omoplata Posted December 17, 2009 Report Share Posted December 17, 2009 Hello Everyone, First happy Saturnalia to everybody on this 17th Day of December. I have been reading the forum with great fascination and learned quite a bit over and above the modest knowledge I had in the beginning -which, right now, is still modest but at least I know where to go to learn more . I have two very simple questions about daily life in Ancient Rome. First, do I understand it correctly that Romans used no soap or anything that resembles soap while bathing? Was oil all they used? I tried to read around a little bit about the composition of this oil, but I was unable to find much beyond the "it could be plain or infused with fragrances". So was this simple olive oil? How would you really clean yourself with merely oil? And most importantly, did anyone try bathing like this with oil? What were your experiences? Secondly, I am curious about the way Romans wrote. Again, my understanding -and this may be wrong- is that they used no spaces dots or anything between words. This sounds like an extremely inconvenient way to write and read and I am curious if this style of writing was used for all languages by the Romans (greek, latin and other languages they would have used to communicate with the provinces) and why this rather odd way was preserved for the entire duration of the empire. Tradition? Consistency?... Greetings to all from New York City Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludovicus Posted December 17, 2009 Report Share Posted December 17, 2009 Does this help? In a Roman woman's hand from Vindolanda, near Hadrian's Wall, a party invitation: http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/4DLink2/4D...isplayEnglish=1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sylla Posted December 20, 2009 Report Share Posted December 20, 2009 (edited) Secondly, I am curious about the way Romans wrote. Again, my understanding -and this may be wrong- is that they used no spaces dots or anything between words. This sounds like an extremely inconvenient way to write and read and I am curious if this style of writing was used for all languages by the Romans (greek, latin and other languages they would have used to communicate with the provinces) and why this rather odd way was preserved for the entire duration of the empire. Tradition? Consistency?... That fascinating issue has been actually highly debated in recent years. Edited January 1, 2010 by sylla Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omoplata Posted January 3, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2010 That fascinating issue has been actually highly debated in recent years. oooops, the link, which was in your post earlier has gone... what happened? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klingan Posted January 3, 2010 Report Share Posted January 3, 2010 Secondly, I am curious about the way Romans wrote. Again, my understanding -and this may be wrong- is that they used no spaces dots or anything between words. This sounds like an extremely inconvenient way to write and read and I am curious if this style of writing was used for all languages by the Romans (greek, latin and other languages they would have used to communicate with the provinces) and why this rather odd way was preserved for the entire duration of the empire. Tradition? Consistency?... They used et, aut...aut, ut and other such words in an other way than we do today, which would make it easier to read without dots and spaces. I'm afraid that someone who's better at Latin would have to complement this thou. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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