Loading summary
Transcript44 lines
- [00:02]
WhatsApp Representative
On WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages. Whether it's a voice call message or sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this. So whether you're sharing the streaming password in the family chat or trading those late night voice messages that could basically become a podcast, your personal messages stay between you, your friends and your family. No one else, not even us. WhatsApp message privately with everyone.
- [00:32]
Lowes Advertiser
Pro Savings Days doorbuster deals are on at Lowes. Mylowes Pro Rewards members save an additional $120 on a GE 21.9 cubic foot top freezer refrigerator. Plus members save $70 on a Bosch hammer drill. Now only $99. Not a pro Rewards member join for free today Lowes we help you save valid through $7.23While supplies last selection varies by location. Loyalty program subject to terms and conditions Helo's subject to change.
- [01:01]
GMC Advertiser
Put us in a box. Go ahead. That just gives us something to break out of because the next generation 2025 GMC terrain elevation is raising the standard of what comes standard. As far as expectations go, why meet them when you can shatter them? What we choose to challenge, we challenge completely. We are professional grade. Visit gmc.com to learn more.
- [01:31]
Marvel Studios Advertiser
I herald his beginning Marvel Studios the.
- [01:35]
Lowes Advertiser
Fantastic Four I herald your end. The biggest event of the summer.
- [01:39]
Emily Briffet
I herald.
- [01:41]
Lowes Advertiser
Galactus has arrived.
- [01:45]
Marvel Studios Advertiser
What is that?
- [01:46]
GMC Advertiser
Come on.
- [01:47]
Marvel Studios Advertiser
We will fight this together as a family. Sonny. Now.
- [01:51]
Lowes Advertiser
Marvel Studios the Fantastic Four first steps only in theaters Friday. Ready Piggy 13. Some material may not be suitable for children under 13. Get tickets now.
- [02:05]
Bettany Hughes
Welcome to the History Extra podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. What was it like to be a child in ancient Rome? Well, in this episode, the historian, author and broadcaster Bettany Hughes delves into life for young people across the civilization, unpicking everything from lice combs and goat drawn chariots to toga ceremonies and terrifying teachers. Speaking to Emily Briffet, she draws on extraordinary artifacts to uncover a world that was tough, trying and surprisingly relatable if you could survive the first nine days.
- [02:47]
Emily Briffet
So you have recently written a book. There Was a Roman in youn Garden. And it's all about getting to grips with Roman history for kids. So we are going to be diving into Roman childhood today. Now, if we could summarise in 60 seconds what was it like to be a child in ancient Rome? And is it possible to summarise it in 60 seconds?
- [03:10]
Marvel Studios Advertiser
Yeah, I'd say impossible to summarise in 60 seconds because it depended who you were where you were born, what you were born into, whether you were an enslaved person or, you know, came from a wealthy family. So it's very different right across the Roman Empire, which, of course was huge, as we all know. You know, cross three continents, covered what's 50 separate countries. Now, at one point, a fifth of the world's population were under the Roman Empire. But I think one of the things that I wanted to kind of impress on people in the book is that obviously this is a world that was so, so different in many ways. But there are strange things that connect the experience of being a child in ancient Rome with the experience of being a child in the 21st century. So it was trying to help kids today think that's not an alien world, that's not that I have no place in. It's somewhere that they can engage in and understand.
- [03:56]
Emily Briffet
I'm curious, what are some of those similarities in the book?
- [04:00]
Marvel Studios Advertiser
What I've kind of developed is this idea of a treasure chest, an ancient Roman treasure chest, where treasures are stored. Because obviously, as a historian, you know, I work a lot with written text, but a huge amount of the time I'm spending with archaeological artifacts. And so we've picked 20 artifacts that relate to children's lives. And the kind of notion is that these are stored in a chest which anybody could unpack because it's buried as a. As a hoard. So it survived over 2000 years. And two of the things probably, like, it's really funny. I've actually just done a talk with kids, with about a thousand kids online today, and they love the fact that knit combs, as in combs to take knits out of your hair, which I've experienced as a mum, I've had to knit, comb my kids. Loads are exactly the same design as they were in the ancient world. And I remember digging these things up when I was on excavations, thinking this was obviously the perfect design because it hasn't changed over the millennia. And it's, you know, I'm holding the plastic versions today, but of course, the Romans being Romans, were very smart. And basically the ancient world was much better at being, understanding nature and us being a part of nature than we are today. And they. The knit combs in ancient Rome were often made of boxwood, which is really interesting because boxwood has slight antibacterial properties. So it was probably a really good thing. If you had knits, you scra. Scratch. If you scratch, you have kind of spots on your head, and then this box would. Would hopefully, you know, prevent the spread of bacterial infection. So, yeah, so, Nick, combs, knit combs are my big, my take home fact that they have not changed from ancient Rome until today.
