I researched about Roman laws influencing today’s society. I researched this because I thought it was intriguing to my mind. I hope to study law in the future, and this helped me learn about our past. JWhile doing the research, a difficulty I ran into was Noodletools  failed. This caused me to lose my notes and sources. However, I managed to get through this project  using my memory and art skills. The thing that stood out to me the most was the oppression of slaves was due to the way the founding fathers compromised on the language they used to describe slaves. The Romans called them what they were, and thus were more protected. The founding fathers used weird terms like “special property” and so the slaves were less protected. Thank you!

While I am focusing on Roman jewelry my partner Ellie is focusing on Roman clothing the other aspect of our project.. Our research can be seen in Ellie and my final product, which is a poster showing the different types of jewelry and their relation to a Roman’s socioeconomic status.

Jewelry played an important role in the everyday lives of women living in ancient Rome. From commoners to those who were wealthy, jewelry had an essential role in their outfits. It was used not only as an accessory but also as a way to convey their status of wealth. Wealthy women, with the help of a slave women, would choose her jewelry everyday from an extensive collection. Often wealthy women wore several pieces of jewelry consisting of necklaces, rings, and bracelets. Gold and silver as well as colored gemstones and glass made up the materials. Pearl, amethyst, and emerald were the preferred stones.

Men wore jewelry too and also used it as a tool to demonstrate wealth and power. Men typically wore less jewelry, the most common being signa(finger rings) and fibulae(brooches) in which they wore multiple at a time. Men would also sometimes wear pendants. Bureaucrats and senators wore large rings, which were often gold with large gemstones in the middle.

The lower class wore jewelry made of other less expensive metals such as bronze and iron. The common people, also called plebeians, were allowed only to wear rings made of iron. Constricting rules on the rights to wear certain types of jewelry gradually relaxed and women and men alike were more inclined to wear multiple rings made of varied materials. New techniques and technologies allowed for mass production of pieces, which made jewelry less expensive and more accessible to the commoners.

In ancient Roman culture, jewelry was an important part of life, as it not only appealed to their aesthetic values but also was used to demonstrate status, wealth, power, and knowledge.

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Clancy, Jean. “A Brief Introduction to Ancient Roman Jewelry.” Historyplex, Historyplex, 2016,

historyplex.com/ancient-roman-jewelry.

Phinney, Ed. Cambridge Latin Course: Unit 1. Cambridge University Press for the Schools Council,

2000.

Richter, Gisela. “Roman Jewelry.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 9 May 2018,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_jewelry.

World Eras. Ed. John T. Kirby. Vol. 3: Roman Republic and Empire, 264 B.C.E.- 476 C.E.. Detroit:

Gale, 2001.p268-271.

Roman Religion Outside of the House

 

At the beginning of my project I asked the question: How does Roman religion affect daily life? We decided to demonstrate the religious practices in the house by building a model Roman house. In my associate’s blog post, She talks about the process of making our model, and in my other group partner’s post, she gives us a tour of the model house. In my blog post I will be describing gods/goddesses and rituals that were outside of the house. If you want to read about rituals inside the house: Gods and Goddesses Inside the RomanHouse.

Outside of the rituals performed inside of the house, roman religion played a big roll. Rituals were very important and insured success in life, business, and was important to all jobs. The main concept of religion was do ut des (meaning: I give so that you give). One way that Romans worshipped gods were at festivals. The festivals took place outside of the particular god’s temple. At the festivals, there were many rituals performed to appease the gods, as well as feasts. The most popular of these festivals was the Saturnalia. Others included Matronalia, Lupercalia, Veneralia, Parentalia, and Fornacalia. 

The Saturnalia was a festival honoring Saturn, the god of generation, dissolution, plenty, wealth, agriculture, periodic renewal and liberation. The festival was held over winter solstice, however, the event actually started on December 17 and lasted seven days. Saturnalia was held in the Roman Forum. Women were not allowed into the festival on the first day, but, slaves were. Slaves often swapped places with their masters, in result, Saturnalia was given the nickname of feriae servorum (meaning: the slave’s holiday).

The Roman Pantheon was a Roman temple and a place of worship. In roman religion, there were many gods, some more respected and useful than others. There were two triads of gods that were looked highly upon. The Archaic Triad was the first, it consisted of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, and the second triad: Capitoline. The second trio had Jupiter but replaced the other two gods with Juno and Minerva.

