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Roman Society
1. A Very Peculiar Society
Premodern Rome
Imagine a society without a police force, without banks, hospitals, universities, churches, public
schools, independent media, labor unions, professional societies, or prisons; a society without factories, businesses, and governmental bureaucracies—and where the few industries and workshops that
did exist were staffed mostly by ex-slaves and slaves, not by free-born men and women. Would it be
possible for such an uncomplicated, minimalist society to function? Imagine further that the household, not the individual, was the foundation of this society; where fathers were empowered by law
and custom to discipline and, in extreme cases, put to death their misbehaving children, even adult
children; where, in the case of divorce, children stayed with their father, and their mother returned to
her father’s household if he was still alive; where the same fathers could force their married children
to divorce when they thought it appropriate, and who remained to their deaths in full legal ownership of the property of their sons, their grandsons, and great-grandsons (if they had them), and in
most instances their married daughters’ dowries.
Economically, agriculture generated most of the income for all classes and yet provided comparatively small surpluses for leisure or public works, at least compared to the productivity of modern
developed societies. In this society 85 to 90 percent of all men, women, and children, old and young
were engaged in some way in farm work throughout their lives. They had no choice. Except in a few
cities which had the capacity and wealth to import food from the surrounding countryside and from
overseas, most people consumed most of what they produced. At its height, this society was heavily
dependent on slave labor for the functioning of its economy. Politics, law, and warfare were honored
over medicine, business, entrepreneurship, commerce, art, technology and teaching. In fact, most
of these latter occupations were scorned and left to slaves and freedmen. Specialized or technical
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knowledge, except for knowledge of the law, was thought to enslave rather than liberate. Innovation
was spurned or regarded with a good deal of suspicion; the term novae res, new things, novelties,
also meant revolution. In terms of military technology this society was not markedly superior to
its neighbors. Geographically it was vulnerable to attack from multiple quarters. Nevertheless, this
strangely structured, poorly located, economically underdeveloped society—Rome—managed to
conquer and then administer for a thousand years first Italy, then the Mediterranean, and finally large
portions of Europe and the Middle East.
Previous chapters made the case that Rome’s political culture was the main source of its strength,
as was indeed the truth, but in this and in the following chapter the argument will be made that
Rome’s political culture rested in turn on powerful social foundations of the household and religion.
In many respects the characteristics of the society described above would fit most polis type
societies of the ancient world. As was the case in other polis societies the household, not the individual, was the foundation of Roman society. Yet even by polis standards the Roman household
was extraordinary. Its solidity and permanence, its ability to discipline its members and produce,
century after century, citizens who fitted the needs of the Roman state, were probably unequalled in
any other polis. Roman religion, too, was in many respects identical in form to the religion of other
poleis, yet the intertwining of religion and politics was as original a creation of Rome as was the
Roman household.
Rome as a Household
The idea of family ran deep in Roman culture. Romans thought of themselves as members of a
household, and the city of Rome as their family home which they co-inhabited with its gods. As
authority-laden fathers presided over their households, so did Roman magistrates preside over their
citizen-family state. Reflecting on this aspect of Roman political culture, Cicero noted that “without
imperium neither a household (domus), nor a city, nor a people, can stand” (de legibus 3.1).
For Romans the world was divided between domi et militiae, the sacred realm of the city conceived of as household (domi) where peace reigned and they were safe under the protection of their
household gods, and the world outside the city (militiae) where it was either necessary or at least
legitimate to bear arms. Weapons could not be carried in the city any more than they could in a
home. What was the point? Either the Roman was at home, literally, and therefore safe among kin,
or safe in his city-home among fellow citizens.
the family hearth of rome By visiting the Forum, a stranger to Rome would have easily
found evidence for the belief that Romans thought of themselves as a family. There, in a prominent
position, was a designated state “family” hearth in the Temple of Vesta where the hearth-fire burned
continually, attended by six housekeepers, the Vestal Virgins, who had responsibility for seeing that
the flame never went out. They lived in a large, elegant house attached to the temple. The remains
of both house and temple can still be seen. The temple did not have a statue of the goddess, only the
fire, the flame of the fire itself being Vesta. Deep inside the temple, concealed from anyone’s view
but that of the priestesses, was the Palladium, the statue of Athena believed to have been brought
from Troy by Aeneas, as well as other sacred objects such as the Penates, the gods of the household’s
(in this instance, the city’s) food supply.
The cult of Vesta was the very heart of the state religion, and Vesta’s presence guaranteed Rome’s
permanence; she could not be moved from her hearth without the destruction of the state. When the
idea of abandoning Rome after its sack in 390 b.c. by the Celts was proposed, it was squelched by
the dictator Furius Camillus who declared that the “Vesta’s eternal fires” could not be moved and
chapter 5. roman society Relief of the Temple of Vesta
Relief on the Temple of Vesta in the
rum where the Vestal Virgins tended the
that represented the goddess Vesta. The
was the designated “family” hearth-fire of
Roman state.
• 109
Fofire
fire
the
the “Vestals have but one dwelling place”—Rome
(Livy 5.52).
2. The Household: The Foundation of the Roman State
If Rome was thought of as a household, the
Roman household functioned something like
a state. It had a powerful ruling magistrate, the
paterfamilias, and an associate ruler, his wife,
the materfamilias. Like a state, the household
had its own constitution, enforceable rules of
behavior, and religious rituals. For serious matters a council of family members and friends
was assembled and consulted. The household
(domus), says Cicero, is the institution “in which
everything is held in common; it is the foundation (principium) of the city, the seedbed or nursery
of the state (seminarium rei publicae)” (de officiis 1.54). Reflecting on what constituted a healthy
state, Cicero put the household at the head of the state’s list of needs. A healthy res publica, he
declared, needed
legal marriages, legitimate children, and the dedication of the household to the Lares and Penates
[the household gods] so that all members might have access to their common possessions as well
as the use of their own private things. It is not possible to live well except in a good commonwealth [res publica]; nothing is calculated to producing greater happiness than a well-constituted
state [civitas].” (de re publica 5.7)
“The state is held together by marriages” said an anonymous writer expressing a commonplace in
Roman rhetoric. He continued: “Marriages in turn bond peoples and children, establish the succession to estates and the degrees of inheritance” (decl. min. 249.29).
terms: familia and domus The term familia was used by Romans to refer to all persons and
properties that came under the legal power (patria potestas) of the head of the family. Among the
persons who were included were the householder’s wife and children as well as dependent members
of the household not necessarily related to him biologically, such as freedmen and freedwomen,
slaves, adopted children, alumni or nurslings, foundlings, or foster children. Confusingly, the term
familia could also be used just for the nuclear family of husband, wife and children. Even more confusingly it was also used to designate a group of household slaves. Because the Latin term domus
was also used to designate the property and persons of a Roman household, it will be used here to
avoid confusion with the English term family.
