Daily Life of the Ancient Romans

by David Matz

This book provides a clear, accessible examination of the major aspects of daily life--from food and sports to religion, education, and politics--of ancient Rome's common people, including slaves, and offers generous selections from a wide variety of primary source materials. Also included are thirty illustrations, a chronology of Roman history, a guide to Roman authors, and an extensive bibliography.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Fred Kohn · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's not so much that I didn't like the book. I just didnt find it very easy to read. It consists mostly of short anecdotes that aren't arranged particularly well. I didn't like the formatting, and the editing wasn't very good. It would probably be OK as a reference book in somebody's library that needed handy anecdotes on Rome, if such people exist.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love reading about Ancient Rome, and I wanted to like this more, but the haphazard organization made it a little annoying to get through. Having the headers for new sections to the side of the paragraphs rather than above was frequently confusing, as the topic seemed to jump disjointedly without a sense break. And to be completely honest I'm not sure how much that would have helped in many cases, since the flow of information was often only loosely connected by an overarching idea, like architecture, without transition sentences, headers, space breaks, or really any purpose for leaving the previous idea in the place it was. I wondered if the author's inspiration to write this book was just to combine several factoids about Ancient Romans in one place, just lining them up one after the other. While I was interested in reading about their lives and work and leisure, I would have liked it more if there was a more obvious internal logic to its organization. I even noticed that he wrote nearly the same description of the Lupercalian Festival and Mark Antony's infamous crowning of Caesar during one in two separate chapters. I don't feel confident in how to rate this book because the information was great, but the structure and editing left much to be desired.

[Sinan Pertev · Rating 3 out of 5]

Antik roma hakkında ilgisi olanlar için çok iyi bir kitap ama kesinlikle başlangıç kitabı değil. Çok fazla değişik zaman olay ve kişi hakkında konuştuğu için hiç roma tarihi bilmeyenler için zor olabilir.

Ama daha önce bir kitap bile okuduysanız roma tarihi hakkında o zaman sunduğu geniş bilgi yelpazesi okuyan için çok eğlenceli oluyor

[Emme · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars ⭐️

A good read for fans of Roman history who want a peek at daily life instead of political topics. Chapters are divided by topic, and all of the evidence/insight is anecdotal.

[Ron Orr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely a text that would be a great supplement to any high school or undergraduate class on ancient Rome.

[Ashley Mayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Matz's book was very informative, and easy to read. It's a great source on Roman life.