Roman
Living
Five-Day Lesson Plan For
Elementary Latin Students
by Anne Starkey, University
of Massachusetts - Amherst
Teacher's
Guide
Throughout the five-day lesson develop
the ideas presented in the next few pages. Pay particular attention
to changes in the Perspectives, Practices, and Products
listed below as different types of housing arise after the domus.
Those changes are not listed, but, they should become self-evident.
For example, compare and contrast the functions of a villa to
a domus. Compare and contrast the open design of a villa to the
closed design of a domus. Compare and contrast the garden of
a villa and a domus. Explore the availability of light in all
forms of housing. Is natural light important? Who had heating
and running water? What classes had better amenities? Why were
public buildings made out of the strongest and most expensive
materials?
Use the sections on Multiple Intelligences
and Assessment as adaptable models. They are provided as possible
suggestions.
I. Perspectives, Practices, and Products
- Perspectives
- Pater familias
holds the highest authority as head of household.
- Power of the pater familias is assured
through rituals.
- The home is not always private. It is
a place of social, political, and business activities.
- The house is open to invited and uninvited
guests.
- The pater needs large and impressive
rooms to conduct business.
- Romans enjoy the outdoors, and need to
feel as if outside when indoors.
- Location, size, and decoration of rooms
codify behavior.
- Rituals define space and provide plans
for architecture.
- Gardens reflect personal choice.
- Romans emphasize interior space and decoration
more than exterior.
- The traditional domus has few windows
to ensure security, like a fortress.
- Products
- A long axis runs through the house: fauces-atrium-tablinum.
- The house has a symmetrical floor plan
around the axis.
The fauces is the entryway. The doors are not flush with the
road and open inward.
- The atrium is the central hall
and reception area.
- The tablinum is a reception area
and stores imagines of ancestors and family records.
- The triclinium is the dining room.
- The hortus is the garden.
- Cubicula
are little rooms that cluster around the atrium, and later, around
the peristyle garden.
- The compluvium is the skylight
that allows air, light, and water into the house.
- The impluvium is the rain collecting
pool beneath the compluvium.
- The wall facing the road is solid with
the exception of the front door and a few small windows.
- Sometimes a shop would open directly onto
the road.
- When entering through the fauces, the
line of sight is aligned with the tablinum where the pater
sits. The tablinum appears to be framed by the walls,
floor, and ceiling of the fauces, by the columns of the
atrium, and by the framed view of the garden in the background.
- Practices
- The salutatio is the visit to the pater
by his dependents (clientes).
- Dependents may include sons who have established
independent households, freedmen, and all who make daily rounds
to the pater to assure his power and their security.
- The ritual of the salutatio shaped
the structure of the house.
- The pater sits at the end of the tablinum
facing the fauces to see everyone who enters to offer
greetings.
- Rituals of death (wake) and purification
by water take place in the atrium.
- Brides are carried over the threshold
through the fauces. The marriage bed is placed in the
atrium as a symbol of the marriage.
- Wreaths are placed on the front door to
announce the birth of a child.
II. Consider Multiple Intelligences
- Linguistic:
Include a translation passage, have students read handout aloud,
have them do a crossword puzzle.
- Math:
Have students figure out dimensions of a particular house and
find the area, or ask how long they think it might take to a
build a domus and why. Have students compare the size of their
homes to the size of a sample domus (see pictures on web site:
http://romanliving.homestead.com/domus.html).
- Spatial:
Have students draw a floor plan for a domus and draw their own
house, or, as a project, construct a model domus.
- Bodily Kinesthetic: How much work was involved in building a domus?
Construct a model domus.
- Musical:
What kind of dinner music might have been played?
- Interpersonal:
Have students work in groups to construct a model of each room.
- Intrapersonal:
Have students write an essay comparing their homes and habits
to those of the Romans.
III. Assessment
- Have students label and describe functions
of rooms on a floor plan of a domus. See sample quiz.
- Have students write the Intrapersonal
essay mentioned above.
- Have students look up the web page (http://romanliving.homestead.com/intro.html)
and have them compare and contrast the pictures of the domus
to their own homes.
- Have students design a floor plan of a
domus. Let them be creative. Let them create new rooms, such
as a rec room, in addition to the traditional rooms.
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Complementary
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Knowledge Builders
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Teachers' Companions
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Other Resources
Roman
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Diotima: Materials for the
Study of Women and Gender in the Ancient World
Exploring Ancient World Cultures: Rome
Global Glossary Terms
- domus
- insula
- aqueduct
- hypocausta
- villa
- atrium
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