A Week in the Life of Rome

by James L. Papandrea

  Of those who had registered marriages, many were arranged. Children as young as ten years old could be engaged, and marriage could happen as early as age twelve for girls and fourteen for boys. However, there was a two-year limit on the length of the betrothal period, so most of the time, girls were engaged around age fifteen and married in their late teens, and boys were engaged in their late teens and married around twenty, unless they went into the military. In that case they married when they got out, at around age twenty-seven, or at least by about thirty. The end result of all this was that Roman husbands and wives tended to have a greater difference in age than we’re used to—often as much as ten years’ difference or more for a first marriage and an even greater gap for second and third marriages.

  Divorce was extremely easy and common, as much for registered as nonregistered marriages. It could be initiated by either spouse. This means that there must have been a lot of fear of abandonment on the part of women, since a woman on her own was a woman in danger. For this reason, in the event of a divorce the dowry would have to be returned so that the woman would not be destitute. This may have served as a deterrent to divorce, if the dowry was substantial. On the other hand, even husbands could be at the mercy of a networking father-in-law, who would demand the return of the dowry in order to enter into a new marriage contract. Married women were still tied to their father’s family, and a woman’s father could initiate a divorce in order to make a better match for his daughter. As time went by, wealthy husbands and wives increasingly kept their family’s money and property separate so that parting ways would be easier.

  The prevalence of second marriages and blended families was probably greater than it is today. A lower average life expectancy combined with a high rate of death during childbirth meant that many people were widowed, and women under fifty years old who found themselves widowed were expected to remarry within a time between ten months and two years. Virtually everyone in the upper classes had stepchildren. Wealthy Romans especially do not seem to have thought of marriage as a lifelong bond the way we know that Jews and Christians did. For them, marriage was a political and financial arrangement meant to benefit their extended families. Divorce and remarriage was part of the usual social climbing that Romans with money engaged in. For this reason, many Romans (especially men) had no hesitation in looking for love outside the home. Roman marriage was sexually open (at least for men), and sex with slaves and prostitutes was expected and considered normal. Divorce was rarely over infidelity, since the Roman definition of infidelity did not include sex with slaves or prostitutes. The problem with infidelity in Roman eyes was not so much the sex but rather the potential for bringing shame on one’s family (and possible exile) if one were caught with the wife of a powerful man. Adultery in Roman law was limited to those situations where a woman in a registered marriage might bear illegitimate children, who would unknowingly inherit money and property from a man who was not their father. Therefore it should be no surprise that in the event of divorce, the legitimate children of a registered marriage stayed with their father.

  Figure 1.4. Portrait of a Roman couple. In this fresco, found in a Roman house in Pompeii, the woman holds a wax tablet and stylus, indicating that she was educated, and the man holds a scroll, which may symbolize an administrative position in Pompeii. (National Archaeological Museum, Naples)

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “Look, if you didn’t want to be with me, you could have done what any other man would have done—you could have taken a much younger wife, a proper Roman girl who wouldn’t have had so many of her own ideas, and her own religion, and who would have had a dowry to give you so you could just have a regular registered marriage.”

  Stachys shrugged sheepishly. “The gods gave you to me. Who am I to argue with them?”

  “The gods!” Maria scoffed. “I was not theirs to give! Did a stone give you life? Did a painted statue give you air to breathe?”

  “Well, I never said I was against it. Like I’ve told you before, the dowry thing means nothing to me. I respect that you spent all of your money to get you and your entourage to Rome. That brings honor to your name, Judean or not. We can have this blessing, when the time is right. But now I have to go to court.”

  As he walked out the door, Maria was still talking to him. “It wasn’t an entourage. They’re not my followers. Anyway, someone had to get Peter out of Jerusalem.”

  Stachys made his way through the gate and around the Capitoline Hill toward the Old Forum. The awnings of the forum shaded him as he made his way around the senate house and past the rostrum. There he heard Polybius, one of the emperor’s most powerful freedmen, making an announcement.

  “Our illustrious father, the emperor, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus, has decreed and provided for three days of games, to celebrate the occasion of the adoption of his stepson, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, who from this day forward will be known as Nero Claudius Caesar. The three days of games will commence on the third day after today. Regular work will be suspended. Men are required to wear the toga. Furthermore, the emperor, in his generosity, has decreed that there will be a distribution of bread on the second day after today, the day preceding the first day of the games. The distribution will begin at the fourth hour in the Field of Mars. Those who wish to benefit from the distribution must appear in person. No one may receive for another.”

  As Stachys passed, Polybius repeated the announcement several times, to the cheers of the people who heard it. Coming to the steps of the Basilica Julia, Stachys maneuvered his way around the men playing dice and heads or tails on the court steps. Some of them were playing a board game on the marble steps, where grooves were scratched into the stone to create the game board. As Stachys came into the cooler air of the court building, he saw Urbanus standing in the middle of a growing group of clients, gesturing wildly while talking. He was wearing his best white toga, with the thin purple stripe of the equestrian class, and in between spurts of talking with his hands, he nervously played with his gold equestrian ring.

