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What were the worst jobs for poor Romans in Ancient Rome?

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Re: What were the worst jobs for poor Romans in Ancient Rome?

#71

Post by 13of40 »

htag wrote: post #7

One thing, it's ambiguous if they are speaking of only jobs inside the city, or any job in the republic/empire. It's also ambiguous if this is limited to jobs only performed by free individuals. Some things that didn't make the list. * Free individuals sometimes became Gladiators * While very clean for ancient standards, their sewage system required a lot of manual maintenance. * We know sailors we subject to scurvy,…

Regarding gladiators, one of the most crazy statistics I ever read was that about 500K people died in the Colosseum while it was in use. That was probably in the span of a couple of centuries, but that's still a steady stream of dead folks.

Re: What were the worst jobs for poor Romans in Ancient Rome?

#72

Post by [deleted] »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #54
mustacheemperor wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to disrupt some good humor with boring factual accuracy, but worth noting the "temple money changers" were not Romans or bankers. Historic academics is of course rarely conclusive, especially biblical exegesis, but it's generally accepted by scholars that the "money changers" were Jews, likely volunteers, who provided a service required by Jewish law: exchanging Roman coins for Tyrian shekels to purchase animals…

What's interesting is Matthew 22:19, where Jesus has asked someone to show Him a Roman coin, and his questioners manage to produce it, no problem. Well, the Jews were forbidden to possess those denarii, because it made the person ritually impure (Matthew the Apostle, aka Levi, would know). So whoever produced the coin on request was probably rather embarrassed about it.

[deleted]

Re: What were the worst jobs for poor Romans in Ancient Rome?

#73

Post by mustacheemperor »

Jedd wrote: post #61
NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's interesting is Matthew 22:19, where Jesus has asked someone to show Him a Roman coin, and his questioners manage to produce it, no problem. Well, the Jews were forbidden to possess those denarii, because it made the person ritually impure (Matthew the Apostle, aka Levi, would know). So whoever produced the coin on request was probably rather embarrassed about it.

AIUI, the Book of Matthew was not written by that Matthew, or indeed by anyone whose identity we know, right?

This is correct - I don’t have as much knowledge about Jewish law and its usual interpretation circa 0AD, but Matthew was one of the first gospels to have its traditional authorship questioned because it is written in masterfully crafted classical Greek - not anything accessible to a rural Aramaic speaker. Since the birth of Biblical exegesis scholarship in the 19th century it has been widely accepted that none of the gospels were authored by the traditionally associated apostles, or any apostles, or even any first-hand witnesses to Jesus. The book I immediately recall about this is Forged by Bart Ehrman, but gospel authorship is one of the most well tread and thoroughly analyzed areas of biblical scholarship and the fact that the apostles didn’t write them is one of the points closest to consensus in the field.

I am intrigued to learn more about how Roman currency was managed in Judea at that time. As far as I know Jewish law did forbid carrying coinage with images of the emperor, but obviously many Jewish pilgrims to the temple had to exchange some kind of currency for shekels.

Re: What were the worst jobs for poor Romans in Ancient Rome?

#74

Post by Jedd »

mustacheemperor wrote: post #73
Jedd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AIUI, the Book of Matthew was not written by that Matthew, or indeed by anyone whose identity we know, right?

This is correct - I don’t have as much knowledge about Jewish law and its usual interpretation circa 0AD, but Matthew was one of the first gospels to have its traditional authorship questioned because it is written in masterfully crafted classical Greek - not anything accessible to a rural Aramaic speaker. Since the birth of Biblical exegesis scholarship in the 19th century it has been widely accepted that none of th…

I'd understood at least the first three books - and I tend to follow the consensus around Markan Priority - were penned in Koine rather than classical? I suspect the distinction is of marginal relevance, in the current context.

Re: What were the worst jobs for poor Romans in Ancient Rome?

