Ancient Rome Expert Answers Roman Empire Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED

I'm Lauren Ginsburg professor of ancient Rome and I'm here to answer your questions from the internet this is ancient Rome [Music] support at ABA Eagle why did Romans wear toas the average Roman did not go out of their house hanging out in a toga because toas were extremely long extremely complicated gowns to put together so even extremely Elite Roman citizens recognize the toga as a ceremonial gown I like this image because we have all these people who wearing things that are decidedly not toas what they are wearing is the basic Roman garment that anyone of any status male or female would wear which is What's called the tunic or the Tunica and this is essentially a long t-shirt at c450 HS did the Romans really wash their clothes in urine yes and essentially so do we so if you look at any of your household cleaners you will see that one of the highest ingredients generally is ammonia it's very costic so it's not always very good for your things but but it cleans extremely effectively and so the Romans were able to recognize that urine when stored for quite some time tends to break down into ammonia so when you would bring your clothes to um a fonica so this is a a laundromat essentially in the ancient world the first thing was it would go into a vat in which highly concentrated urine would be poured and you would let it sit there then the clothes would be washed with clean flowing water in three to four separate Vats until the end it was basically perfectly clean and it could be line dried Finn Huck did the Romans really have vomitoriums yes but not in the way that you mean it is true that if you look at some Urban plans in Rome Stadium buildings amphitheaters theaters places where tens of thousands of people would come you will often find the word vomitorium that's written there and somehow a myth has been created that this is where decadent Romans would go after they ate too much food and they would Purge themselves this is not what those words mean it comes from the Latin word vomo vay which basically means to send forth and so yes on the one hand send forth your food but on the other it can mean to send forth people so what these were were actually large large stairways to get lots of people out of a stadium very quickly so we actually still use the exact same technology that Romans called vomitoria we just don't call them vomitoriums and I for one think maybe we should at not landl man they didn't even have popcorn back in ancient Rome true story what did they snack on in the Coliseum this made headlines last summer because they've actually started to do excavations in the drainage system of the Coliseum and in the sewers because if you think about it if you go to a rock concert today you can see everything sticky on the floor people throw their food all over the place where does that go in ancient Rome it would go down into the drains and it would go down into the sewers and that means that things that can survive for those Millennia we can be able to tell that those were the kind of foods that were snacked on all sorts of varieties of nuts and residues of nuts have been found in these sewers fruits for example figs and peaches and other fruits grapes that were easy to carry also what they discovered was that people seem to bring or at least have access to small portable grills sort of like tailgating grills little brazers where they could grill meat at the time as you watched people fight to the death and animals die at jwad dog why does concrete from ancient Rome stand up better than modern concrete if we look at this dome in the pantheon of Rome it looks pretty spectacular today if we consider that this Dome is made of concrete and we think of a bridge that might have been built in your city in the 1970s these two things do not look the same so just this past summer a team of civil engineers from MIT set out to figure out what this was and they think that they have an answer if you look at Roman concrete you can see in The Matrix these chunks of white material so this group of MIT scientists figured out that these white chunks called lime classs were deliberate and were also proof that the Romans used something called quick lime as opposed to Lime that had been premixed with water which had always been the Assumption and that quick clme superheats the chemical process as it makes concrete and so one of the things we've always known about Roman concrete is that it can Harden really quickly including underwater also the other property that they were able to recreate in the lab was that Roman concrete can be self-healing to a certain amount so if you put modern concrete and Roman Concrete in a stress environment so that the concrete cracks Roman concrete can actually heal that cracks and the key that they think they found is that these lime clasts these calcif aized white s would be able to immediately distribute material to those cracks and help with the self-healing properties it is much more expensive to make concrete this way so I'm not actually sure that we're about to have a Roman concrete Revolution but it is pretty cool that these scientists think they've recreated what the secret of Roman concrete is at Dylan's fault did those Gladiators really fight lions how often did they die absolutely Gladiators really fought Lions it's not even like they would just be released from a gate and everyone could tell and Architectural investigation has shown the technology through which Lions below the surface of the floor of the Coliseum would able to be launched into the air to suddenly appear but the question about how often did they die we have tombstones that show Gladiators who have won um 50 different competitions in their life evidence of Gladiators who retire from