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A Shortage of Names
The lack of emphasis on individuality in the Roman household is brought home by the poverty of
Roman personal names. There were only 18 first names (praenomina) such as Aulus, Gnaeus,
Manius, Sextus, or Servius, for all males. Gaius, Lucius, Marcus, Publius and Quintus were the
most popular. Quintus and Decimus were mere numerals. Women had no praenomina at all but
went by their family or gentile name (Julia, Marcia, Livia, Caecilia for instance). Practically to
the end of the Republic Roman names did not designate individuals but households where sons
followed fathers in exact line of succession, immersing their individuality in that of their families
and lineages.
The Roman domus was a community of both the living and dead. Like the city, it was a sacred
place in its own right, with its own genius loci or the spirit of the place, its family altars and gods,
the images of the ancestors, and the memorabilia of the family. Its destruction implied the end of
the family and its lineage. The household was a moral, educational, and religious entity whose
purpose was not just the generation of family members but of legally recognizable citizens who
were to be shaped into acceptable members of Roman society. In that sense even the property of the
household was not the purely private possession of an individual family, but a trust to be cultivated
and, if possible, expanded for the benefit of future generations and for the benefit of Rome. Good
Roman parents were those who managed their households well, raised their children properly, and
saw that they married appropriate spouses. The bad householder, the malus paterfamilias, said
Seneca, was one who “engages his daughter to an abuser or to a man who has been divorced frequently; who entrusts his patrimony to someone already condemned for business mismanagement
or who appoints as his son’s guardian someone who has already looted his wards’ property” (On
Benefits 4.27).
What Made Up A Roman Household: Things
household composition For Romans, the household was made up of a reproductive unit (the
parents) as well as an economic unit (the means by which the reproductive unit was sustained). Like
most pre-modern, pre-industrial households, the Roman household was a combination of human
and economic assets. The ancient economy offered no jobs in the modern sense of that word. Roman
families lived off what they owned, rented, or leased. A small percentage of them, though in somewhat larger numbers towards the end of the Republic, subsisted as day laborers.
Depending on the region where it was located in Italy, the Roman household possessed a certain
quantity of land, essential farm buildings and equipment, domesticated animals, seed stock, olives,
vines, and fruit trees. It had slaves if it made economic sense to have them. To the extent the household was an economic enterprise, its driving force was not profit in the modern sense of the world
but rather the continuity and enhancement of the existing domus, which was a legacy from the previous generation or generations.
size We know something in a general way about the size of the holdings of the elite toward the
end of the Republic, when their possessions increased enormously in size and type, but little about
the properties of small-holders who constituted a majority of the population. There are a handful
of anecdotes that give a hint as to the amount of land households might actually have held. In the
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mid fifth century b.c., the revered hero Cinncinatus was found ploughing his 2.5 acre farm when
a delegation from the Senate begged him to save a Roman army from certain defeat at the hands
of the Aequi, one of Rome’s many enemies in its early years. The tale, intended to be edifying,
tells us more about Roman ideals of simplicity and hard work than it does of the actual practice of
agriculture by the elite in early Rome. Undoubtedly part of the moral of the tale was that elites of
earlier times were unlike the self-aggrandizing rich aristocrats of later times. A similar story is told
about M. Atilius Regulus, the general commanding the Roman army in Africa during the First Punic
War, who asked to be relieved of his command because, during his absence, his hired steward had
absconded with the livestock and the equipment of his farm and he was afraid his wife and children
would starve. His “estate,” we are told, amounted to 4.4 acres (Valerius Maximus 4.4.6). The senate
solved the problem by intervening to take care of the consul’s family.
We know from comparative studies that Cinncinatus’ and Regulus’ farms would have been too
small for a plow ox and could support a family only by intensive hand cultivation and only if there
was also access to common land for grazing, collecting firewood, hunting and trapping. Modern
studies calculate that 12 to 14 acres is necessary to meet the minimum food requirements of a
household of 4 members. The agrarian law passed by Tiberius Gracchus in 133 b.c., which aimed
to restore citizens who had fallen below the minimum property qualifications for legionary service,
was quite generous at around 19 acres per family. This figure is somewhat higher but within the
same range of the parallel Greek polis requirement for service in the hoplite phalanx, where 12 acres
was the lowest figure.
slaves Slaves owned by a Roman family were considered part of the household’s property.
However, slaves were also counted among the persons subject to the potestas of the paterfamilias.
Under both formalities—as persons and things—they were not outsiders but integral members of the
household. This duality is reflected in the way slaves were treated at the festival of the Compitalia.
At this event, local families decorated the shrines of the gods of the nearest crossroads (compita)
with a puppet for each freeborn member of the family, but with a ball for each slave. Even though
these slaves were stripped of their identity as human beings they were still treated as members of
the family and regarded as of sufficient importance to be included in a public cult closely linked to
the household.
The majority of slaves were, understandably, owned by the rich. The agricultural writers give
detailed suggestions as to how many slaves were needed to staff a given type of farmstead. Writing
in the second century b.c., Cato, for instance, suggested a staff of 13 slaves for an olive orchard of
150 acres and 15 for vineyard of 63 acres (de agr. 10). Another writer of the Republican period,
Saserna, claimed that one slave was sufficient for the cultivation of a five acre farm (Varro, 18).
The wealthy owned multiple farms of the size and type described by Cato. These would have been
scattered throughout the countryside of Italy, and in the south the wealthy had even larger properties, at least in terms of extent, devoted to cattle and sheep ranching, all of them run and worked
by slaves.
display, not economics Economic considerations did not always underlie the purchase of
slaves by the rich. Many if not most were bought or raised for specific tasks in a bewildering variety
of job categories and administrative slave hierarchies. This was especially true in urban contexts
where the porters of great houses only guarded entrances, cooks only cooked, bed-makers only made
beds, launderers only washed clothes, and so on. Each group of slaves devoted to some particular task
was itself supervised by higher status slaves or freedmen. For the wealthy, function was secondary
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to show, and cost was of little importance. It was important, for instance, to have well dressed, good
looking slaves greet visitors and create an immediate impression of the wealth of the household.
