Zach

2/8/02

Rome

Did you know that no Roman meal was complete without olives? I will take you 1,000 years ago to a place called Rome. To see how they lived, what they ate, their holidays, and their entertainment and their most important buildings. So Ihope you enjoy this trip into Rome.

In the early days the main food was a kind of porridge. Later people enjoyed lavish feasts that could last several hours. Popular foods include fried chicken, fish, meat, and many kinds of vegetables and fruit. No meal was complete without olives and olive oil. Olive oil was made for frying. In Roman style cooking the use of sauce was important because it contained pepper, mint, and herbs. Other foods were celery, dates, honey, vinegar, and wine. The Romans also ate pasta because it had many spices in it.

The Forum was the most important public area in Rome. The actual forum was an open courtyard where the town's people gathered to discuss the town's affairs or listen to speeches by the governor or his officials (who would stand on a raised platform or rostrum). The forum was also a market for farmers and towns people to buy food spices and herbs. The forum was surrounded buy many eating houses and public toilets.

Another important building was the Basilica. This was the most important building. Here under one roof was located the law courts and town halls. Around the great halls of the Basilica was the Curia. The Curia was the meeting place for the town council. The tabularium was where the Roman documents were kept.

The Romans built simple homes of wood, straw, mud, and roughly laid stones. The main walls of a house were sometimes made like a sandwich; there was the inner wall, a layer of concrete, and an outer layer of brick. The Romans had large saws for cutting stone into building blocks. They had hammers and chisels for sculpting concrete into shapes. They had huge cranes for lifting heavy blocks. For lighter loads, they had a simple rope and pulley. Romans modeled clay and baked it into bricks and roof tiles. The Romans mixed sand, lime, and water to make mortar for joining bricks. They added stone chips to the mortar to make concrete when they needed it.

Taverns would sell snacks and drinks both hot and cold. There would also be butchers and bakers on that same street. There would also be shops that would sell food, spices, and herbs for cooking. In addition, they would sell cloth, wool and silver ware.

On public holidays the people of the countryside would enjoy a trip to the Rome to visit the theater or the circus. The spectators at the show would usually be more interested in their favorite actors than the show itself. In a show about someone being killed, a condemned man would take the place of the actor, and the person would actually get killed on stage. The most popular contests were between the gladiators who would fight to the death. Another popular event was a gladiator vs. an animal when they would fight to the death.

The Romans had a difficult lifestyle comparatively because they did not have all the things we have now, like power. They did not have TV or video games, for entertainment they had to entertain themselves. They had to walk everywhere because they had no cars or bikes. For the rich they sometimes had chariots. So I hope you enjoyed this trip to Roman times.

R.J. UNSTEAD, See Inside a Roman Town.