being a gladiator and train other Gladiators and so it wouldn't really make sense if every time they went into the arena there was a 50-50 shot that they weren't going to walk out instead what we see mostly when it's human versus human Gladiator versus Gladiator is a heavily stage managed choreographed fight that's designed to be extremely exciting for the audience that doesn't mean that they weren't sometimes killed we do also have evidence that Gladiators could be killed but that would have been agreed upon in advance by whoever was running the games and whoever had nominal control over the gladiator's life we have get Gators what did the Romans invent that we still use today one thing we want to poke at is this word invention because the Romans sort of took things that existed concrete is a good example and perfected it but the example I think of immediately is actually surgical tools scalpel tweezers forceps but the actual basic tools if you looked on say the set of gry's anatomy or some medical show would look extremely similar to what the Romans were using in the past and they would be made out of similar types of metal from this is Nico did they have bars in Ancient Rome or did wine just flow freely down the streets unfortunately no but they did have bars and they had bars all over the place so these were often called TNI and these would be bars where you could get drink but you could also get food and this is a great example so this comes from some recent excavations in Pompei in an area that were just open to the public and what you can see here is a big counter so you could imagine someone behind here actually serving alcohol but those big jars that you see would also have food so stews Rich hot items that people would either get to have as their primary meal of the day in the bar or that they would then take home where they could heat it up simply so these bars show up so often in these workingclass neighborhoods of Pompei and the analogy I like to use is they show up as often as a Dunkin Donuts does in the city of Boston and the graffiti that we found on them shows that they're really a Social Hub of the neighborhood it's likely that you would just go to the pub on the corner much the way we think of neighborhood bars today from attemps Flame come on I suppose next you're going to tell me that all those Greek and Roman statues were actually Godly painted yes I'm here to tell you that all of those Greek and Roman statues were painted but I object to the term Godly when people think about what it was like to walk around the streets of ancient Rome they think about these things that are here bright white Marble Marble buildings marble statues the Romans would have found all of this white marble extremely boring they loved vibrancy and they were also worldclass painters there was a fantastic exhibit last summer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that actually featured a number of recreated statues in which scientists had very carefully taken tiny bits of pigment on statues so you could see that say a statue of someone like Nero here each layer of clothing would be painted with shades with texture with patterns and the same thing is true with Roman buildings Rome was a wash of color Nevada D Knight 67 was ancient Rome really a sexual free for-all so here's the thing Romans had a very healthy sex life Romans had sex inside and outside the institution of marriage Romans had sex for procreation yes but also for pleasure Romans had access to contraception Romans especially Roman women would rise up when they thought that those rights were being curtailed Romans have pictures and works of art and uh literary texts that talk about sexual desire the talk about sex acts the talk about their favorite positions short it's Woman On Top is the thing that they seem to like a lot men have sex with women men have sex with men women have sex with women women have sex with men and so much like today it was really a spectrum of sexual behavior sexual performance sexual interest from The Kino Corner which Roman Emperor was objectively the best the Roman Empire was an autocracy which means that all Roman emperors were autocrats and it means I don't actually think any of them were very good people I think in general that form of government doesn't lead to people doing good things so I'm going to take a couple of examples of good and bad Emperors we have a friend Nero here who everyone probably agrees the worst of the worst Emperors and then we have everyone's favorite Emperor on the internet Marcus aelius he wrote this nice book of stoic philosophy and so people think he's extremely chill and thus under his Empire things must have gone particularly well but let's ask this question objectively the best for whom and was he objectively the best for the uh substantial population of the Roman Empire at that time who were enslaved we always have an idea of what we mean as best for whom and I just don't happen to think that the Roman Empire produced anyone that we would consider to be a fair ruler today at royally Ari how often do you think about the Roman Empire well this is a little bit of an unfair question because I have to say the answer is more than daily because it is a professional oblig ation I probably think about the Roman Empire more than your average person anzora HQ how effective were public toilets and bathrooms at keeping people clean and how was hygiene in ancient Rome Romans had extremely Advanced Technologies of water for example they had extensive systems of aqueducts that were able to bring clean water across vast expanses of land they had a sewer system as of I believe the 4th Century BC that's bananas they had public bathing facilities so it was very regular if you were a Roman no matter your status to actually go and use these bats on a daily basis