Adding to the complexity of Rome’s slave society was the fact that freedmen frequently owned
slaves and slaves themselves were served by other slaves of lower status. A freedman by the name
of Caecilius Isidorus died in 8 b.c., leaving 4,117 slaves, according to Pliny the Elder (NH 33.135).
When Musicus Scurranus, a slave of the Roman treasury died, his 16 slaves put up a memorial to
him. Among them were 3 secretaries, a doctor, an accountant, two butlers, two footmen, two cooks
,and two stewards (ILS 1514). In the inscription they called him a “worthy master.”
slaves of the non-elite Ownership of slaves by non-elite households was primarily an economic decision. Even if a family could afford a slave it would have to calculate carefully whether
it was a good idea to add another mouth to feed and body to be kept healthy, sheltered, and clothed
in a household with usually only limited economic resources in the first place. What if the slave got
sick, turned out to be difficult, or ran away? He might be inept and destroy valuable vines, livestock,
or tools. Could he or she be easily sold if the family had financial difficulties? In an urban setting,
owning slaves might make good economic sense for small business owners, but in the yearly round
of farm operations there was a lot of down time during which no crops needed to be harvested or
food processed. Did it make sense of have a slave idle during these periods? He would still have to
be fed, clothed, and housed.
treatment and mistreatment of slaves The sources provide plenty examples of the mistreatment of slaves. The jurist Ulpian raised the question of “whether a slave whose tongue had
been cut out is healthy” and concluded unsurprisingly that he was not, though the basis of the conclusion was precedent not humanitarianism (Digest 21.1.8). Apparently this kind of mutilation was
sufficiently common to have required commentary in the legal handbooks. When the urban prefect
Pedanius Secundus was killed by one of his slaves, the remaining 400 were executed for having
failed to prevent the murder and as a warning to other slaves. While some owners treated their
slaves with a degree of humanity and allowed them to form quasi marriages (contubernia), granting them an allowance (peculium) which was theirs to manage, and even write quasi wills, others
had no regard for their welfare, let alone the humanity of their slave families. Some slaves suffered
unintentionally when a divorce broke up a household and the wife took her slaves with her from the
conjugal home, breaking up in the process perhaps some long standing liaisons between her slaves
and her husband’s. Slaves were easy targets for the sexual predations of their owners (and the owners’ children) as well as the unwanted attentions of other slaves or freedmen who happened to be
members of the household.
On the whole, urban slaves of the rich fared better than their rural counterparts. Columella
claimed that it was a mistake to appoint an urban slave to manage a rural estate, because such a
slave is likely to have been used to “leisure, the gymnasium, race courses, the theater, dicing, bars
and brothels” (1.8.2) and, as a consequence, would be useless in a rural setting. We hear of strong
emotional bonds that developed between wet nurses and their masters’ children and between the
freeborn children of the household and the slave-born children with whom they played while growing up. Generous masters manumitted favored slaves, allowing them to take their peculium with
them when they were freed, although technically it belonged to the master. In one of his letters, the
Roman nobleman and senator Pliny poignantly tells of a girl by the name of Minicia Marcella who
died before her thirteenth birthday “who loved her slave nurses her child minders and her teachers”
(5.16). Pliny himself gave a former nurse an estate worth 100,000 sesterces. A number of inscrip-
chapter 5. roman society • 113
Contubernium: A Slave Marriage
Nymphodotus belonged to the slave familia of Augustus and while a slave lived with Claudia
Stepte as a companion or, literally, a fellow “tent dweller” (contubernalis) in a quasi marriage
(contubernium). At some point Nymphodotus was freed and either purchased the freedom of
Claudia or took her with him as part of his peculium.
To the Spirit of Claudia Stepte who lived 72 years. Tiberius Claudius Nymphodotus, freedman
of Augustus set up this inscription. He was her patron and contubernalis. To his dearest wife
who merited well of him and with whom he lived for 46 years. For themselves and their children
and their descendants (CIL 6.15598).
tions testify to the fact that the name of a family was maintained by the manumitted freedmen who,
as a condition of their manumission, promised to take care of the graves of their masters and continue the family name. The descendants of these freedmen might find their way into elite society as
the bearers of a family name that would otherwise have died out generations earlier.
What Made up a Household: Persons
the ideal of partnership That husband and wife were joint stake-holders or partners was a
staple of Roman popular thinking. Marriage was not to be a despotism of husbands over his wives.
Writing about early Rome, Livy characterized Roman marriage as a “partnership of fortunes, of
citizenship and children, the things human beings consider dearest” (Liv. 1.9). Dionysius of Halicarnassus held that in the manus form of marriage in which a wife and her dowry were absorbed
into the husband’s lineage and household, the wife would be a partner in all aspects of her husband’s
household and “as much the mistress of the house as he was the master” (Ant. 2.24–26). The ideal of
partnership persisted into the empire. Writing about the Republic and the good old days, Columella
(first century a.d.) claimed that it had been basic Roman practice for the mother, the matrona, to run
the household, where there was no division of property between husband and wife and where both
worked together to increase their joint property. By his time, however, wives had “given themselves
up to luxury and idleness” and disdained wool making and home produced clothes while finding the
running of estates irksome (r.r. 12pref). A century later the jurist Modestinus defined marriage as the
“joining together (coniunctio) of male and female in a partnership for life in all things (consortium
omnis vitae)” (Digest 23.2.1). Inscriptions reflect similar sentiments and are full of terms such as
concordia, diligentia, industria, and societas (partnership) suggesting that the value of a shared life
would have been recognized as normative by readers.
breeding children How often the ideal of partnership was realized in practice is another question. At least not many Roman males or females are likely to have been burdened by unrealistic
expectations. Most grew up on farms and knew in advance what their lives were likely to be. There
was no ambiguity for Romans about the nature and purpose of marriage. At the time of the five year
census the censor asked each male under oath the following question: “Are you married for the purpose of breeding children?” (Gellius 4.32). A man and a woman married for the express purpose of
raising children for the sake of the husband’s lineage and household and secondarily for the needs of
the state. Children were not optional extras generated for personal satisfaction or emotional needs;
they were the point of a marriage and an economic necessity. From an early age they worked on the
farm and later looked after elderly parents. In literary and inscriptional texts children are described
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Cornelia’s Jewels
Cornelia was the daughter of the famous victor over Hannibal, P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus, and
the wife of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. She had twelve children of which only three, two boys,
Tiberius and Gaius, and a daughter Sempronia, survived into adulthood. The story is told of how
after a rich Campanian aristocrat had displayed to Cornelia her world famous collection of jewels
Cornelia waited until her children arrived home from school and then said, simply, “these are my
jewels” (Valerius Maximus 4.4pref).