#75

Post by mustacheemperor »

Jedd wrote: post #74
mustacheemperor wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is correct - I don’t have as much knowledge about Jewish law and its usual interpretation circa 0AD, but Matthew was one of the first gospels to have its traditional authorship questioned because it is written in masterfully crafted classical Greek - not anything accessible to a rural Aramaic speaker. Since the birth of Biblical exegesis scholarship in the 19th century it has been widely accepted that none of th…

I'd understood at least the first three books - and I tend to follow the consensus around Markan Priority - were penned in Koine rather than classical? I suspect the distinction is of marginal relevance, in the current context.

Yes, I think your understanding of this field exceeds mine - not even sure where I pulled out “classical” Greek from, since in hindsight, the author of Matthew far post dated classical Greece!

Re: What were the worst jobs for poor Romans in Ancient Rome?

#76

Post by MagicMoonlight »

bmarquez wrote: post #3

The Ancient Romans used a sponge on a stick for washing themselves after defecating. I always wondered who was responsible for cleaning and replacing those sponges in public latrines.

People always act as if ancient people were somehow different. Obviously you'd have the cleaner who cleans the toilets and swaps the sponges. They'd get more from the storecupboard and someone would be in charge of ordering the sponges from the spongemaker.

Just imagine life today but without the electronics

Re: What were the worst jobs for poor Romans in Ancient Rome?

#77

Post by NordSteve »

nonethewiser wrote: post #66
laverya wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The warfare was absolutely horrifying by modern standards, and I imagine that even the best warriors of Rome would have had severe PTSD. I'm not actually sure this was the case. We don't actually really hear of things like PTSD for anything before the Great War - and we do have veterans of prior wars saying something was different about WW1. It seems that the constant, unending chance of combat or death really migh…

There is definitely something going on. Its hard to imagine there is no record of PTSD during countless wars over the course of history leading up to WWI.

https://www.civilwarmed.org/ptsd/ discusses PTSD in the context of the American Civil War.

"Abundant evidence suggests that Civil War soldiers, like their twentieth-century counterparts, exhibited symptoms that today we would associate with war trauma, notably post-traumatic stress disorder..."

Many references in the article.

Re: What were the worst jobs for poor Romans in Ancient Rome?

#78

Post by npsomaratna »

alephnerd wrote: post #56
3r3rni9 wrote: post #50

At this juncture I must heartily recommend the very silly and good natured anime/manga Thermae Romae [1][2]. It's about a Roman bath architect who secretly discovers a way to time travel to modern Japanese baths to steal ideas (though he is slow to understand them). The original run is a little more pure than the Netflix reboot, where the humor / seriousness balance is off (it's never too long of a slog). https://en.…

It's one of the few animes where you HAVE to watch both the Dub and the Sub - there are different jokes in both. Also highly recommend Bessatsu Olympia Kyklos by the same creator for the Tokyo Olympics

How about the movie? Is it any good?

Re: What were the worst jobs for poor Romans in Ancient Rome?

#79

Post by lifeisstillgood »

bjourne wrote: post #30
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes those bankers were disrupted by Judeans coming in an smashing up the nice open plan lending atriums. Really need the firm hand of government to prevent repeat offending

Actually the vandalism was from the Galileans. The Judeans totally adored their market makers.

Oh I thought that Jesus was a galilean and also a Judean (that Galilea was a rural part of the larger Judea).

Re: What were the worst jobs for poor Romans in Ancient Rome?

#80

Post by bjourne »

mustacheemperor wrote: post #73
Jedd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AIUI, the Book of Matthew was not written by that Matthew, or indeed by anyone whose identity we know, right?

This is correct - I don’t have as much knowledge about Jewish law and its usual interpretation circa 0AD, but Matthew was one of the first gospels to have its traditional authorship questioned because it is written in masterfully crafted classical Greek - not anything accessible to a rural Aramaic speaker. Since the birth of Biblical exegesis scholarship in the 19th century it has been widely accepted that none of th…

Jews by the time of Jesus were very diverse just as they are today. Even in Judea itself you would find very different opinions on how "the law" (Halacha) should be interpreted. Most would probably find it silly and impractical to not use Roman coins. The point of Matthew 22:15-22 may be that. The Pharisee hands him a coin with the image of the emperor on it and Jesus reminds him that "Hey, you shouldn't be touching this at all. You hypocrite!"
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