Education

School was taught in Latin, but most Romano children spoke Celtic from day to day. Most girls were not taught -- it was too expensive and considered a waste on girls. Boys were not taught singing/instrument playing -- that was considered fit for salves only (and girls!).

The school year began in March after the annual holiday of Minerva -- the special goddess of school children. Every ninth day was a holiday. Even after Christianity took root this date was still observed.

Women

Rich families considered it a tragedy for more than one daughter to be born. Girls were taught to dance, sing, play the lyre, and do beautiful embroidery. They learned from their mother how to cook, spin and weave, and how to run a household; also how to direct slaves. By the age of 14 they were considered ready for marriage. Marriage was arranged.

Chalk to whiten neck and forehead, red ochre for lips and cheeks, powered antimony or ashes to darken eyebrows. Hot tongs to curl hair. Hair was always long and parted in the middle.

Bright yellow cloak, white wool tunic, flame-colored veil. The ceremony was held in front of the family altar. There were ten witnesses, five from each family.

Male, horseback. Female, either a gig (two wheels, two ponies, seated three people), or the really rich used litters carried by four slaves. Armed slaves accompanied the family for safety.

Cities & Towns

Towns were walled. Most towns had a forum, basilica (town hall & law court). Shops opened onto streets. Almost everyone in towns were lawyers -- Romans respected the law.

Plays and pageants were held in the forum or open arenas with wooden or stone benches.

Public baths were a major form of entertainment. They had heated floors. Men and women undressed in different rooms, and walked through a series of five rooms, which got hotter and hotter until the sweat dripped off them, which they then scraped off with a sickle-like knife, and oiled themselves with light oil before immersing themselves in the bath-proper. The baths had restaurants, meeting rooms, and exercise rooms.

A Country Villa

Triclinia. Use unknown

Cavedium: Cloister

Atrium: central hall - household gods were kept here

Bibliothedra: Library 

Basilica: Office

Vestibule: Foyer/entry hall

Country villas were large, covering the size of two hockey rinks. Constructed of stone, they were covered in stucco (lower half), and wattle and daub (upper half). The roof was covered in red curly tiles. Outbuildings (stables and barns) used thatched straw roofs.

Villas were often sited on the side of south facing slopes to catch the sun. Coincidentally they often had a good view. They had large gardens and used very little furniture, mostly folding stools and cushions, and large chests with locks. Sometimes they had cupboards attached to walls. Men reclined on couches at the dinner table. Women and children were allowed to sit on chairs with no backs, and use an occasional table to hold their food.

Bedrooms had more furniture. There were stools for children to climb into bed, chests, shelves and cupboards. The beds were very high.

Windows had glass from the third century onwards.

One wing of the villa was the slaves' quarters, and had a separate entry.

Villas and houses were heated by the hypercaust.  This was a system consisting of a central wood-burning furnace which sent heated air under the raised floors of the building to emerge into individual rooms via vents. The furnace(s) were also used to heat water for the family baths.

Most of the public rooms had painted figures of gods and goddesses on the walls, and mosaics on the floor in various patterns, or pictures.

Arthurian Britain -3 (Continue)