- [05:40]
Emily Briffet
There you go, listeners. Knit combs haven't changed. Worth talking about. So just to clarify, if you talk about similarities and things, how did the Romans define childhood? Is it similar to how we would define it today?
- [05:53]
Marvel Studios Advertiser
I mean, you know, the ancient world was full of rules and laws and age definitions. So there were certain things that you could do at certain times, a lot that you couldn't do. So if you were a child in the ancient Roman Empire, for instance, pretty much without exception, you could only get into the Forum, you know, the sort of center, the beating heart of any ancient Roman city until you were, after you were 18. So you wouldn't have seen kids running around in the Forum because this is where laws were passed. It was a real kind of administrative hub. And, you know, funnily enough, officially we're told that Roman children weren't allowed in the baths, which was again, a big as, not just a place you washed, a really important place for exchange of ideas and knowledge about the ancient world. A lot of secret conversations, I think, happened in the, in the Roman baths. So in theory, kids weren't really allowed there. But fascinatingly, in Pompeii, there are some child height bits of graffiti which look as though they've been done by children. So that looks as though you do have young people in there kind of whirling away their time while whoever it was had those lovely hot and cold baths. So there's the official version of what could happen to children and the unofficial version. But yeah, you know, there were certain things, you know, after you were eight or nine days old, young Roma boys were given a thing called a bulla. And actually, interestingly, I've got this, I've got the kind of female equivalent on now, this is a lunula, and actually this is from ancient Roman period. So you're looking at a little artifact there as we're talking. But the bulla that boys were giving, the bullae, they were where sort of amulets were held. And it was after you were eight or nine days old. So basically after you'd survived the terrible problems of childbirth and then very, very early infancy, when a lot of young children throughout history didn't survive beyond eight or nine days. But once that had happened in Roman society, you were given this kind of protective bit of jewelry. And the idea is that it would keep until you became a man, and then you would pass on your Bulla. So there were these rituals the whole time that surrounded childhood, then if Roman.
- [08:05]
Emily Briffet
Children weren't necessarily, by law allowed in the bathhouses to be immersed in this exchange of ideas, what about education? How did they learn about the wider world?
- [08:15]
Marvel Studios Advertiser
So, yeah, so there was education for both girls and boys. Boys got better education than girls, basically. So boys were often taught things like arithmetic and rhetoric and, you know, all these other disciplines. And girls pretty much reading and writing. I mean, it happened in different places. Again, different strokes for different folks. So there were, as we all know, a huge population of enslaved people who supported, who were the engine of the Roman world. You know, it could be as Many as between 5 and 10 million enslaved people at any one time, and that would be sort of between 10 and 20% of the population. So there were teachers who were enslaved people. Often Greeks were used as teachers. So if you were a wealthy family, you'd have your personal tutor at home. But they did go to schools, There were Roman schools. And children were often taught on these lovely wax tablets, which you might have seen. Such a clever, such a sustainable idea. So you do your writing, you'd scratch it in with a stylus, which is where we get the French word stylo, for instance, for pen. To get a kind of pointy stick, scratch it into the wax tablet, have your work, and then erase it at the end of the day just by melting the wax or doing a kind of rubber. And then you had your recyclable paper exercise book equivalent for the next day. So, yeah, so it varied. So some was taught at home and some were taught in schools.
- [09:39]
Progressive Insurance Advertiser
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies just to see if you could save some cash? Well, Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money. When you bundle your home and auto policies, the process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a few thing.
- [10:24]
GMC Advertiser
Mint Mobile Unlimited Premium wireless. Everybody get 30, 30. Better get 30. Better to get 20, 20, 20. Better get 20, 20. Everybody get 15, 15, 15, 15. Just 15 bucks a month.
