6th Grade UBD - Unit 7 - Roman Culture Life and Legacy

 Power Relationships- Men ruled Roman society. It was very hierarchical, traditional, and family-centered.
 Roman Genius- Rome created order over a large area with many different people and languages. Romans did this by developing roads, aqueducts, a common form of money, a code of law. All of this allowed the spread of Rome’s cultural achievements.
 The Development of Language- Latin is a practical language and could absorb new ideas of other cultures and still keep its own identity. Although people do not speak Latin today, it has had a huge effect on the descendants of the Roman
Empire.

Video- Civilization or Enslavement?

 “Wherever the Roman conquers, there he dwells. —
Lucius Annaeus Seneca” In your own words, what do you think the writer meant when he wrote these words? What do you think this says about Rome’s behavior as a conquering nation?
( 5 minutes)



 Power in the family rested in the hands of the paterfamilias (father of the family). Below him were other men of the family, then the women, children, and enslaved people.
 A small group of rich men of the patrician class formed the governing body. This was the Senate.
 Plebeians were greater in number than patricians, but they could not take part in government.
 Plebeians began to fight for increased political power. This led to posting the Twelve Tables. These were the basic codes of law in ancient
Rome.

 Men still ruled society, but women had more of a life outside the home.
 Power shifted into the hands of the emperors.
 The number of enslaved people increased until they greatly outnumbered the plebeians. This put many plebeians out of work.
 Emperors used “bread and circuses” to keep plebeians who were not working from rioting.
 Slavery supported the empire. Enslaved people could buy their freedom on occasion.



Video- Everyday Life in Roman Cities

 The center of Roman society was the called the familia, or family. Family, marriage, and duty were important to the people of ancient Rome.
 A pyramid-style hierarchy, or order, determined the roles of every person within the society.

 Ancient Roman society was organized into three classes: patricians, plebeians, and slaves.
 Patricians were the ruling class, and plebeians were commoners.

 The center of Roman society
 was the family, or familia.
Societal roles were
 determined by a pyramidstyle hierarchy.
The father was the head of the family, or the
paterfamilias, and had absolute power.

Key Term
Paterfamilias- The father was the absolute ruler of the family. Below the father were the other male members of the family, including sons, uncles, and cousins.

 The bottom of the pyramid consisted of women, children, and slaves.
 Women focused on domestic chores and managed household slaves.

Reading Handout- Women in the Roman Empire

 To make sure they were protected and had a greater say in the public sphere, plebeians sought the patronage, or support, of a member of the patrician class.



 In return, the patron represented the plebeian politically and legally.
 As the patricians gained more wealth, the gap between them and the plebeians grew.

Video- The Divide Between the Rich and Poor

 Eventually, plebeians began to demand more political and economic rights.
 This struggle led to the creation of the Twelve
Tables, the first set of written laws in Rome.

Video- Slavery in Ancient Rome

 As the Roman Empire grew, its slave population soared.
Slaves worked in a variety of roles, including mining, farming, and domestic work.

Key Term
Gladiators- Men who fought against one another or against large animals as a form of entertainment for others.

 Some slaves were forced to fight to the death as gladiators. Gladiators were professional fighters.
 There were no laws to protect slaves, and they had no rights.

 Because of the harsh conditions slaves lived in, Romans feared a slave revolt.
 To prevent this, they used the possibility of manumission, the ability to buy one’s freedom, as an incentive for good behavior.
 Even so, slave revolts did happen.
 A famous example is a slave revolt led by the gladiator
Spartacus. After years of fighting, his rebellion was harshly suppressed.



Because slaves did much of the work in the Roman
Empire, many plebeians had no jobs and fell into poverty.
As a result, they were forced to survive on food handouts from the government.

 Historians refer to these people as “the mob”—the people whose poverty, unemployment, and dependence on the state led them to riot.

Video- Gladiator Combat

 The increasing inequality of Roman society led to tensions between the upper and lower classes.
 To appease the lower classes, patricians used a tactic called “bread and circuses.”

 Bread and Circuses refers to distracting the people from their long-term problems by offering them food handouts (bread) and entertainment such as chariot races and gladiator fights (circuses).

 Chariot races were held in a large U-shaped stadium called the Circus Maximus.
 Another stadium, called the Colosseum (or
Coliseum), served as an arena for gladiator fights and other entertainments.

Key Term
The Colosseum-
Erected to entertain the public with spectacles such as mock battles, huge fights between gladiators or between men and animals.

Key Term
Circus Maximus-
One of many sports arenas in ancient Rome built for the amusement of the Roman people.

 The games were an expensive but effective way of keeping the poor entertained.
 Also, the state provided free or low-cost grain to the poor to keep them happy.

 Like sports fans today, the Romans pass through the gates and head for their seats. Where they sit, however, depends on who they are. The emperor and his guests are seated nearest to the field on a magnificent platform.

Reading Handout- Sports Through the Ages

 Roman engineers and architects developed styles and ways of doing things that were their own.
 Public baths spread throughout the empire.
 Many Roman buildings and roads throughout the empire still exist today because of the invention of concrete.
 Rome used Greek building styles. However, it built larger, taller, and heavier buildings than the Greeks built. Romans did this by adding their own ideas, such as vaults, arches, and the use of concrete.

 After a civil war in the Roman Republic led to the founding of the
Roman Empire, Emperor Augustus set out to organize Rome’s territories and establish boundaries to create unity throughout the empire. Called the Pax Romana, this period of relative peace lasted
200 years.
 The Romans used a census to determine who to tax and how much to tax each individual or family.
 As the empire grew, the Roman government levied a common tax paid with money called tributum, or tribute.

Video- Roads and Aqueducts

 The Romans constructed a vast network of roads to hold the empire together.
 These roads made it possible for Roman armies to control the population in all areas of the vast empire.

Key Term
Legionnaire- A soldiers who fought in the armies of the
Roman Empire.
Rome’s armies were composed of legions, and each legion had about
6,000 soldiers.



The roads were built to last—in fact, some of them are still used today.
The Romans provided water to their cities using aqueducts that carried water over long distances for drinking, irrigation, and baths.

 Public baths were a part of daily life in ancient
Rome.
 At these baths, men would discuss business, politics, and local gossip.
 Women had smaller, less luxurious baths.

 Roman artists adopted techniques used by the
Greeks and applied them to art forms such as landscaping and portraiture.
 The Romans also specialized in making practical art, such as jewelry, coins, fountains, and mosaics.

 The Romans used an architectural element called the dome in some of their buildings, such as the
Pantheon, and perfected the arch.

 Roman culture often imitated what it admired and improved on what it needed from other
 cultures.
As a result, it came up with useful inventions, such as concrete.

 Latin became the common language of the Roman Empire.
 Latin became the official language of the Roman Catholic
Church.
 Latin is still used in terms for law, science, and mathematics.
The spread of Latin changed the languages of some
Europeans. This change resulted in the forming of various
Romance languages.
 English contains many Latin-based words.

 Latin was the common language of the empire.
 It helped unite the diverse cultures within the Roman Empire and influenced the development of many modern languages.

 Today, many modern languages, including
French, Spanish, Italian,
Portuguese, and
Romanian, are called
Romance languages because they developed from Latin.

 With the decline of the
Roman Empire and the rise of
Christianity, Latin became the spoken and written language of the Roman Catholic

Church.
Classical Latin continues to be used in science, mathematics, and legal terminology.

 Rome’s legacy has been ensured by the multiple ways the rest of the world has recognized, admired, and adopted aspects of its unique character.

 What has been the
“muddiest” point so far in this lesson? That is, what topic remains the least clear to you? (4 minutes)