by such commonplaces as the protectors of their parents in their old age (munire senectam); the
prop or foundation (fundamentum) of the household; and more poetically, as poles to which vines
might attach themselves. There was a long Roman tradition that marriage should be monogamous
and indissoluble.
was love necessary to a roman marriage? It is hard to judge the emotional conditions
of Roman marriages. Inscriptions stressing the devotion of spouses to each other are frequent,
expressed by such phrases as: “We lived without quarrel or strife” (sine querella, sine lite)” or “He
never abused me” (maledixit mihi numquam). Some epitaphs seem sincere: “I contended with you,
O husband in pietas, virtus, frugalitas, and amor;” “One love and a life of equal fidelity;” “Wife
forever!” (coniunx perpetua) (CE 2299; 491;1571). Epithets such as fides (faithfulness, reliability),
reverentia (respect), obsequium (dutifulness), bene conveniens (agreeable, gracious) are common.
As if to anticipate the objection that these are just formulas picked out of some mortician’s handbook, one mourner, after a long list of compliments to his spouse says: “I truly provided these so that
readers [of this stone] should know how much we loved each other” (CIL 6.29580).
Wives were expected to be chaste and children obedient. “Torquatianus was a good boy who
always obeyed his parents. He lived 8 years, 9 months, and 13 days. Laetianus was also a good boy
who obeyed his parents. He lived 5 years, 6 months, and 6 days. Their parents Gaianus and Eucharis
set this up for their sweet sons” (ILS 8473). The ideal of being univira, the wife of one husband,
was upheld as an ideal along with the frequently repeated phrase “content with one husband alone.”
Typical of epitaphs to wives is the following found at Rome: “Here lies Amymone, wife of Marcus.
She was the best (optima) and most beautiful (pulcherrima ) of wives, devoted to her wool working,
faithful (pia), modest (pudica), thrifty (frugi), chaste (casta), content to stay at home (domiseda)”
(ILS 8402). At times—but not often—men were expected to be chaste. Valerius Maximus claimed
that pudicitia (chastity) was the chief support (firmamentum) of both men and women (6.1). It was
rare for a husband to claim he was married only once, though occasionally there is an epitaph that
reads “una contenta,” content with one wife.
If love also accompanied a marriage, so much the better, but it was not regarded as the foundation of a marriage or even necessary for its success. The modern idea of companionate marriage,
where love between the partners is the dominant and perhaps the only required bond between
them, was a luxury to which at least those outside the ranks of the truly well off could not aspire.
Even among the elite, economics and family politics dominated. After divorcing his wife Terentia
and returning her dowry Cicero found himself in financial difficulties and finally, if somewhat
humiliatingly, had to look for a rich young woman to rescue him, but he is only one example of
many men who found it necessary to shore up their finances with an economically advantageous
marriage.
chapter 5. roman society • 115
The Joys of Marriage
Augustus tried to promote marriage among the elite by exhortation and legal incentives. Here
is part of a speech he gave to members of the equestrian order who had already married and
produced children. It is reported by the senator and historian Dio Cassius.
You have done right then in imitating the gods and your fathers so that as they brought you into
the world you also might bring children into the world, and that future generations may think of
you and refer to you as their ancestors just as you think of them and call them your ancestors….
Who is better than a wife who is chaste, likes to stay at home, who is able to manage your
house for you and bring up your children? A wife who is happy with you when you are well and
comforts you when you are sick; who shares your successes and comforts you in your failures;
who restrains the recklessness of your youth and tempers the harsh austerity of old age? Is it
not a pleasure to acknowledge a child who has been born to both of you, to nurture and educate
it, this child who is at one and the same time the physical and mental mirror of yourself, so that,
as it grows up another self comes into being? Is it not the greatest blessing to leave behind you
when you leave this life a successor and heir both to your lineage and to your possessions; one
who is your very own, so that only the mortal part of you wastes away while you live on in the
child who succeeds you? (Dio 56.3)
Wives and Dowries
From a practical perspective, the main aim in a marriage was to create from the combined resources
of husband and wife a viable economic foundation for the raising of children. Husband and wife
contributed land, farm animals, tools, buildings, cash, and if—wealthy enough—slaves to the joint
enterprise of the household. But what was enough? This kind of calculation must have been in the
minds of countless parents contemplating their sons’ and daughters’ marriages throughout Roman
history. The agricultural writer Columella provides an anecdote that gives some insight into dowry
practices as well as the kind of intensive cultivation of land that was practiced in the late Republic.
He refers to an earlier agricultural work by a man called Graecinus.
Graecinus tells us that he used to hear his father say frequently that a neighbor, Paridius Veterensus, had two daughters and a farm that was planted in vineyards. When the first daughter married
Paridius gave her one third of the vineyard as her dowry. Nonetheless he was able to extract from
the remaining two thirds as much as he had previously derived from the whole farm. He married
off the younger daughter with half of the land that was left and still managed to maintain the same
output from what remained to him (Columella, de re rustica 4.3.6).
Unfortunately we do not know the size of Paridius’ farm or whether his dowries to his daughters
included slaves to work the land, but at a guess the farm must have been substantial; these were
precisely the kinds of intensively cultivated properties which the agricultural authors recommended
as worthwhile investments for the wealthy.
Members of the aristocracy in the late Republic made a point of dowering their daughters with
sometimes gigantic properties as a way of advertising their wealth and standing and gaining favor
with the family into which their daughter was marrying. They gave vineyards and olive groves,
quarries and clay pits, and in urban contexts the dowry might contain shops, warehouses and apartment blocks. The famous Scipio Africanus, victor over Hannibal, gave his two daughters 60 talents
or 1.44 million sesterces apiece. Scipio, the most successful general of his age, was of course well
116 • part i: the rise of rome
positioned to do this. To give a sense of how large these dowries were, landed property worth
400,000 sesterces was sufficient in the Republic to meet the census qualification for membership in
the Senate.
