophy and science in biblical interpretation. As the Western Roman Empire declined, reading became rarer even for those within the Church hierarchy, although it continued in the Byzantine Empire.
Main article: Education in ancient Rome
Traditional Roman education was moral and practical. Stories were meant to instil Roman values (mores maiorum). Parents were expected to act as role models, and working parents passed their skills to their children, who might also enter apprenticeships. Young children were attended by a pedagogue, usually a Greek slave or former slave, who kept the child safe, taught self-discipline and public behaviour, attended class and helped with tutoring.
Formal education was available only to families who could pay for it; lack of state support contributed to low literacy. Primary education in reading, writing, and arithmetic might take place at home if parents hired or bought a teacher. Other children attended "public" schools organized by a schoolmaster (ludimagister) paid by parents. Vernae (homeborn slave children) might share in-home or public schooling. Boys and girls received primary education generally from ages 7 to 12, but classes were not segregated by grade or age. Most schools employed corporal punishment. For the socially ambitious, education in Greek as well as Latin was necessary. Schools became more numerous during the Empire, increasing educational opportunities.
At the age of 14, upperclass males made their rite of passage into adulthood, and began to learn leadership roles through mentoring from a senior family member or family friend. Higher education was provided by grammatici or rhetores. The _grammaticus_ or "grammarian" taught mainly Greek and Latin literature, with history, geography, philosophy or mathematics treated as explications of the text. With the rise of Augustus, contemporary Latin authors such as Virgil and Livy also became part of the curriculum. The rhetor was a teacher of oratory or public speaking. The art of speaking (ars dicendi) was highly prized, and eloquentia ("speaking ability, eloquence") was considered the "glue" of civilized society. Rhetoric was not so much a body of knowledge (though it required a command of the literary canon) as it was a mode of expression that distinguished those who held social power. The ancient model of rhetorical training---"restraint, coolness under pressure, modesty, and good humour"---endured into the 18th century as a Western educational ideal.
In Latin, illiteratus could mean both "unable to read and write" and "lacking in cultural awareness or sophistication." Higher education promoted career advancement. Urban elites throughout the Empire shared a literary culture imbued with Greek educational ideals (paideia). Hellenistic cities sponsored schools of higher learning to express cultural achievement. Young Roman men often went abroad to study rhetoric and philosophy, mostly to Athens. The curriculum in the East was more likely to include music and physical training. On the Hellenistic model, Vespasian endowed chairs of grammar, Latin and Greek rhetoric, and philosophy at Rome, and gave secondary teachers special exemptions from taxes and legal penalties. In the Eastern Empire, Berytus (present-day Beirut) was unusual in offering a Latin education, and became famous for its school of Roman law. The cultural movement known as the Second Sophistic (1st--3rd century AD) promoted the assimilation of Greek and Roman social, educational, and esthetic values.
Literate women ranged from cultured aristocrats to girls trained to be calligraphers and scribes. The ideal woman in Augustan love poetry was educated and well-versed in the arts. Education seems to have been standard for daughters of the senatorial and equestrian orders. An educated wife was an asset for the socially ambitious household.
Main article: Latin literature
See also: Latin poetry
Literature under Augustus, along with that of the Republic, has been viewed as the "Golden Age" of Latin literature, embodying classical ideals. The three most influential Classical Latin poets---Virgil, Horace, and Ovid---belong to this period. Virgil's Aeneid was a national epic in the manner of the Homeric epics of Greece. Horace perfected the use of Greek lyric metres in Latin verse. Ovid's erotic poetry was enormously popular, but ran afoul of Augustan morality, contributing to his exile. Ovid's Metamorphoses wove together Greco-Roman mythology; his versions of Greek myths became a primary source of later classical mythology, and his work was hugely influential on medieval literature. Latin writers were immersed in Greek literary traditions, and adapted its forms and content, but Romans regarded satire as a genre in which they surpassed the Greeks. The early Principate produced the satirists Persius and Juvenal.
The mid-1st through mid-2nd century has conventionally been called the "Silver Age" of Latin literature. The three leading writers---Seneca, Lucan, and Petronius---committed suicide after incurring Nero's displeasure. Epigrammatist and social observer Martial and the epic poet Statius, whose poetry collection Silvae influenced Renaissance literature, wrote during the reign of Domitian. Other authors of the Silver Age included Pliny the Elder, author of the encyclopedic _Natural History_; his nephew, Pliny the Younger; and the historian Tacitus.
