Roman Adverts

The barber's shop was a place where men could swap news and gossip, while at the same time get their hair cut. They often spent several hours a day there, getting a shave, as well as perhaps a massage. Some very vain ones might even have their hair curled in curling irons. Rich men always had a private tonsor - barber - while the great ladies of Rome used their slaves as hairdressers. Women's hairstyles varied, according to their age and position in society. Young women put their hair into a bun at the back of the neck or twisted it into a knot on top of the head. Some dyed their locks. Blonde or red were popular colours. Others wore wigs. Those made from the hair of Germans captured in battle sold well because of their natural blondness. Children were allowed to grow their hair long, often down to their shoulders. Young girls usually wore their hair knotted at the back of the neck or in a ponytail. The word barber comes from the Latin "barba" meaning beard. Beards were in and out of fashion, depending on who the emperor was.

The Romans had a sweet tooth and loved honey. They used it as a sauce in their cooking and in puddings. The history books record several recipes for Roman honey cakes, including one using stale cakes soaked in milk and sprinkled with pepper. If this sounds horrible, spare a thought for the writer Petronius. In around AD 60 he described having a meal which consisted of dormice dipped in honey and rolled in poppy seeds! This dish was served as a starter. Fortunately, there was plenty of wine to wash it down with. He might even have had a drink called Mulsum which was a mixture of boiled wine and honey. This was said to be good for making your food go down well and helping you live to an old age. The Romans also mixed apples, water and honey to make a non-alcoholic drink named Hydromel. The sticky ingredient had other uses too in Roman times. It was spread on wounds to make them heal quickly, and mixed with bones, egg and oyster shells to clean teeth. Honey would also be given as a gift to the gods. Not surprisingly, there were plenty of beekeepers around.

The Romans may not have had cars, but they had all manner of carts to get them from one place to another. One of the earliest forms of public transport was the birotum, a small, horse-drawn chariot, which could be hired at inns or street ranks. Other types of vehicles included a carpentum, a small, two-wheeled covered carriage, pulled by two mules, in which women sat during festival processions. Emperors travelled in a carruca, the sides of which were decorated in gold and other metals, and was drawn by horses. For long distance travel there was the carruca dormitoria, which was fitted with hammocks so that the passengers could get some sleep on their journey. The equivalent of a sports car was the cisium, a two-wheeled, open-fronted vehicle which was often driven at great speed by young men and was pulled by up to three horses. For children there was a carriage, called a cirriculus, that was pulled along by a goat or a pony. The roads were good, but despite this you couldn't cover more than 35 miles a day. People who wanted to travel further afield went on horseback.

The Romans were a clean lot, judging by the number of baths they took, but they never used soap. Instead they rubbed their skin with olive oil and then took it off with a curved, metal or wooden scraper which was called a strigil. This got rid of the dirt and sweat at the same time. Romans carried this instrument around with them on a big ring, like a key ring, with a bottle of oil. When they needed a wash, they went to a public bath. First they would go into a warm pool. Then they would move onto a hot bath before finishing with a dip in cold water. After the hot bath, a slave might have the chore of scraping off the dirt from the bather with the strigil. Most men went in the afternoon to the baths, where they could also catch up on gossip and do business. Women usually washed in a separate place, or went in the morning.

The leather in a pair of modern trainers comes from the same sort of cow that the Romans would have used in making their sandals and boots. The skins of animals still provide us with the raw material for our footwear, just as they did 2,000 years ago. The method of doing this is also much the same as it was then. First the skins - or hides in the case of a large animal, such as a cow - were washed to remove the blood. Then they were soaked in a mixture of lime and water to loosen the hair. This was scraped off with a knife, along with the fat, and the skins were washed again to make sure there was no trace of lime. Now the hides were ready to be tanned - a process which turns them into leather. One way of doing this was to soak the skins in a vat filled with water and chopped bark. Finally they were coated in oil and hung out to dry. Bags, clothes, body armour, shields, whips and horse equipment were also made out of leather in Roman times. The army employed a variety of tradesmen, including cobblers and leather workers, who made tents out of goatskins. They were known as immunes because they were excused from performing the general duties of a soldier.