This kind of dowering was not without economic self-interest: in most instances the paterfamilias still owned his daughter’s dowry and should her husband die there was a good chance he would
recover the whole dowry less support for the children, who would remain with the husband’s family. On the other hand, he might lose it all if his daughter was proved to have been unfaithful to her
husband. One can imagine the pressure on a daughter not to embroil herself in situations that would
involve such loss, not to say embarrassment to her family. It was the worst of luck if a paterfamilias
ran into financial difficulties just at the moment he had to come up with a dowry for his daughter.
In a curious analogy Cicero claimed that in a situation like this that is what friends were for: they
would help him out just “as he would if he were captured by pirates and needed to be ransomed” (de
off. 2.56). As usual we have more information about the dowering practices of the wealthy, but it is
generally assumed that some similar kind of practice extended down the social scale. According to
Pliny the Elder, rows of cypress trees were referred to as “daughters’ dowries.” They were planted
at the birth of the daughter and would have grown enough to be harvested and sold at the time of the
daughter’s marriage (NH 16.141).
dotata uxor The well dowered wife, the dotata uxor, was a stock figure in Roman literature,
especially comedy. There she was cast as a menace to her husband whom she constantly pestered for
luxuries while keeping him firmly under her thumb. “Husbands sell their power [mockingly referred
to as imperium—the kind of power only senior magistrates had] for a dowry” said the playwright
Plautus, “whereas a wife without a dowry is in her husband’s power” (Asin. 87). Seneca has one of
his characters say: “If I start being too independent or act too roughly she will leave and want her
money back” (Sen. Controv. 1.6.5).
A more sympathetic or serious view of dowries might see the dowry serving to balance the
power relations between a wife and her technically all-powerful husband. Although a husband might
divorce his wife at will, the likelihood of losing a good portion of the economic basis of his way of
life and having subsequently to look after the children from the marriage might have been a deterrent to hasty actions. Acts of violence against wives might also involve second thoughts on the part
of potentially abusing husbands, because a wife could appeal to her father and kin for help and usually get it. In most Roman marriages a wife was technically only on loan from her natal family, and
unless she entered the old fashioned manus form of marriage in which she abandoned her family
lineage and entered her husband’s she could, by the middle of the Republic, exit without too much
loss from an unsatisfactory marriage.
divorce Divorce in non-manus marriages could be initiated by either the wife or her father.
Once there was proof of the withdrawal of affectio maritalis, the marriage ended. Because marriage
was a private arrangement requiring no sanction of public authority it ended privately. Despite his
legal powers, the position of a husband in a non-manus marriage was never entirely secure as long
as the return of the dowry was an issue. Even the death of his father-in-law did not necessarily help
redress the balance of power relations with his wife. When her father died, the wife became legally
independent, sui iuris, and might inherit yet more property from her father because Roman estates
were partible, i.e., they were divided among the designated heirs on the death of the paterfamilias. It
is true that technically a wife who was sui iuris was supposed to be under the legal control of a tutor
chapter 5. roman society • 117
of her family’s agnatic line, but in practice this meant little by the middle and late Republic. It has
been estimated that half of wives of 20 years of age would have been sui iuris.
Household Governance
the paterfamilias The paterfamilias, the legally recognized head of the family, was supposed
to subordinate his individual needs and desires to his position as head of the household. As such, his
responsibilities were formidable, but his legal powers summed up in the term patria potestas gave
him all the resources he needed to fulfill them. In other poleis the heads of households also had great
powers of rulership, but according to ancient authorities, Roman patria potestas had no parallel
elsewhere in ancient society. It was patria potestas that gave the Roman household—and indirectly
Roman society—the solidity that no other polis possessed.
Patria potestas was the legally recognized ancestral power possessed by the oldest living male
ascendant of a Roman household, the paterfamilias. The powers of the paterfamilias were very
ancient. They appear in documentary form for the first time in Twelve Tables (450 b.c.), but clearly
reflect long usage before that date. Although modified by the passage of time, patria potestas was
never abolished. Sustained by patria potestas, the paterfamilias’ role was threefold. First was his
position as the sacral head of the household. Just as the priests of the state managed the religion of
the state, the paterfamilias managed the rituals of the household. He was responsible for the daily
rites honoring the household gods and ancestors of the family. He presided over all family rituals,
including funerals and marriages. If sacrifices were part of the ritual, he performed them. His second
role was that of ruler of the household, because the state and Roman society held him responsible for
the good behavior not just of the immediate members of his family—his wife and un-emancipated
children, for example—but also for all his living adult descendants. These included his married
sons, daughters, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren (if he had them). His third and last role
was as sole property owner and manager of the economic resources of the household. Again, these
included the properties of his immediate family and the properties of his descendants. Such heavy
responsibilities, enforced by the approval or disapproval of his peers, left little opportunity for the
paterfamilias to cultivate his own private interests.
Sacral Headship
families ties and obligations Modern families are held together by a combination of affection, duty, economic necessity, and—because marriage is a contract—by legalities. Roman families
were held together by similar bonds, but there was one additional uniting factor: household religion.
Roman domestic religion enshrined the culture of the agnatic or father’s line and was passed on as
an integral part of the family’s inheritance from one generation to the next. It was as much a given
as the land, the farm animals, the buildings, and the family’s social and political connections that
constituted the more tangible aspects of the legacy. When a member of the family became a paterfamilias in his own right, he assumed the burdens of maintaining good relations with the gods at
the same time he took over the economic and social management of the assets of the household.
He had no more choice in accepting these religious duties than he did his duties to the gods of the
state. Indeed, one was believed to sustain the other. Neglect of domestic religious responsibilities
was regarded not just as the personal failing of a particular paterfamilias but a social and political
shortcoming on his part that had ramifications for the community at large.
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household divinities: vesta, the lares, and penates Just as Rome needed the assistance of
the gods to flourish, so the Roman family needed the assistance of its special helpers—the gods of
the household—for its flourishing. Similarly, just as magistrates of the state were responsible for
maintaining good relations with the divine, so the head of the Roman household, the paterfamilias,
was responsible for his household’s favorable standing with its protective deities. His all-important
duty was to see to the material as well as spiritual flourishing of the household, and this began with
the cultivation of the gods.
Of the household divinities, Vesta, the goddess represented by the living fire of the hearth, was
first. She stood for the well being and security of the household and played the same role for it as she
was believed to play for Rome itself, namely, its perpetuation. She was honored with prayers before
the main meal of the day and during meals, pieces of cake were sometimes tossed on the flames as
an offering to her. On festivals a garland of flowers was placed beside the hearth.