to clean yourselves and yes they also had public toilets this would not be the only place that people would go to the bathroom but you can see in this that we would have stalls they would probably not lead to a lot of privacy and you can see that running along down the side of them would be places for channels of water so what were the Romans not good at in terms of hygiene with this water technology well they didn't understand things like dissenter about communicable diseases that way and so if you're having um say reusable toilet paper which in the Roman world would be a sea sponge and it's being cleaned in vinegar which can do some things that's not going to stop things like dissenter from being passed along anzora HQ what kind of toys did Roman children play with we have so much wonderful information about the value that was put on playing as a social emotional strategy for raising Roman children one of my favorite is actually this doll this particular one is made out of Ivory and what's so impressive about it is you can see that the limbs are articulated so you can see that you can sit this doll down you can have her stand up and this doll actually also has the famous hairstyle of the Roman Empress at the time Julia DNA so she's also a high fashioned doll we know that dice games were very common walking toys that would clearly teach little toddlers how to walk and a lot of the building blocks that teach children how to play with each other were considered particularly important and with this doll could also be considered extremely beloved objects that someone would keep well past their girlhood from El Gringo Loco what was the average lifespan of a Roman peasant this is a really great question because you're going to find on the internet when you look this up this idea that the Roman average lifespan was 35 years and then people often think as a result that if you made it to 35 you were grandparent age and that's just not true cuz we have to think about what an average means infant mortality in Rome was astronomically High most children died within the first year of birth so that was just infant mortality child mortality about 50% of children died by age 10 and you can see already why that's lowering and lowering that average so if you made it to age 10 as a lower class Roman citizen whether you were living in the country you had a decently High chance of making it into your mid-50s and we know plenty of people lived beyond that our next question is from Christa Colin how does an archaeologist look at an ancient column and conclude this was a Roman brothel they could not do that we do know that there's a very famous purpose-built brothel in Pompei the building is entirely full of tiny stalls and in each of the Stalls is only a bedshaped platform above the Stalls are extremely graphic sex acts and then there is graffiti and my favorite that has survived is over one stall and I have to imagine this was from the sex worker that wrote thrust slowly putting all of those things together it's pretty easy to see that this was a place where sex work was on the agenda namona TWU what rights did Roman women gain in Imperial Rome Roman women couldn't vote and that's a big one but Roman women could be citizens Roman women could own property in their own name they could inherit property in their own name Roman women could be business owners and some of whom were using their own business sense to advance their children especially their sons and their political ambition Roman women could hire a lawyer to defend themselves or to bring a suit in court Roman women lived with a greater degree of Freedom across social classes than we're used to seeing in the ancient world at in cream cakes how many civil wars did Rome have including the Byzantine era that is a very hard question to answer um for very good reasons one is that the Romans thought that Civil War was something inside them that you had to fight against every day or it would erupt Romans had documented Civil Wars and they're the ones that actually came up with this term where two Roman armies would fight each other headed by two Romans but what's the difference between that and an uprising of enslaved people who are part of the Roman population like Spartacus is that a civil war what's the difference between the whole system of Roman provinces rising up against Roman rule they're part of Rome and they're rising up and they're fighting but they're fighting more with Gorilla War tactics do we call that a civil war you can see it becomes very hard to parse when one part of Rome is fighting the other but it happens all the time at blood orange what the did ancient Romans wear during the winter I know right cuz all the images we see are in these sort of lightweight linen shirts and like sandals that's our image of Rome and it's snowed in Rome well the key to Roman happiness in this would be layers in the same way that it is today and Romans actually had access even then to material that we know is the best to keep you warm and that is wool so the average Roman would wear socks yes Romans really pioneered the idea of socks and sandals they would wear extra thick socks but they also didn't just wear sandals they had thick leather shoes and the more layers of leather the better those shoes would be in Winter conditions and then cloaks tons and tons of beautiful wool cloaks on top at Robert Smith 29th I was wondering how the Romans produced their Roman coins and how they put the emperor onto the coins the way the Romans made coins was a by-and process so what you would do is you would have a base and you would put in this base a mold that had one side of the coin and in that mold you would put a metal disc and I would put it face down so you can imagine it's almost like a clam with two molds and the metal disc goes in here then