Jupiter was the king of gods, and god of the weather and sky. He was compared to the greek god Zeus, and the Egyptian god Amon. His temple was on Aventine hill. Mars was the Roman god of war and agriculture, he was extremely important, much more than his greek counterpart Ares. Mars was parised before and after wars for luck and gratitude. Being the god of agriculture, he had many festivals that honored him in the month of March. The last Archaic god was Quirinus. Little is known about this war god. Historians belief that he existed long before the birth of Rome. 

The Capitoline triad was viewed as more important and more recent. Many believed that the three gods were the most important for Rome. Jupiter was the first god, and his wife was also in the trio, Juno. Juno was associated with the greek god Hera. The goddess was linked the birth and marriage and was important to Roman woman. Therefore, the festival of Matronalia was held in her honor. Juno was referred to as queen of the gods because she married Jupiter. Minerva was the last of the Capitoline triad. She was associated with Athena, which linked her to war, but her connection with the mind and intelligence were more important to Romans. She was sometimes seen as Jupiter’s consort instead of Juno. She surpassed Mars as the most important military figure.

There were countless amounts of other gods that were worshiped besides the two trios. They were just viewed as less important. Some of those gods and goddesses are listed as follows:

• Janus, the god of beginnings
• Saturn, an agriculture god
• Vulcan, the god of fire and the forge
• Venus, the goddess of fertility
• Mercury, the god of communication
• Diana, associated with the moon and the woods
• Ceres, a grain goddess
• Isis, the egyptian goddess of feminine power
• Apollo, associated with poetry and much more
• Bacchus, the god of wine

Roman Religion is a very vast topic with lots to learn. There were many ways that Romans worshiped their gods including temples and festivals. Gods/Goddesses were both important inside and outside of the house, they insured success in life. You can visit the process of our roman house model here, and the tour here. My other group member talks about religion in the Roman house.

 

 

Works Cited

Aldrete, Gregory S. “Roman Forum.” ABC-CLIO eBook Collection, ABC-CLIO, ancienthistory.abc-clio.com/

   Search/Display/1820836?terms=Roman+forum&sType=quick. Accessed 24 May 2018.

Dixon-Kennedy, Mike. “Saturn.” ABC-CLIO eBook Collection, ABC-CLIO, ancienthistory.abc-clio.com/

   Search/Display/

   587100?terms=Roman%20religion&webSiteCode=SLN_HANC&returnToPage=%2fSearch%2fDisplay%2f587100%3fterms%

   3dRoman+religion&token=6FF968CAFF21102ED3FECFA1EE38C50B&casError=False. Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.

McGeough, Kevin Murray. “Roman Pantheon.” ABC-CLIO eBook Collection, ABC-CLIO,

   ancienthistory.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1603346?terms=roman+gods&sType=quick. Accessed 29

   May 2018.

Pope, Stephanie M. Cambridge Latin Course Unit 3. Illustrated by Peter Kesteven, Cambridge UP, 1971.

Roy, Christian. “Saturnalia.” ABC-CLIO eBook Collection, ABC-Clio, ancienthistory.abc-clio.com/

   Search/Display/1699004?terms=saturn. Accessed 24 May 2018.

“Saturn.” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_(mythology). Accessed 1 June 2018.

“Saturnalia.” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnalia. Accessed 1 June 2018.

“Temple of Jupiter.” Encircle Photos, www.encirclephotos.com/image/

   temple-of-jupiter-at-forum-in-pompeii-italy/. Accessed 1 June 2018.

Tschen-Emmons, James B. “Roman Religion.” ABC-CLIO eBook Collection, ancienthistory.abc-clio.com/

   Search/Display/

   583696?terms=Roman%20religion&webSiteCode=SLN_HANC&returnToPage=%2fSearch%2fDisplay%2f583696%3fterms%

   3dRoman+religion&sType=quick&token=3E0FBD19D8C6740F84E436EF2037D6FA&casError=False. Accessed 21

   5 2018.

—. “Rome.” ABC-CLIO eBook Collection, ABC-CLIO, ancienthistory.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/

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   man+gods&token=08E5917376564BDAD24CDF9A6A547808&casError=False. Accessed 30 May 2018.