The Lares and the Penates also looked after the household. Some scholars think the Lares were
the deified spirits of the ancestors, others that they were originally protectors of the fields and the
boundaries that separated one household’s property from another. They appear in household shrines
(lararia) as small statuettes of mirthful young men dancing on tip toes carrying drinking cups full
of wine. They were honored with offerings of grain, grapes, honey cakes, wine, and at times with
offerings of blood from sacrifices of animals. Periodically garlands of flowers were placed around
them. In one of his poems Horace urges a young woman, “rustic Phidyle,” to appease her household’s Lares with “incense, seasonal fruit, a pig… rosemary and myrtle garlands” (Odes 3.23). The
Lar could accompany the paterfamilias on his travels abroad. Lares also guarded forests, roads,
wayfarers, and soldiers on campaign and in camp. They had a special role in caring for the boundaries of intersecting properties, areas likely to be in dispute between neighbors. Rome itself had its
protective Lares. When the Republic was replaced by the Empire they became the lares Augusti, the
tutelary deities of the emperor.
The Penates, depicted as two young men, guarded the supplies of the household, ensuring the
family had enough to eat every day. Horace, in the poem cited above, says Phidyle can “assuage the
estranged Penates with holy grain and crackling salt [i.e., crackling as the salt was tossed into in the
fire].” The Penates, like the Lares, might travel with their families.
the domestic genius and the juno The Genius of the family was the living spirit, the life
double of the head of the family (the paterfamilias) and the generative force of the household.
His counterpart was the Juno of the mother, the materfamilias. Together the Genius and the Juno
guaranteed the fertility and the perpetuation of the family name from one generation to the next. To
the Genius and the Juno all the descendants of the family owed their existence. At the death of the
paterfamilias the Genius passed to his successor as head of the family. He was honored with wine,
cakes of honey and, if the family could afford it, the sacrifice of pigs and lambs on the birthdays of
the paterfamilias. The household Genius shared the shrine of the Lares and the Penates. In these
shrines the Genius appears as a male figure wearing a toga carrying a cornucopia (a horn shaped
receptacle full of fruits, grains or flowers—the “horn of plenty” symbol of the prosperity and fertility of the household) or a patera, a dish for pouring offerings to the gods. Snakes, protectors of the
family and symbols of fertility, are also depicted.
other deities There were many other deities who might be called upon for help at particular
moments during the day or during the life-cycle of the household. Each of these divinities had a
specialization or province which was his or her individual responsibility. The list is long but a few
chapter 5. roman society • 119
“I am the Family Lar of this House”
The rich but crude freedman Trimalchio in Petronius’ novel The Satyricon joked that the names
of his Lares were “Profit, Luck and Gain.” In a play by the third/second century b.c. playwright
Plautus, the chief household Lar makes the introductory remarks to the audience in The Pot of
Gold, setting the stage for the play. The Lar tells the story of the miserly paterfamilias of the Lar’s
household who buried in great secrecy a cache of gold under the family’s hearth. He begs the Lar
to guard it but dies without telling his son about the hidden treasure. Because the son neglected
the Lar the secret remained hidden. Likewise this man’s son, Euclio, failed to honor the Lar and
the Lar continued to guard the secret. However, Euclio’s daughter Phaedria, honored the Lar with
“daily offerings of incense or wine or flowers” and, thus propitiated, the Lar decided to reveal the
existence of treasure to Euclio. This would ensure that Phaedria had a suitable dowry. Speaking to
the audience, the Lar introduces himself as follows:
In case you wonder who I am, I am the Lar familiaris of this house…. For many years I have
been custodian of it and looked after its present paterfamilias, his father and his grandfather.
Long ago the grandfather with great secrecy and the swearing of many oaths put a treasure of
gold in my care, begging me to keep it safe for him. He had hid it under the hearth. The old miser
died without telling his son of the treasure, leaving him instead just a scrap of land from which
to make a living by sweat and hard work. And so he died. I next began to pay attention to how
his son treated me, whether he would be more or less dutiful than his father. As it turned out
he was even less dutiful. So, in return, I did little for him. His son, the man who now owns the
property was similar in character to his father and grandfather. His daughter, by contrast, was
good to me. She brings me daily offerings of incense or wine or flowers. For these good deeds
I have arranged that her father Euclio will find the hidden treasure so that he can give her away
in marriage…(Pot of Gold, Pref.)
Thus launched, the play goes through many complications. The conclusion unfortunately is lost
but it is plausibly presumed to end with the happy marriage of Phaedria.
examples will suffice. The two-faced god Janus guarded the doors of the home, the border between
public and private realms. He was addressed whenever a family member entered or left the house.
Liber was responsible for the husband’s semen while Libera cared for his wife’s fertility. Mena was
concerned with the monthly periods of the women of the family. Lucina was called on for help at
childbirth, and Ops for the well being of the new born child. Rumina was the deity of breast feeding.
Hard work had Strenia, and Numeria could be called on for help in math (Augustine, City of God,
4.11).
Personal and Property Headship
headship over persons Under the category of leadership came the paterfamilias’ right of life
and death over his descendants (jus vitae necisque). This right enabled a household head to deal with
offences committed by family members and included the capacity to inflict punishments up to and
including death. The right was exercised primarily at the time of the household head’s decision to
raise or not raise children born in his household, but it also extended to the disciplining of the gross
misbehavior of agnatic family members, adults as well as children. Thus even married sons, daughters, or grandsons and granddaughters, rather than being dealt with by public authorities for crimes
and going through the shame of a public trial, could be handed over to the paterfamilias for appropriate punishment administered privately. Legally the paterfamilias could break up his children’s
120 • part i: the rise of rome
marriages, sell his children into slavery, or surrender their labor to a creditor in satisfaction of a debt.
How frequently these powers were actually exercised is unknown. The few historical instances for
which we have records were all punishment for serious public offenses. D. Junius Silanus committed
suicide after his father found him guilty of extortion when he was governor of Macedonia in 140 b.c.
(Valerius Maximus 5.8.3). Aemilus Scaurus similarly committed suicide when his father barred him
from his presence for having run away in battle against the Cimbri (Frontinus 4.1.13). Aulus Fulvius
was executed by his father for his role in the Catilinarian Conspiracy in 63 b.c. (Dio 37.36.4).
restraints: the family consilium and public opinion Most of our information about the
working of patria potestas comes from the late Republic, by which time it had been considerably
softened. How far back this lessening of the severity of the powers of the patriarch go is hard to tell.