- [10:32]
Progressive Insurance Advertiser
So give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront.
- [10:37]
Marvel Studios Advertiser
Payment of 45 dollars for 3 month plan equivalent to 15 dollars per month required new customer offer for first 3 months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of network's busy.
- [10:42]
Progressive Insurance Advertiser
Taxes and fees extra.
- [10:43]
Lowes Advertiser
See mintmobile.com not all meals are created equal. For instance, breakfast has a spicy egg McMuffin for a limited time and lunch doesn't. McDonald's breakfast comes first.
- [10:59]
Emily Briffet
Were children expected to work? Were they meant to contribute to the family, as it were?
- [11:04]
Marvel Studios Advertiser
Yeah, definitely. I mean, basically, as soon as you could walk, you were working as a child in the ancient world, you know, you were taking messages, you were expected to help out in the household and, you know, there's no doubt it was very tough. They were chastised with canes and whips even we hear about. So it was a different experience to that of children in the 21st century.
- [11:27]
Emily Briffet
So who did the raising of children and how were they disciplined and were there any parenting guides?
- [11:34]
Marvel Studios Advertiser
Essentially the Romans are very good at pontificating about how you should and shouldn't do things. So yeah, you know, basically it was kind of spare the rod and spoil the child approach in ancient Rome, which is what then translates to Victorian Britain, for instance. Yeah, I mean, children had to respect their parents. Children in Roman times were allowed to attend festivals. It was one of the ways that they kind of learned about their society. And there were whole festivals that were dedicated to the ancestors, where you were supposed to go in February, supposed to go and respect your ancestors, to show that you understood that there was this whole kind of family tree behind you. Interestingly, Roman boys particularly were allowed to the Lupercalia as well in March. And at that point there's this sort of rite of passage. And young boys would often be given a toga virilis, proving that they, they were, they'd become real men. At the Lupercalia and the Saturnalia, you know, famously the kind of precursor of our Christmas. Kids were there and this was a gift giving season as well, so. So that sort of, you know, tradition of Christmas presents would have been enjoyed, but at the, at the Saturnalia for young Roman children.
- [12:45]
Emily Briffet
And I suppose while we're talking about presents and prezzies and gifts, what games and toys did Roman children enjoy?
- [12:53]
Marvel Studios Advertiser
Loads of toys and loads of these have survived, interestingly from very simple things like just knuckle bones. So sort of basically the ankle bones of sheep and goats and pigs that were used in a game. It was really, really popular. But everybody seemed to play knucklebones the whole time in the ancient world, partly because There were loads around because that was the meat that you were eating. But you'd use the knuckle bones. A bit like the game of jacks that we play today. They're like little kinds of, you know, these little sort of pointy metal things. And you'd throw the knuckle bones up in the air and depending on how they fell, you won if you got the kind of widest range of sides of the knuckle bones. So if you had a more kind of varied falling of knuckle bones, then you won out, but all kinds of other things. So if you're really wealthy, there were like little mini chariots pulled by goats that you could have as a well to do Roman child. I know, sort of like the, you know how really wealthy kids today get those little kind of mini Bentleys and Rolls Royces. You see them occasionally, you think, oh my goodness, how much did that cost? But there was the equivalent for Roman children as well. Simple things like, you know, daggers. Very militaristic society. So young boys were given wooden daggers and swords to kind of practice play fighting with and jointed dolls. So again, I think we always do that thing of thinking we do things better than people in the past. But actually if you look at the dolls that we use, they were really sophisticated with beautiful moving arms, moving legs, moving necks, and some of those have survived too.
- [14:27]
Emily Briffet
You mentioned earlier how varied the experience of childhood was in ancient Rome. I suppose, could you tell us about either end of the spectrum? What could you have expected as a very wealthy child as opposed to sort of a slightly poorer child?