I take a hammer and I whack it and that's called stamping and that would put the images on both sides of the coin from at theist and thought did ancient Romans go on Hikes or go to the beach for relaxation yes there was a heavy Leisure Time activity in Rome where people would go to the coast especially the Bay of Naples and have Seaside Villas and go to these really fancy baths sort of like a spa vacation but it could last months the extreme Elite of Rome that would have access to these Seaside Villas so the average Roman person probably didn't have a lot of time to be able to do that so what did they do to relax Rome had a lot of holidays around a festival calendar and these festivals would feature gladiatorial matches they would feature Chariot racing they would feature um theatrical spectacles including the ancient equivalent of musicals and we have evidence that people even from rural communities would come in for these festivals especially the big ones that's because they were state holidays in the Empire there were over 100 days of public holidays at just tamon so like in ancient Rome what was living there like people worked and then went home and did they pay rent the average Marcus I should say instead of the average Average Joe he could be a shoem maker could be someone who sews clothing could be a launderer any of the activities that you need done in your general city life would be the same thing that they would need done in ancient Rome sometimes home was right above you if they were quite wealthy they might own the space that their shop is in but often they would be renting out both of those spaces from a landlord and you bet the Romans complained about their landlords shotty upgrades Vermin that weren't being taken care of a neighbor who parties too hard and wakes the baby at tweak fan 25 did they have weed in ancient Rome yes but not in the way that you are asking Romans really loved hemp as a plant and they loved how easy it was to make ropes with it we find hemp products all over the place and hemp the word for it in Latin is cannabis so you can see the connection but there's no sense that the Romans first of all smoked it smoking was not a particularly good thing in Roman culture but there's also not great evidence that they recognized it sort of mind-altering possibilities at Kevin feny it will always be faintly extraordinary to me that Roman historians cannot agree on the answer to the superficially simple question of how many Roman emperors were there so when Augustus is the first emperor he declares a successor tiberias tiberias becomes the next Emperor and miraculously we have two so why is it so hard to keep counting eventually Rome becomes big and eventually other people decide they could be Emperor and what does it take to become emperor for a lot of Romans the answer is an army that they're paying can declare them Emperor and they can besiege Rome until they are declared Emperor flash forward to later in the Rome Empire when we have divided centers is the center of Rome the city of Rome anymore no there is a center in Constantinople and sometimes it's Milan sometimes it's Rena we're getting then multiple Emperors or people who could be perceived as Emperors at the same time but we also get usurpers guys with armies that come in think I could do this and who gets to declare them Emperor at that point there aren't rules for this one way or another it can become really hard for us to tell who is Emperor and sometimes all we have is a single coin as evidence just one coin that one guy who claims to be Emperor minted was he Emperor we have no idea at terara encounters how many gods did ancient Romans worship it's not really fair to ask how many gods they worshiped it's more fair to ask what gods didn't they worship Romans saw Divine in lots of things Springs had a Divine being caves had a Divine being they had a festival to ward off mildew and it was called the Ralia and it was in April and that showed that they also thought that Milo had a Divine spirit in it that they could essentially bribe to not destroy their crops so the Romans had a really heavy investment in seeing the Divine in as many places as possible and finding a way to connect with that religiously at shakes Shure I need someone to tell me if ramulus and Remis were real like immediately ramulus and Remis are the legendary founders of Rome they were twins who'd been expelled from their patrimony by an evil King and they were supposed to be drowned in a river and the legend goes that a She Wolf found them and nursed them and prevented them from dying and then when they grew up they were able to overthrow the evil King and they were able to found their own civilization but even the Romans are pretty skeptical about this story you can see a lot of the historians later saying really a She Wolf are we sure it wasn't a sex worker that we just called a She Wolf this was a pretty legendary story sort of like George Washington and the cherry tree and they didn't put much factual Faith behind it all right that's all the time we have for questions for today I hope you learned something weird and interesting about Romans and we'll see you next [Music] time

Channel: WIRED

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Keywords: ancient rome, history, how often do you think about roman empire, innovation, lauren ginsberg, men roman empire, ott tech support, roman empire, roman empire emperors, roman empire facts, roman empire history, roman empire meme, roman empire men, roman empire questions, roman empire timeline, roman empire trend, roman empire twitter, roman empire wired, roman history, roman studies, science & technology, tech support, the roman empire, wired, wired tech support

Id: DF-93e26uys

Length: 20min 26sec (1226 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 28 2023