Hebdomas tertia: Watching the PBS Documentary: Roman Empire in the First Century

Salvete, discipuli (hello students). Please say hello to your teacher (Salve, magister!)

The Roman Empire in the First Century - Viewing Guide
Find Guide here: Roman Empire First Century

The films you are watching provide useful information for reading the stories in our textbook, Ecce Romani I. The stories form a continuous narrative about a Roman family and things that happen to various members of the household, including slaves. Topics that occur in the textbook include:

•    Family life

•    Roman dress (for all classes and slaves)

•    Roman roads

•    Travel

•    Aqueducts

•    Domestic and public architecture

•    Slavery

•    Pompeii and the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius

•    The Flavian Amphitheater

•    The Cloaca Maximus

•    Chariot Races

•    Roman baths

•    Politics

•    Armies and army life

•    Roman gods and religious practices

The stories in our book begin in the year after the eruption of the volcano Mt. Vesuvius (79 C.E.) which destroyed Pompeii and neighboring towns in the vicinity of Naples, burying them under around 30 feet of ash and volcanic rock.  These towns stayed buried until the 1700s, when they gradually began to be excavated.  Eventually it became evident that the volcanic covering had preserved almost as much as it had destroyed. This has enabled archeologist and historians to learn an enormous amount about daily life in the ancient Roman world and its material culture. Entire dining rooms had been preserved complete with the food on the table.  Our book relies on many of the discoveries revealed by buried towns to create a plausible picture of one family’s daily life.   Find Pompeii on a map and mark it on one of your blank maps of the Italian peninsula.

The textbook also expects that you are at least a little bit familiar with the history of Rome and its leaders. So, what you learn from “Rome: Engineering Empire” and “The Roman Empire in the First Century” will be helpful as we work through the stories and cultural essays in the textbook.

Note: the sections that deal with English vocabulary that comes from English would work well as warm-ups.  Do not hesitate to ask for the film to be paused if you think you missed something important to answering a question.