- [14:41]
Marvel Studios Advertiser
Well, I mean, you know, poorer children just had a terrible time. I mean, there was no kind of sense, you know, you know, this appalling thing that slaves in antiquity were known as man footed things. They weren't even thought of as human. So if you're right at the bottom of the pile and as a child, you know, who was vulnerable anyway, there would have been appalling things that would have happened to so many. But we also know that, you know, for instance, I think we should imagine some young children being really satisfied by life. We know that young girls, for instance, were allowed to play with sistra. Sistrum is the singular, which is this lovely instrument, beautiful sort of evocative percussion instrument that's often associated with religious rituals. For instance, with rituals around the Egyptian goddess Isis. And young girls were encouraged to worship Isis by using the sistra. They weren't just shut up at home learning, you know, being beaten for being disrespectful. And having a terrible time. You know, they. As ever, we know that they enjoyed themselves, that they had pets. Pet keeping was a big thing in ancient Rome, so they had pet hares and rabbits and squirrels and pigs, dogs, cats. They were a bit weird about in ancient Rome. One of the reasons I prefer Egyptians to Romans, sometimes ancient Egyptians, in that the Romans, I tend to seem to have been a bit suspicious of cats, but they had loads of dogs who were pets. And there's a really beautiful headstone, a sort of tombstone, which describes a pet, a female dog called Pearl, who would lie every night on the end of the bed of her owner and was much beloved. And there's this lovely inscription saying how it's a much beloved pet. So they had relationships with their animals as well. They kept a lot of butterflies as pets. I still can't quite imagine how in sort of organic netting, I guess. I mean, not. Not the horrible thing of killing them and having them as a collector's item. But, yeah, butterflies were a very popular pet.
- [16:42]
Emily Briffet
They seem to have lots of relationships, both to their ancestors, with their family, with their pets. How much agency would you say children had at this time?
- [16:51]
Marvel Studios Advertiser
Oh, I wouldn't say much agency, I don't think. Agency was not a. You know, that would not be a word that Romans understood. So. No, no, no, you kind of learned what society was like. You did what you were told. That was the experience of being an ancient Roman child.
- [17:06]
Emily Briffet
And what did children get into trouble for?
- [17:09]
Marvel Studios Advertiser
Unfortunately, there are many ways. Again, you got into trouble for being rude, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, forgetting your homework, doing your homework badly. You'll know the extraordinary remains from Vindol in the uk, beautiful Roman sites where the material remains, the organic remains have been preserved because of the soil conditions. So we have these like kind of wooden postcards from the past from Vindolanda. And there's one amazing example which is a child who's doing their homework. And the teacher has just written seg, which is short for segata, which means sloppy. You can just sort of sew. You can so imagine. I know this poor guy, whoever it was, guy, girl, desperately trying to do their homework and, you know, getting praise, but the teacher was very dismissive. So, yes, so you got into trouble. There was, as I said, there were lots of ways of doing things. And, you know, even it was. People could tell that you were an underage emperor because the letters sent on your behalf would be written in green ink, for instance. So, yes, it was. It was not an anything goes world.
- [18:15]
Emily Briffet
To be a child in ancient Rome, it seems to be a life of complete extremes, both really hard, but with some wonderful toys and games on the other end of things. If we could travel back in time, if you and I could travel back in time, do you think we would have enjoyed childhood in ancient Rome?
- [18:33]
Marvel Studios Advertiser
You know, people often say, would I time travel? And yes, for about 12 hours and then I'd come straight back to the 21st century. You know, we are so lucky, you know, medical care that we have the open mindedness in comparison to the ancient world. So I think we would probably have had a pretty grim time. But there is one sort of saving grace that you might have seen this, that recently, one of these extraordinary discoveries in Pompeii, they've discovered a fresco that looks a wall painting that looks as though it's representing the world's oldest pizza. So this kind of, there's a silver tray with this lovely array of food on and what really looks like a kind of flatbread base of some kind with pesto sauce and maybe a sort of herbed cheese on top. So, you know, at least we'd have eaten pizza had we lived 2,000 years ago.
- [19:24]
Bettany Hughes
That was historian, author and broadcaster Bettany Hughes speaking to Emily Briffet. Bettany's book is There Was a Roman in youn Garden, A History of the Romans in 20 buried treasures. You can find plenty more from Bettany on our website, historyextra.com.
- [19:50]
Marvel Studios Advertiser
This is history's heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these.
- [20:04]
Progressive Insurance Advertiser
Men and he would say, don't worry.
- [20:06]
Marvel Studios Advertiser
Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.