 

Links

(Work cited: 227 words)

 

                                     

The recurring comment that is often said is that “the Romans stole from the Greeks” and that “the Greeks came up with it first,” and with myself being a quarter Greek, I was coming into this project with a distinct bias and preconceived notion that I would once and for all argue that the Romans stole ideas from the Greeks. Specifically, I decided to narrow down my argument by focusing on Greek and Roman architecture. While my research has led me to the conclusion that Roman architecture was similar to Greek architecture in many regard, I mostly learned that Roman architecture has many distinct differences, marking and resembling a unique culture from Greece’s.

Even more specifically, my research led me to two of the well renowned architectural accomplishments, the Parthenon, built on the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, as well as the Pantheon, constructed in Rome. That is why my product was a digital poster marking the key features of both the Parthenon and the Pantheon. However, my product was originally going to be a paper poster, and I had made a digital outline in order to have a model to go off of. But upon realizing that it would be much cleaner and more professional if I were to keep my product as a digital poster, I abandoned the idea of a paper poster and instead focused on adding to my google slides poster and giving it a more aesthetic appearance.

The Parthenon had two major purposes. The first was to serve as a temple for the goddess Athena, as seen by the 40 foot tall Chryselephantine Statue of Athena built by Pheidias as well as to show the glory of Athens after defeating their Persian rivals led under Darius and then Xerxes. Not only was the Parthenon a temple for Athena, but it was also a building designed as part of the Greek national treasury. The Pantheon’s uses on the other hand are much less known, and much more based around speculation. First off, the building style would suggest that the Pantheon was some form of temple, however, this is not decisive, because there was no known deity that it seemed to be in honor of. That is why the Pantheon was most likely a centrally located speaking ground, a stage for emperors to give their speeches with the backdrop of the magnificent Pantheon behind them, adding to and giving the emperor a divine ordination.

The design of the Parthenon and the Pantheon, while showing similarities, have extremely different structures. First of all, the Greek Parthenon is built in a column array with Doric columns, while the Roman Pantheon features a much smaller array of columns leading to the entrance of the interior dome, with the columns being the much more complex Corinthian columns. The Parthenon features an ionic frieze running along the top of the exterior columns, depicting major Greek events throughout history. On the other hand, the Pantheon does not have specific events being drawn, but art is everywhere in the interior of the dome, and a 7.8 meter hole in diameter at the top of the dome opens it up completely to the sky.

In conclusion, the Parthenon and the Pantheon have uses that are difficult to compare because the exact use of the Pantheon is unknown, but we know for sure that the Parthenon was a temple dedicated to Athena, while the Pantheon was most likely a public speaking stage for the emperor. On a different note, the design of the Parthenon bears similarities to the design of the Pantheon in that they both feature columns, with the Pantheon’s Corinthian column design initially being created by the Greeks. However, the major difference is that the Pantheon features a 142 foot dome in diameter which was something that had never been created to the same magnitude in Greece, as it had been in Rome. So it is clear that the Romans used Greek ideas in order to influence their architecture, however, the Romans added to the complexity of their architecture and made it completely their own.

 

Works Cited
“Architecture.” World Eras, edited by John T. Kirby, vol. 6: Classical Greek Civilization, 800-323 B.C.E, Gale, 2001, pp. 53-57. Gale Virtual Reference Library, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX3035100028/GVRL?u=sant55114&sid=GVRL&xid=cbfa255f. Accessed 1 June 2018.

“Architecture.” World Eras, edited by John T. Kirby, vol. 6: Classical Greek Civilization, 800-323 B.C.E, Gale, 2001, pp. 53-57. Gale Virtual Reference Library, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX3035100028/GVRL?u=sant55114&sid=GVRL&xid=cbfa255f. Accessed 1 June 2018.

Cartwright, Mark. “Pantheon.” Ancient History Encyclopedia, Ancient History Encyclopedia, 30 May 2018, www.ancient.eu/Pantheon/.

Cartwright, Mark. “Pantheon vs Parthenon.” Ancient History Encyclopedia, 9 Apr. 2018, www.diffen.com/difference/Pantheon_vs_Parthenon.

“Difference Between Greek and Roman Architecture of Antiquity.” UKEssays, 3 Oct. 2016, www.ukessays.com/essays/architecture/the-differences-between-the-greek-and-roman-architecture.php.