From Birth to Burial: Everyday Life in Ancient Rome

In many studies about ancient Rome, "ordinary people" are overshadowed by an elite. In this course, the participants acquaint themselves with a broader segment of the population: slaves, freedpersons and freeborn, children and adults, poor and "middle class". We meet them from birth to burial, learn more about their lives and everyday concerns, their joys and sorrows. We discuss questions like: What kind of work did they perform? What did they eat? How did they go to the toilet? How did they tend to their hygiene? What did they do in their spare time? Our knowledge about shifting living conditions of "ordinary people" rests on a wealth of different sources: archaeology, texts, inscriptions, material culture, and different kinds of visual media. The course offers an overview of these sources and discusses ways in which they can be used to interpret the past.