The principal Latin prose author of the Augustan age is the historian Livy, whose account of Rome's founding became the most familiar version in modern-era literature. Among Imperial historians who wrote in Greek are Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Josephus, and Cassius Dio. Other major Greek authors of the Empire include the biographer Plutarch, the geographer Strabo, and the rhetorician and satirist Lucian. The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius is a primary source for imperial biography.
From the 2nd to the 4th centuries, Christian authors were in active dialogue with the classical tradition. Tertullian was one of the earliest prose authors with a distinctly Christian voice. After the conversion of Constantine, Latin literature is dominated by the Christian perspective. In the late 4th century, Jerome produced the Latin translation of the Bible that became authoritative as the Vulgate. Augustine in The City of God against the Pagans builds a vision of an eternal, spiritual Rome, a new imperium sine fine that will outlast the collapsing Empire.
In contrast to the unity of Classical Latin, the literary esthetic of late antiquity has a tessellated quality. A continuing interest in the religious traditions of Rome prior to Christian dominion is found into the 5th century, with the Saturnalia of Macrobius and The Marriage of Philology and Mercury of Martianus Capella. Prominent Latin poets of late antiquity include Ausonius, Prudentius, Claudian, and Sidonius Apollinaris.
Main articles: Religion in ancient Rome and Roman imperial cult
See also: History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Early Christianity, Religious persecution in the Roman Empire, and Christianization of the Roman Empire as diffusion of innovation
The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, and attributed their success to their collective piety (pietas) and good relations with the gods (pax deorum). The archaic religion believed to have come from the earliest kings of Rome was the foundation of the mos maiorum, "the way of the ancestors", central to Roman identity. The priesthoods of the state religion were filled from the same pool of men who held public office, and the Pontifex Maximus was the emperor.
Roman religion was practical and contractual, based on the principle of do ut des, "I give that you might give." Religion depended on knowledge and the correct practice of prayer, ritual, and sacrifice, not on faith or dogma, although Latin literature preserves learned speculation on the nature of the divine. For ordinary Romans, religion was a part of daily life. Each home had a household shrine to offer prayers and libations to the family's domestic deities. Neighbourhood shrines and sacred places such as springs and groves dotted the city. The Roman calendar was structured around religious observances; as many as 135 days were devoted to religious festivals and games (ludi).
In the wake of the Republic's collapse, state religion adapted to support the new regime. Augustus justified one-man rule with a vast programme of religious revivalism and reform. Public vows now were directed at the wellbeing of the emperor. So-called "emperor worship" expanded on a grand scale the traditional veneration of the ancestral dead and of the Genius, the divine tutelary of every individual. Upon death, an emperor could be made a state divinity (divus) by vote of the Senate. The Roman imperial cult, influenced by Hellenistic ruler cult, became one of the major ways Rome advertised its presence in the provinces and cultivated shared cultural identity. Cultural precedent in the Eastern provinces facilitated a rapid dissemination of Imperial cult, extending as far as Najran, in present-day Saudi Arabia. Rejection of the state religion became tantamount to treason. This was the context for Rome's conflict with Christianity, which Romans variously regarded as a form of atheism and _superstitio_.
The Romans are known for the great number of deities they honoured. As the Romans extended their territories, their general policy was to promote stability among diverse peoples by absorbing local deities and cults rather than eradicating them, building temples that framed local theology within Roman religion. Inscriptions throughout the Empire record the side-by-side worship of local and Roman deities, including dedications made by Romans to local gods. By the height of the Empire, numerous syncretic or reinterpreted gods were cultivated, among them cults of Cybele, Isis, Epona, and of solar gods such as Mithras and Sol Invictus, found as far north as Roman Britain. Because Romans had never been obligated to cultivate one god or cult only, religious tolerance was not an issue.
Mystery religions, which offered initiates salvation in the afterlife, were a matter of personal choice, practiced in addition to one's family rites and public religion. The mysteries, however, involved exclusive oaths and secrecy, which conservative Romans viewed with suspicion as characteristic of "magic", conspiracy (coniuratio), and subversive activity. Thus, sporadic and sometimes brutal attempts were made to suppress religionists. In Gaul, the power of the druids was checked, first by forbidding Roman citizens to belong to the order, and then by banning druidism altogether. However, Celtic traditions were reinterpreted within the context of Imperial theology, and a new Gallo-Roman religion coalesced; its capital at the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls established precedent for Western cult as a form of Roman-provincial identity.
