Customer Reviews

Life, Death, and Entertainment in the Roman Empire

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This book discusses aspects of Roman life that are frequently difficult to research... such as the kinds of toys Roman children enjoyed or the types of birth control that were popular. It covers such subjects as "feeding the city" and "entertaining the populace" as well as religion and other expected items. The work comprises a sweeping approach to "real life stuff" in a framework that is scholarly (with plenty of documentation) but highly entertaining. It's the kind of book I've been wanting to own for years.

First off, this book is a collection of seven very long essays by different experts. The essays deal with the minutest details of Roman life, ranging from religious practice to construction to gladiatorial combat and criminal execution. Not all essays are created equal, and there are two in here that I found rather dry, but perhaps that is because I couldn't care less about the specifics of amphitheater construction. The others were phenomenal, and even the "boring" ones contain excellent and useful information.

I read L,D,&E (as I have begun to call it) for an undergraduate class in Roman History and had to write a critical review-type paper about it. I have to say I actually enjoyed the assignment. The book was, overall, excellent. It features real-life "snapshots" of different aspects of Roman life, and unlike many books about Ancient Rome, it doesn't focus solely on the upper classes. It also doesn't spend any time discussing politics or history or "great men" of the times, so if you're looking for that, go elsewhere. This book is NOT an introduction to imperial Rome -- you'll need to have one of those under your belt already -- but it IS the most wonderful, complete, and readable supplementary material available. It really fills in the gaps and answers questions you didn't know you had, giving you a vastly more complete picture of Rome under the Emperors.

Nothing further to add, but wanted to point out that this work is not as slanted politically correct as Encolp in his review above make it seem. The book is much more objective, all the pseudo-intellectual babbling is purely the reviewer's preferred conlcusions using the data in the book as a springboard. I just can't help wonder why he is so disturbed by so-called "manly types" (or what he means by that).

To me this is a must-buy book. We all know to read Mommsen for classical pre-imperial Rome; to read Gibbon for Imperial Rome; but the life on the street remains uncovered. For that, you need books like this one. Yet this one covers certain facts you don't find well-covered elsewhere. For example, there was a recurring plague which hit Rome, and it lasted for many years. The Romans were superstitious, always; so to them, plagues and pogroms went hand-in-hand. Usually, pogroms against Christians. When Constantine took over, the (alleged) Christians were sponsoring the pogroms. Same superstition, though.

In short, the psychology of being a Roman, of living there, is an assumed knowledge by the scholars, but most of us haven't spent our lives studying all the inscriptions and Latin documents. We've seen Gladiator, 300 (though about the Greeks, is still very much part of Roman ethos), and of course all those inaccurate Bible movies (including all the later ones, like Mel Gibson's Passion). So that's our idea of the culture. So that's why we need this book.

There are many other good ones. This, should be in your library of them. If you're interested in what your library should contain, download [...] ; and once you've downloaded it, go to the Chrono Chart section (link at the bottom of the first page of the doc). There are many weblinks to the kinds of material on Ancient Rome you can find on the internet, including some books sold right here at Amazon. I'm continually updating that section for new links, in an attempt to provide a comprehensive link bibliography to every Roman Emperor from Augustus forward, plus all the classical historians. You'd be surprised how much web information you can get which is free; and good books like here at Amazon, which are not free but worth buying. This one here, is worth buying.

PS: I'm doing videos on Ephesians1REPARSED.doc in my 'brainouty' channel on Youtube, but those videos are technical and for most people, boring. They show how Paul prophetically tracks then-future Roman history via Greek meter in Ephesians 1:3-14. Hence the links to Roman history, syllable by syllable (1 syllable=1 year, in his meter, just as it does in Moses, Isaiah, Daniel). I won't be finished writing that document for some years. So now you know why the Chrono Chart has so many links to Roman history on the net.

Sound familiar? Does what goes around -- come around
again? Are the malls the 21st century version of
the Roman baths? Are the Nascar racetracks the 21st
century version of the chariot races? Are our
football stadiums the 21st century version of the
Colosseum? This book does not present its themes
in these terms, but one cannot help but think about
these things as one reads it -- in tandem with reading
the Roman writers who satirized or caught in verse the
goings-on in their own times: Catullus, Martial,
Petronius, Juvenal.
Besides the "Introduction" by David S. Porter, there
are 3 large Parts to the division of the book. Part
I is titled: "Social Structures and Demography". Within
this section are informative and highly interesting essays
on "The Roman Family," "Elite Male Identity in the Roman
Empire," and "Roman Demography." Part II is titled:
"Religion." There is only one essay in this Part --
"Roman Religion: Ideas and Action." Part III is titled:
"Bread and Circuses" [the famous phrase used to describe
how the rulers and the "elite" kept the masses under their
control -- by giving them doles of food or by providing
them with mass entertainments to keep their minds off
the fact of their gruelling lives and that they did
not lead the "good life" that the "elites" were leading --
sound familiar?]. In this Part are the essays: "Feeding
the City: The Organization, Operation,and Scale of the
Supply System for Rome," "Amusing the Masses: Buildings
for Entertainment and Leisure in the Roman World," and
"Entertainers in the Roman World." Since our modern
era also seems to be so much into shallow entertainment
and pleasures, perhaps the titles of the subsections of
this last chapter will be intriguing: Actors and Athletes.
Chariot Racing.[the factions and their fans sound like
ancient Roman predecessors to the WWF and Nascar
fanatics...] Gladiators, Beast Hunts, and Executions.
[well, we haven't "progressed" in our tastes and
"sophistication" that far yet...but, who knows? ...]
All in all, this is a very interesting, insightful,
intriguing -- as well as provoking book. The
section that interested me the most was the one
on the Roman emphasis and hang-up on male identity -
what was considered manly, and what was not. It isn't,
as if that is one of the main obsessions in our own
times in the U.S. of A. , of course. And what are
all the "manly" types contributing to the betterment,
stability, and nobility of our present society and culture?
It gives one pause, for reflection.

This is an interesting, well-written book that would be a good edition to the library of any student of Roman history as well as being a good resource for writers of historical fiction.