  Figure 1.5. Game board carved into the marble steps of the Basilica Julia courthouse. The rules of the game are unknown, but it may have been something like mancala.

  On the other side of the aisle, in full uniform and wearing a large ivory phallus on a necklace, was Lucius Geta, the prefect of the Praetorian Guard, standing with his own supporters. Urbanus was suing Geta for payment of a contract on olives. Geta claimed he had canceled the order; Urbanus said that the olives went uncollected and grew mold in the warehouse. At first the case seemed hopeless. A civil suit against a soldier was almost always a losing proposition. And the courts generally favored the testimony of witnesses who were soldiers. But Urbanus’s lawyer spoke more eloquently, and Stachys and the other clients cheered more loudly (even though most of them didn’t understand a word of Latin). In the end, Urbanus won the day. Now Urbanus handed each of his clients a small bonus and sent them on their way, but held Stachys back. “Join me for lunch,” he said, pulling Stachys by the arm.

  They walked from the Old Forum and headed to a nearby tavern on the edge of the Suburra, the neighborhood behind the Forum of Augustus. Stachys bumped into the jugs of wine hanging from chains around the doorpost. He stumbled on the threshold, then caught up to Urbanus, who had walked up to the counter.

  “Drinks are on me,” Urbanus said, winking at the barmaid. She handed Urbanus two mugs and a jug of wine, mixed with water—two-thirds wine, one-third water. Urbanus paid for the drinks and then ordered some food for himself: a sausage on a stick, and a piece of flatbread with olive paste. Stachys took out his bronze sestertius, set it on the counter, and asked for bread and cheese.

  As the two men finished their first bite of lunch, Stachys raised his mug. “Congratulations on your victory in court today.”

  Urbanus halfheartedly raised his mug. “Thank you. But it’s an uneasy victory.” He took a long drink, then put down the mug thoughtfully as he spun his gold equestrian ring around
his finger. “Yes, Geta will have to pay me what he owes me, but he’s been humiliated, and that means this is not over. In fact, just taking him to court was a risky insult on my part, but the fact that I won—now I wish I could forget the whole thing. I’m worried that taking him to court may cost me more than I’m going to get from him. I paid for that victory, and now I have to watch my back. Never go to court, Stachys.”

  Figure 1.6. Remains of a Roman tavern, Ostia Antica

  “But what can he do to you?” Stachys was concerned for his patron, partly because any misfortune a patron might suffer was bound to trickle down to the clients.

  Urbanus thought for a moment. “You know that I have been maneuvering to be appointed as prefect of the grain supply?”

  “Yes, and may the gods—” Stachys caught himself.

  “Well, Geta has his own man he’s put up for the position. Now he’s going to be even more determined to see me defeated. And he has a lot of powerful friends in the imperial house.”

  “But you have friends too, no?”

  “Yes, some. But are they the right ones? Everyone seems to be afraid of Narcissus. It’s a shame how things have become so upside down, senators having to grovel at the feet of former slaves. No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “And do I think that Geta will play by the rules? No, I do not.”

  Urbanus expressing his fears was making Stachys feel all the more vulnerable. This made Stachys react with just enough boldness to bring up a subject he had wanted to bring up for a long time. “I was hoping to speak to you about something, since we’re on the subject.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just as you wish to advance yourself and enhance your position, to be the prefect of the grain supply, I wish to advance myself as well. Not a political office, of course, but I was thinking, I would like to expand my business into imports. And if you become prefect of the grain supply, maybe I could have a piece of the corn-import business. That would bring more security to me and my family.”

  “Ah,” Urbanus nodded. “That makes sense. But corn, that’s a tough one. Corn is almost completely controlled by the imperial house, just like papyrus. Now, with my connections, I could probably get you into importing lumber, or maybe even wine. But, Stachys, do you really want to advance yourself? It’s not as though you can become an equestrian. And anyway, the senators look down on anyone engaged in business. To them, buying commodities at one price and selling them for a profit, without doing anything to increase their value, is considered dishonest. Of course, they’re hypocrites, because they just have their slaves do it for them. Really, I hate to discourage you, but advancement doesn’t mean more security—it means more visibility, and more visibility means more exposure to danger. Like climbing a scaffold, the higher you go, the more dangerous the fall. Wouldn’t you rather just enjoy life today and not work so hard for something that may or may not come to you another day? You should be happy with the olive oil business I set up for you. My groves produce more than enough olives, and you know you have unlimited use of my olive presses as long as you buy the olives from me. What more could you want? When you move up in Rome, you become the object of envy. And a purple stripe on your toga—” He picked up the hem of his toga and waved the thin purple stripe in the air. “That’s just the same as a target on your back.” He opened his small leather bag and looked inside, poking around with his finger, until he found the coin he was looking for. “My good-luck charm.”

