Roman high school – education in ancient Rome
Roman high school: A fragment of Homer's Iliad on papyrus Who went to high school? Only the richest and smartest Roman boys went on from elementary school to high school. Most [...]
Roman freedmen and freedwomen
Roman freedmen - A gravestone for a freedwoman, put up by her husband, who was also a freedman (ILS 1221, Rome, 80 BC) What are freedmen and freedwomen? Freedmen and [...]
Roman family – children and households in ancient Rome
A Roman family on a tombstone Roman definitions of family The Roman idea of family included not just a husband and wife and their children, but also the people they enslaved [...]
Pliny the Younger and his Letters – Roman history
Forum of Pompeii Pliny the Younger was the nephew of Pliny the Elder. He was a teenager visiting his uncle near Pompeii when his uncle died in the eruption. Pliny the Younger, however, did [...]
Virgil – the Aeneid – Roman poetry
The death of Dido, Queen of Carthage, from an illustrated copy of Virgil's Aeneid, about 400 AD Who was Virgil? Virgil was a poet who lived during the civil wars in Rome [...]
Terence – Plays – Roman literature
A page from a manuscript of Terence, written about 825 AD (now in the Vatican) Terence was born about 185 BC, soon after the end of the Second Punic War. His whole [...]
Tacitus – Roman historian – ancient Rome
The tombstone of Tacitus Tacitus' work is as well known for his skill in writing history as it is for the value of the facts he presents. His beautiful and [...]
Sulpicia – Roman poetry – ancient Rome
Not really Sulpicia: A woman from Roman Egypt, holding a notebook and a pen Who was Sulpicia? Sulpicia is one of very few Roman women whose poetry managed to last through the [...]
Suetonius – Roman historian – Lives of the Caesars
A manuscript of Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars, copied out in Austria in the 1470s Suetonius lived just a little later than Seneca, during the reign of the Flavian emperors and then [...]
Seneca – Roman philosophy – ancient Rome
Seneca, the Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca was one of the great writers of the Julio-Claudianperiod in Rome. He was born in the Roman province of Spain about 3 BC. But his [...]