The monotheistic rigour of Judaism posed difficulties for Roman policy that led at times to compromise and granting of special exemptions. Tertullian noted that Judaism, unlike Christianity, was considered a religio licita, "legitimate religion." The Jewish--Roman wars resulted from political as well as religious conflicts; the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD led to the sacking of the temple and the dispersal of Jewish political power (see Jewish diaspora).
Christianity emerged in Roman Judaea as a Jewish religious sect in the 1st century and gradually spread out of Jerusalem throughout the Empire and beyond. Imperially authorized persecutions were limited and sporadic, with martyrdoms occurring most often under the authority of local officials. Tacitus reports that after the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, the emperor attempted to deflect blame from himself onto the Christians. A major persecution occurred under the emperor Domitian and a persecution in 177 took place at Lugdunum, the Gallo-Roman religious capital. A letter from Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia, describes his persecution and executions of Christians. The Decian persecution of 246--251 seriously threatened the Christian Church, but ultimately strengthened Christian defiance. Diocletian undertook the most severe persecution of Christians, from 303 to 311.
From the 2nd century onward, the Church Fathers condemned the diverse religions practiced throughout the Empire as "pagan". In the early 4th century, Constantine I became the first emperor to convert to Christianity. He supported the Church financially and made laws that favored it, but the new religion was already successful, having moved from less than 50,000 to over a million adherents between 150 and 250. Constantine and his successors banned public sacrifice while tolerating other traditional practices. Constantine never engaged in a purge, there were no "pagan martyrs" during his reign, and people who had not converted to Christianity remained in important positions at court. Julian attempted to revive traditional public sacrifice and Hellenistic religion, but met Christian resistance and lack of popular support.
Christians of the 4th century believed the conversion of Constantine showed that Christianity had triumphed over paganism (in Heaven) and little further action besides such rhetoric was necessary. Thus, their focus was heresy. According to Peter Brown, "In most areas, polytheists were not molested, and apart from a few ugly incidents of local violence, Jewish communities also enjoyed a century of stable, even privileged, existence". There were anti-pagan laws, but they were not generally enforced; through the 6th century, centers of paganism existed in Athens, Gaza, Alexandria, and elsewhere.
According to recent Jewish scholarship, toleration of the Jews was maintained under Christian emperors. This did not extend to heretics: Theodosius I made multiple laws and acted against alternate forms of Christianity, and heretics were persecuted and killed by both the government and the church throughout Late Antiquity. Non-Christians were not persecuted until the 6th century. Rome's original religious hierarchy and ritual influenced Christian forms, and many pre-Christian practices survived in Christian festivals and local traditions.
Main article: Legacy of the Roman Empire
Several states claimed to be the Roman Empire's successor. The Holy Roman Empire was established in 800 when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as Roman emperor. The Russian Tsardom, as inheritor of the Byzantine Empire's Orthodox Christian tradition, counted itself the Third Rome (Constantinople having been the second), in accordance with the concept of translatio imperii. The last Eastern Roman titular, Andreas Palailogos, sold the title of Emperor of Constantinople to Charles VIII of France; upon Charles' death, Palaiologos reclaimed the title and on his death granted it to Ferdinand and Isabella and their successors, who never used it. When the Ottomans, who based their state on the Byzantine model, took Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed II established his capital there and claimed to sit on the throne of the Roman Empire. He even launched an invasion of Otranto with the purpose of re-uniting the Empire, which was aborted by his death. In the medieval West, "Roman" came to mean the church and the Catholic Pope. The Greek form Romaioi remained attached to the Greek-speaking Christian population of the Byzantine Empire and is still used by Greeks.
The Roman Empire's control of the Italian peninsula influenced Italian nationalism and the unification of Italy (Risorgimento) in 1861. Roman imperialism was claimed by fascist ideology, particularly by the Italian Empire and Nazi Germany.
In the United States, the founders were educated in the classical tradition, and used classical models for landmarks in Washington, D.C.. The founders saw Athenian democracy and Roman republicanism as models for the mixed constitution, but regarded the emperor as a figure of tyranny.
- Outline of ancient Rome
- List of political systems in France
- List of Roman dynasties
- Daqin ("Great Qin"), the ancient Chinese name for the Roman Empire; see also Sino-Roman relations
- Imperial Italy
- Byzantine Empire under the Justinian dynasty