The Romans

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The Romans
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Rome
Children and Families
Religion
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Rome is the capital city of Italy. The Romans
have a story to explain how this happened. Twin
boys, Romulus and Remus, were taken from their
mother and left by the river Tiber to starve. A
mother wolf found the babies and looked after
them until they were old enough to take care of
themselves. Years later, Mars (the Roman God of
war) told the boys to build a city where they
had been found. The two boys built this city,
but ended up at war with each other. Romulus won
the battle and the city became known as Rome.
Many people still believe in the legend even
though historians can proved that there are
people living there even before Romulus and Remus.
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Rome was first ruled by kings who were sometimes
very cruel. The last king, Tarquin the Proud, was
overthrown. Rome then became a republic for the
next four hundred years. This republic was ruled
by a senate and people called senators were
elected to do different jobs in the senate.
However, women and slaves were not allowed to
vote and neither were poor people. Those Roman
people who were not slaves were called
'citizens'.
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The man who ruled over the Empire is called a
Roman Emperor.Before the Emperor, Rome was ruled
by Generals but this caused problems because the
Generals were always fighting over who would have
the final say in running the Empire. Eventually
the Generals were replaced by just one man - The
Emperor. The first Emperor was Augustus in 27
B.C. who was a popular Emperor. He brought peace
after many years of fighting. But not all the
Emperors were so good and wise, some were
terrible! To protect himself, the Emperor had a
troop of special soldiers called the Praetorian
Guard with him. However, some of the bad Emperors
were so unpopular that their Praetorian Guards
killed them!
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Life in Roman times for women was quite hard. The
father was the most important member of the
family. He had the power of life or death over
everyone. When a new baby was born it would be
laid at its father's feet - if the father picked
the baby up it would live, and if he ignored the
baby it would be taken away to die. Mothers and
children were never seen as important. From the
1st century B.C. women began to have more rights
and could divorce unkind husbands. But they were
never seen as really being equal to men.
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Most children did not go to school because
parents had to pay for their children to go and
they would only teach boys! Schools were always
built in towns. Girls and poorer children might
be taught to read and write at home but this was
rare. These children would more likely have to
help their parents at work from an early age.
Some wealthy Roman parents would employ an
educated slave called a pedagogue to teach their
sons. they would write on wax tablets using a
pointed metal stylus when writing short messages
and at school . For important letters the Romans
used a metal pen dipped in ink to write on thin
pieces of wood or specially prepared animal
skins. The Romans write on scrolls made from
pieces of animal skin glued together and then
rolled up.
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Religion The Romans believed in many different
gods and goddesses. Each god or goddess looked
after different people or things. These are a few
of them Saturn one of the oldest gods, who
was once the ruler, but his place was taken by
his son (Jupiter).Jupiter god of the sky, he
was the most important god.Juno Jupiter's wife,
who looked after women.Neptune Jupiter's
brother, who was the god of the sea.Minerva
goddess of wisdom and women's work, such as
weaving cloth.Mars god of war.Venus goddess
of love, who was the lover of Mars. There were a
lot of gods as Romans discovered new ones all the
time. This happened as they traveled from country
to country learning about them from the people
they conquered. The Romans believed that your
spirit went to the underworld when you died. To
get there the dead needed to cross the river
Styx. The dead person's family would give them a
coin to pay the ferryman, Charon. Romans also
believed that the Emperors became gods, so
everyone had to make a sacrifice to the Emperor.
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The End
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