It is a good guess that severity waned after Rome won its empire and early threats receded. It was
probably always the case that before invoking severe sanctions against misbehaving offspring or
before important financial decisions were taken, the father consulted his family council (consilium)
made up of kinfolk and close friends. He was also restricted by public opinion, which did not
welcome excessive use of his powers as head of his household. It has also been estimated by scholars that in practice, relatively few sons actually came under patria potestas. From a demographic
standpoint not many fathers lived to see their grandchildren. Perhaps as many as two thirds of all
sons were fatherless by the time they were 25, so that the tensions that might normally be thought
to have existed between a father who was still ruling his family and a son waiting to take possession
of inheritance were dissipated in practice.
Another restraint on the severe exercise of patria potestas came from the existence of the institution of slavery. This may seem an odd connection, but slavery’s prevalence in ancient society was
an important factor in determining social norms and behavior. In so far as slaves were concerned
the paterfamilias was their master (dominus), and he exercised tyrannical power (dominium) over
them. He could punish them severely, sell them, or break up their relationships with other slaves.
That, however, was not the way a father wanted to be thought of in regard to the free members of his
household. He was not to be a tyrant to either his wife or children; he was not their dominus. Cato,
one of the great political figures of the second century b.c., said that a father should not strike his most
sacred possessions, his wife and children, and there was quite a strong opinion in the late Republic
and empire against the physical punishment of children. Slaves could receive corporal punishment,
but not children. It would be dishonorable to his family and its reputation for a paterfamilias to physically punish the free members of the household. There is no proof that this was the case for the early
or middle Republic, but it is likely that public opinion always played a powerful role in restraining
excessively tyrannical behavior on the part of fathers. It is interesting that most of the few cases in
which fathers actually killed their sons belong in the legendary past of Rome. Some may not even
have been exercises of patria potestas in the first place, but rather punishment meted out by fathers
who also happened to be magistrates, as was the case with the legendary founder of the Republic,
Junius Brutus, who as consul executed his sons who tried to bring back the exiled king Tarquin.
The Functional Aspects of Patria Potestas
family discipline: misbehaving children The extraordinary power of fathers over their
households, even when ameliorated in later centuries by social custom, still put their children under
obligation to them into their adult years. It put powerful restraints on misbehaving sons who cared
nothing for honor or family traditions but who worried that they might be humiliated before a family consilium, find themselves written out of the will, or have their inheritance reduced because they
chapter 5. roman society • 121
brought dishonor on the household. Daughters also remained under the strict control of their families. Even when married they did not escape their father’s patria potestas.1 If divorced for misbehavior or any other reason, daughters returned to their father’s house. In the case of misbehavior they
might return with their dowry diminished or completely lost to her former husband. Because the
dowry belonged to the paterfamilias, a daughter who returned without her dowry cannot have been
received with much gladness. She was an extra mouth to feed and if she was to be married again yet
another dowry would have to be found. The system of patria potestas powerfully focused family
attention on the transmission of property from one generation to the next, making all involved in the
process serious about the dissipation of the family patrimony by bad management. Indeed a Roman
father was not identified as a “good” father as today by moral or emotional criteria but rather as a
good or bad manager of the family’s possessions. In itself patria potestas was a powerful educational tool requiring little or no support from the formal powers of the state.
Other Household Possessions: Political, Social and Cultural Capital
In addition to its material possessions, the household had what we might call political, social, cultural—even technological—capital. Farming skills, such as an intimate knowledge of the different
soils of the farm, knowledge of animal husbandry and tool usage and an understanding of local
micro-climates, were essential for the proper functioning, not to say survival of farms, and were
passed on from one generation to the next. Social capital was made up of the inherited network of
ties to other households by way of kinship, friendship, patronage, or just local ties of propinquity,
i.e. the physical nearness of other families. Such social contacts provided advice, cash advances, and
tools when necessary, labor at harvest time and generally help in tiding households over bad times.
These contributions were not inspired by altruism; acts of neighborliness were carefully calculated
and “banked” in anticipation of reciprocal returns. Cultural capital was made up of the accumulated
traditions of the individual household, primarily religious and moral, that enabled its members to
acquire the necessary skills for participation in the public or citizenship life of Rome.
citizenship assets Political capital may seem to modern readers less important than more
tangible forms such as land, cash, or buildings, but in many respects it was the most important and
fundamental non-material capital possessed by the polis household. Without citizenship, which in
most cases meant membership in a citizen household, the individual was reduced to political and
juridical invisibility—the status of slaves and foreigners. The household was thus the normal and
indispensable portal or point of entry into the public life of the Roman state. It provided political
standing and the ability to participate in the legislative and judicial life of the community. Simply
being a member of a Roman household gave an elevated status to its members, whether male,
female, young, or old. Rome had plenty of rich resident-alien households, but they remained outside
the political community and the legal and political benefits it conferred. In more concrete terms,
expansionist poleis like Rome provided households with the opportunity to increase their land holdings, share in booty, and send landless citizens to colonies established in conquered territories. In
Rome’s case, citizens benefited from early times from the city’s consistent success on the battlefield.
Colonies were established throughout Italy on confiscated land, and in 167 b.c., the tributum—the
main direct tax on Roman citizens—was abolished. Yet without membership in a Roman household,
none of these benefits were attainable.
Except in the uncommon form of manus marriage which transferred the bride from her natal household to that of her husband’s. In that case she would end up under the potestas of her husband or her father-in-law if he was still alive.
1
122 • part i: the rise of rome
friendship and patronage An important resource of a household was its inherited social network of friends and patrons. Such networks were essential to survival and flourishing of a household
in a society where self-help counted for so much. Performing beneficia for members of other households was an essential aspect of the reciprocal nature of Roman society.
Distinguishing between friendship and patronage was not always easy. The reality that Rome
was preeminently a society of unequals clashed with the belief that all Romans shared the same
rights as fellow citizens. A powerful individual had many “friends,” some of whom were indeed his
equals but many were not, yet they all claimed to be related by ties of amicitia, friendship, a convention which postulated a relationship of equality even when the equality was fictional. In the second
century b.c. the powerful but extremely busy tribune Gaius Gracchus brought this distinction out
into the open. He found himself forced for practical reasons to divide his friends into those whose
dignity demanded that they be received as individuals, those who could be seen in small groups,
and finally those whom he could meet only as part of a large throng of “friends.” Such men, said
Seneca, were in reality “first and second class men and never true friends” (On benefits 6.34). This
was true, but here Seneca was theorizing about friendship rather than addressing the practical realities of Roman political culture which demanded carefully calculated acts of reciprocity. Elsewhere
in the same essay Seneca states this clearly: a friend might help one person with money, another
by standing security for him, another by using his influence, yet another by just offering advice or
helpful maxims (1.2.4).