The Italian countryside was scattered with huge cattle ranches which were run by slaves - not that the Romans were great beef eaters. They mainly kept cows to supply them with milk, butter and cheese. Their horns and hides were used as well, and their bones were boiled to make glue. The animals were also put to work on the land, pulling ploughs, or if they were unlucky sacrificed to please the gods! Cattle were widely bred in Britain too, before and after the Roman invasion in AD 43, a fact that was remarked on by Julius Caesar during an expedition to the country. British beef was provided for the soldiers who were based here, but otherwise it was only eaten on special occasions. This was because cows were large and when they were slaughtered it was difficult to keep the meat fresh. At different times in history, when the currency was almost worthless because the economy was poor, pecus (the Latin for cattle) was bartered - swapped for other goods and services. This is where we get the English word "pecuniary," meaning to do with money.

The Roman army was divided into divisions, known as legions, each with up to 6,000 foot soldiers. Each legion had within its ranks a number of craftsmen, including blacksmiths, painters, carpenters and wagon makers. They were excused from carrying out the normal work of a soldier because of their skills - and for this reason were known as immunes. They were employed in a fabrica (the Latin word for workshop) within the army camp, under the command of a praefectus fabrum. Their job was to make weapons, iron nails and horseshoes. A hoard of more than 875,000 iron nails, dating from the 1st century AD, was found at an unfinished Roman fort at Inchtuthill in Perthshire, Scotland. When the Romans abandoned the fortress, they buried the nails in a pit to stop the natives getting them and using the iron to make swords. The legion's blacksmith would have made the nails and the larger ones were used to hold the wooden fence around the fort in place. Blacksmiths were also commonplace in towns in Britain at this time. Vulcan was the blacksmith of the gods. A festival, called Vulcanalia, was held in ancient Rome on August 23 each year in his honour.

The Romans had a single currency, which like the Euro today, was used throughout the empire, including Britain. This made trade between countries easy. The first coins were rough pieces of bronze, called aes rude. Later they were also made out of silver and gold, and they were stamped with the face of the emperor. Their value changed over time, but in the early empire one gold aureus was worth 25 silver denarii. A brass sestertius was equal to two dupondii. One brass dupondius was equivalent to two asses, while one Roman pound (libra in Latin) was the same as 72 gold solidi. The names of these coins were still in use 30 years ago when we had pounds, shillings and pennies in this country - £sd for short, which meant librae, solidi, denarii. We also get our word money from the place where Roman coins were produced, at the Temple of Juno Moneta in Rome. The cost of living was a problem, just as it is in modern times. Many farmers fell into debt, and moneylenders preyed on poor people, often charging them too much for loans. Towards the end of the 3rd century AD, rising inflation led to prices and wages being fixed. A teacher, for example, was paid up to 160 denarii for each boy he taught.

It was the fashion among rich and noble families in Rome to wear silk from China. In fact, the emperor Heliogabalus wore nothing else! The price of silk was very high. The best material could cost as much as 300 denarii which was equal to a Roman soldier's salary for a year. Alaric, a Goth invader, also valued this fibre which is produced from silkworm cocoons. When he besieged Rome, he demanded 4,000 tunics of silk in return for sparing the city. The Chinese invented the art of silk making and refused to tell other countries how it was done, so that they would have to buy their supplies from them. The secret, however, got out after the Emperor Justinian, in around 550 AD, sent two monks to Asia to find out how it was made. They came back with silkworm eggs hidden inside their bamboo walking sticks. Before that the Romans thought silk grew on trees, and when they first set eyes on it, during a battle, they fled in panic!

Roman women liked to wear lots of jewellery, including necklaces, bracelets, earrings and rings made out of brightly coloured, glass beads and polished stones. Diamonds were a girl's best friend - just as they are today - along with pearls, emeralds, sapphires, gold and silver. Clothes pins were also worn as items of jewellery and decorated hairpins were popular too, while brooches, showing fish, insects and animals, were used to fasten cloaks. But it wasn't just the ladies who visited jewellers. Men would buy rings. It was expected that they should only wear one ring, but some of them ignored this tradition and had a ring on each finger! The custom of giving a wedding ring is thought to date back to Roman times when a man would give a girl an iron band as a sign that she belonged to him. He would place the ring on the fourth finger of her left hand because the Romans believed there was a vein on this finger which was connected to the heart. This is still done now at many marriages in Britain, although the ring is a symbol of love, rather than ownership.