magnificentbeast

In the erotic art from the walls of that brothel in Pompeii it looks like all the men are wearing laurel wreaths. Does anyone know if that is an artistic convention, or something to do with being in a brothel, or did average roman men just wear laurel wreaths a lot more than I realized? I won't put all the art up, but it looks like wreaths on a bunch of them.

I read somewhere that I can't remember the account of a Roman senator visiting an Italian province and getting shown around by a local magistrate. The gist of the story is how ridiculous the small time provincial magistrate comes off to the visiting Roman, in that he was trying to impress him. I'm trying to figure out if provincial politicians, city leaders, went so far as to emulate the senatorial class of Rome, and for example wear the purple stripe on their togas? Did anyone in the provinces consider themselves members of the Senatorial order if they weren't elected to the senate of Rome, but only a big shot in a very Romanized provincial city?

Has anyone come across any papers or books on violent street crime/ organized crime in ancient Rome. There may just be little literary evidence of it, but I can only imagine an honor based society, aggressive, and hyper-masculine with no real police force would be pretty lawless. I can only assume you had to meet violence with violence, and gather friends around you who would back you up. And it seems like the only protection you had was not to be a easy target. And as far as I can see, you had to get your own revenge for a murdered family member, or have some connections. It also seems to me that in this environment the patronage system could sometimes end up working like modern organized crime. Anyone have insights or resources on this topic?

So were the urban guards a sort of police force? Who was in charge of them?

I've read about certain roman dress codes. Only married matrons should wear a stola, purple stripes on the toga for senators rank, purple fabrics declared off limits if you weren't the emperor, I saw a no trousers law somewhere. Some of these restrictions seem more official than others. But, my question is, who would enforce any of this? If a prostitute wore a stola who is gonna do anything about it? Was it just occasionally enforced mafia style by gangs of slaves on behalf of their offended patrician owner? Or is it more of a ridicule and social pressure situation?

Thanks. So it was more of a sporadic event then. Like hangings in the American West 1800's maybe.

Crucifixion being as common as it was, and since they just left the bodies up there, would I be right in assuming that there were crucified decaying bodies outside the gates of every major settlement nearly every day of the year? Would that be something you'd see nearly every time you were outside a city? Or do you think it was a common sight, but maybe not an EVERY DAY sight?

I understand that the roman gods all have their greek counterparts, but I've also read instances of the romans worshipping the greek forms, such as Apollo or Dionysus. I'm confused as to what degree they were considered separate entities. For example, could a Roman settler living in 1st century Greece have been a priest of Apollo, or worshipped both Demeter and Ceres as separate entities? I'm hopelessly confused on their worldview in this matter. Or is this just a matter of which language they might have been speaking in at the time?

Do you know whether gladiators were housed in a type of barracks, or did they live with their individual masters, and we're some allowed to come and go as they pleased?

My understanding is in Greece during the classical period maenadism rituals were a documented reality. The kind in which every couple of years women paraded out to some secluded spot, and let their hair down, dancing; jumping; yelling until they basically passed out. But, I can't find anything about when this stopped happening. Was this particular ritual still taking place in Roman controlled Greece? Did Romans ever participate in this ritual? Did Greeks continue to do this after the classical era? All I can find about female Roman Dionysus/Bacchus worship is stuff about the cult of Dionysus, which seems to be a totally different Roman thing with both men and women (sex cult?)

Thanks for the reply! Good info. I never thought about women traveling about in chariots, I guess I thought that was a man thing. And I love the name Superbus.

Would a wealthy upper class woman, always ride in an enclosed litter about a Roman city? Or would it be acceptable for them just to go on foot sometimes?

Thanks so much for the response. Should I move this to that other forum? This is great information. I'm trying to work out how a specific situation could play out. Under say, Claudius, if an upper class woman desired to be emancipated, and be able to sign contracts and be in charge of her own financial affairs (granted that is probably not a usual roman mindset), and divorce seems like it was easily granted, why wouldn't she just divorce? Would control of her financial affairs just pass back to her father or brothers? What is stopping this theoretical woman from divorcing? If she didn't have three children would all the males in her birth family have to be dead before she could control an estate? How common do you think "emancipated" women were during this time period? And this might seem unrelated, but is it possible a married woman could inherit property from her deceased mother, even if her father were still alive? Did wealthy romans set their children up with homes or property while they were still living, like wealthy parents often do today? And if so, would a female who was set up like that have had any control of that property? Sorry these are a lot of specific questions. That's actually my problem, is that they are too specific for me to figure out. Thanks again!

Hello. I have a particular question but I'm not sure where to post it. It involves the various ways a Roman woman could become emancipated from male control, be able to sign her own contracts and things like that.