True patronage existed between people of formally different statuses as, for example, between a
freed slave (libertus) and his former owner, or between a powerful individual and a town, community, or even a province. In the second century b.c. the city of Fundi formally requested the senator
Tiberius Claudius to be its patron, declaring “we give ourselves into his trust and choose him as
patron” (ILS 6093). Julius Caesar complained about the ingratitude of the province of Spain. Despite
the fact that from the beginning of his public career he had bestowed enormous beneficia on the
province, it had turned against him in the recent civil war, “forgetting all these benefits and acting
ungratefully to himself and the Roman people” (BH 42).
salutatio Although patronage was an entrenched part of the Roman political system, its
extent is hard to determine. Supposedly at the founding of Rome all plebeians were assigned by
Romulus to patricians as patrons, but this was certainly not the case in the historical period. Where
they existed, ties of patronage could be passed on from father to son. Obligations were reciprocal.
Clients (clientes) supported their patrons with their votes, and some took part in the daily ceremony
known as the salutatio, a sometimes humiliating ceremony which involved going to the patron’s
house in the morning to greet him and then accompanying him with a crowd of other clients and
friends if he went to the forum. The larger the entourage the more attention and respect was generated for the patron. Patrons reciprocated with cash handouts, representation in court, the dowering
of the daughters of needy clients, and an overall if nebulous blanket of protection against overly
aggressive creditors, petty thieves, pushy neighbors, or unruly city folk. In a society dependent on
self-help, it was important to have a dependable body of friends and patrons, the more highly placed
the better.
Conclusions
Roman households were expected to be self-governing and economically self-sustaining to a degree
unimaginable in modern industrial societies. They took care of the old and the young, the sick, the
indigent, and the elderly. In the absence of public schools and churches the household was the pri-
chapter 5. roman society • 123
mary educational institution of Roman society. For its properly formed and educated citizens, Rome
was dependent on its constituent households. Absolved for the most part by the autonomy of the
Roman household of the need to police or educate its own citizens or the need to provide economic
support for a dependent population, Rome could focus its resources on the public realm of politics,
the judiciary, and warfare.
Patria potestas was the legal mandate and means by which the self-sufficient Roman household was maintained. It provided heads of households with the authority and the specific tools to
enforce discipline and inculcate traditional values (mos maiorum) among their family members.
The failure of a paterfamilias to live up to his duties led to personal dishonor and lowered the
prestige and power of his household and lineage. Rome’s honor code, continuous warfare, and
the demands of participation in public life constrained individual behavior. Despite high mortality
rates among fathers, the male members of Roman households had severe restraints put upon them
during the critical years of adolescence and young adulthood. The role of females, particularly
mothers, was equally vital to Roman society and equally constraining. Marriage was the single
career path available to women. Mothers were essential to the functioning of complex Roman
households and were formidable rulers in their own right. While they lacked the powers of patria
potestas, they had something that was probably more effective in the long run: materna auctoritas,
matronal or motherly influence. It is an historical and anthropological commonplace that while
males may generate the rules of society it is the females—especially the mothers and grandmothers, the matrons of society—who enforce them.
The state helped households in its own way by giving clear indications of where obligations lay
and what consequences followed failure to fulfill them. Society was not a huge, anonymous mass,
but a collection of households whose members had a good estimate of the worth of each other’s
families. That estimation was critical to the social standing of individuals as well as households.
Career paths for the elite were limited but clearly marked. The state itself was not some distant
bureaucracy but the immediate presence of often-interfering local notables, magistrates, and lower
officials. For ordinary, non-elite Romans, there were plenty of social constraints as well, and, when
these failed, of legal rewards and punishments. The authority of the state was unchallengeable and
severe when exercised, but there were many incentives to go along with whatever it commanded.
The material rewards of Rome’s continual expansion in the Republic were significant. The pride
and sense of belonging to a winning society was shared by masses and elites alike. It is no surprise
to find that Rome gave special emphasis to the goddess Victoria in its coins and public monuments.
As long as it lasted, the state as family and the family as state was a successful formula for world
conquest.
The Real Power in the Household: Wifely Power—or Child Power?
The first-second century a.d. biographer and essayist Plutarch quotes an aphorism of Cato the
Censor (234–149 b.c.) on the subject of wifely power.
Speaking on the power of women Cato said, “All other men rule their wives; we rule all mankind,
but our wives rule us.” However, this saying is borrowed from Themistocles who when he found
his son giving him many orders which really originated with his wife, told her, “My dear, the Athenians rule the Greeks, I rule the Athenians, you rule me, and our son rules you. Therefore, he must
be sparing in the use of his authority because, child though he is, he is the most powerful of the
Greeks (Plutarch, Life of Cato, 8).
124 • part i: the rise of rome
Questions for Part 1
1. What kinds of sources do modern historians have for the history of Rome? What are the
sources’ shortcomings and can they be overcome?
2. When Romans wrote about their early history they borrowed theories of political development
from the Greeks to help them fill in gaps in their factual knowledge. Specifically, what use
did they make of the theory of the balanced or mixed constitution? How did they apply it to
their account of their own origins?
3. Why were Greek colonists unable to establish settlements north of Naples?
4. Early Romans lived in a dangerous environment. What measures did they take to defend
themselves? Who were their enemies and who were their allies?
5. What techniques did Romans use to incorporate their defeated enemies in their commonwealth
after the Latin War? What use did they make of colonies and what did they gain by planting
them?
6. Romans and Samnites struggled for control of Italy in the fourth and third centuries. By what
strategies did Rome finally prevail in these wars?
7. What is the argument that the basic polis constitution possessed by Rome gave it an edge over
its adversaries in its rise to power? What specific adaptations of the polis did the Romans
make that made Rome different from other poleis?
8. How did Rome manage to reconcile elites and masses in their construction of their
commonwealth?
9. Roman religious practice was more public than private and included many features we would
regard as purely political. In what specific ways did religion contribute to the strength of the
Roman state?
10. Unlike the modern household, the Roman household was a very powerful institution. What
role did it play in sustaining the state?