The Ordinary Roman

I know the Romans get a lot a bad press. Face it, all we hear about is Gladiators, throwing Christians to the lions and invading Britain. But these are hardly the big picture, they're just the sexy stuff. It's like looking at our society as if it were just Las Vegas, World War Two and football. We don't read about the average Roman family sitting down after dinner and flicking through some good books - but an awful lot of them did - their literacy levels were about the same as ours. We don't hear about them playing draughts, dominoes, dice and ludo - but they did - they invented most of those games. And then there's the food - much of which we still enjoy - they developed oyster farming and champagne, and French cuisine owes a lot to the previous leaseholders of Europe. It's the ordinary that makes a people, and believe me, they were just as ordinary as us...although they spoke Latin better. For more about ordinary Romans, check out 'A Body of Doubt' - live on Amazon now