  Stachys nodded. He had seen it before, but he always liked it when Urbanus brought it out. It was Urbanus’s most prized possession: a gold aureus with the image of Julius Caesar on it. It shone like brand new from all the rubbing it received from Urbanus’s fingers. Urbanus didn’t say anything else; he just rubbed the gold coin and then put it back into the leather pouch. Stachys waited in silence out of respect, and they quietly went back to eating their lunch. When they were finished, Urbanus slapped the crumbs off his hands and said, “And now it’s time for a shave and a bath.” The two men said their goodbyes, and Stachys headed for the barber as Urbanus took the barmaid by the arm and led her up the tavern’s back stairs.

  Stachys didn’t need to wear the toga for the rest of the day, so he stopped at home to take it off. Happy to be free of the eight-foot circle of wool (and to have the use of both of his hands now that he didn’t constantly need one to keep from tripping over it), he went back out in his tunic and cloak. As he was leaving his house, he met his twelve-year-old son, Tertius, coming toward it. He smiled and waited for Tertius to greet him.

  “Papa!” Tertius ran to his father and was about to throw his arms around Stachys, but then composed himself and tried to act like a man.

  “Tertius, my boy. How was school?”

  “More Virgil.”

  “Good. Always remember that before there was Rome, there was Greece. We Greeks started it all.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Going to help the women now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Do what Rhoda says. And be good to your stepmother!”

  “I am. I mean, I will.” Tertius ran into the open arms of Maria, who was waiting for him in the doorway. Although Maria was not his mother, Stachys knew she loved Tertius as though he was her own son. And since Tertius’s mother died when he was so young, Maria was the only mother he ever knew. As far as he was concerned, she was the only mother he would ever need.

  Stachys thought about his family. How different it had turned out from what he thought he could expect. His first wife had died giving birth, as many women did. It was not unusual, nor something to dwell on. Still, he had prayed to his gods. He had said all the right words and made the right offerings. And yet she died. And Tertius . . . his name meant “third,” because he had two older brothers, neither of whom lived even to Tertius’s age. A wife and two sons lost, not to mention the stillborn daughter who accompanied her mother into the underworld. Now, a new wife and stepson. And Tertius. The son of a freedman would be a citizen when he became a man, and that was something to be proud of.

  Stachys got a shave and a trim, and the fact that Urbanus had paid for his drink at lunch meant that he had enough money for a manicure too. Most men liked going to the barber, sitting around on the benches, talking and playing chess. But Stachys was always conflicted as the barber cut his hair short to match the style of the emperor. It made him look like a good Roman, but he knew that his fellow Greeks called him a pretender behind his back because he had abandoned the longer hairstyle of his home country. But after all, he was a businessman, and he couldn’t afford to look like a barbarian.

  After his haircut, Stachys ran his fingers through his newly cut hair and made his way north on the Flaminian Road to the Baths of Agrippa, where admission was free. He knew the risk of theft was greater there, but free was free, after all, and he reasoned that there was nothing special about his clothes and shoes that anyone should want to steal them.

  By the tenth hour, the Way-followers were gathering again at the home of Stachys and Maria. Marcus welcomed them and began the meeting with a prayer. After the prayer, Marcus asked whether anyone had any specific prayer requests. Julia was elbowing Philologus. Marcus teased him, “Philologus, do you want to pray for more meat?”

  The group laughed, as Philologus looked down at his feet. Julia elbowed him again. Eventually, when the laughter died down, Philologus looked up. “I’ve been put out of my guild.”

  The group fell silent, and Marcus’s expression changed to one of concern. “I’m sorry, Philologus. What happened?”

  “I’ve always been able to show up late to the banquets. Get there after the sacrifice, so I don’t have to take part in the idolatry. But today when I told my master-teacher that I would be late, they all ganged up on me and pressed me to make an offering to the twin gods, which I refused to do. And when I wouldn’t, the stonemasons guild of the Suburra took an official vote and voted me out.”

  Rhoda spoke up. “Can you
go to the stonemasons across the river?”

  “No,” Philologus answered with a sigh. “I was only a plasterer, second class. The Trans-Tiber stonemasons have their own plasterers, and anyway, I’m sure they’ve already sent word for them to shun me.”

  Everyone felt terrible, and a little uncomfortable as they could see a tear run down Julia’s cheek. Thoughts of starvation, homelessness, and death—with no hope of a decent burial—ran through everyone’s mind.

  After a long silence, Marcus led the group in a prayer for a new job for Philologus and for the Lord to sustain Philologus, Julia, and their five children. Marcus concluded, “Lord, have mercy.”

  The people echoed, “Lord, have mercy.”

  “Christos, have mercy.”

  “Christos, have mercy,” came the response.

  “Lord, have mercy.”

  They all said, “Lord, have mercy.”

  Then Marcus took a scroll down from a shelf. “Now let’s turn back to the reading of our copy of the apostle Paul’s letter to the Way-followers of Thessalonica.”

  Meanwhile, on the Viminal Hill on the eastern side of the city, another group of Way-followers was gathering at the home of the senator Acilius Pudens. There his young daughters, Pudenziana and Prassede, were closing the shutters and lighting candles. Senator Pudens spoke up and got everyone’s attention. “Now we should begin, so that we can be finished before dark. We don’t want anyone having to walk through the Suburra after dark.” He turned and nodded to a man named Cletus.