Shall We Meet at the Bathhouse?

"When in Rome, do as the Romans do." Imagine you want to spend a lovely afternoon with a friend or work associate. You create a plan to meet and chat about life events or stressful situations over a cup of coffee or tea. Oh wait! That won't work. You are in Rome, so the bathhouse it is! The bathhouse was the happening place to be in Rome for socializing or making business contacts. You could spend a whole afternoon utilizing the gym, eating form the garden, or bathing in the three different pools. Then you would retire home for your evening meal clean and refreshed and smelling like lavender from an afternoon spent with friends.

If you were poor and  lived in the run down "flats", life would look a little different. You would bath in the less then desirable bathhouses and come home to a small, poorly maintained building hoping that someone would not be discarding their waste out the window as you walked by. If you had the unfortunate luck to live in the 5th or 6th floor, you would walk many flights of rickety stairs to arrive at your one room apartment. The aroma of decaying food and feces would fill the air as you stepped over the discarded trash from the rooms. There would be no running water to wash your hands or clean your food, and a trip to the toilet meant a bucket that would be dumped out the window when you finished.

Life in Rome was very different then what we are accustomed to now. While we still pursue entertainment as vigorously as the Romans did, we don't look to gladiator games to quench our thirst for blood. Instead we look to movies and games that depict much of the same thing. We don't discard of our toilet waste out the windows or kill our children for being disfigured or the wrong sex. Would you have enjoyed living in ancient Rome?

This week you will continue to read about Rome and the tragedies that await them. It is about to get brutal! Also, don't forget to keep working on your Viking Ship. You only have 2 weeks!

Homework:
1. Read Unit 13
2. Research 2 denominations that are different from your own. Write about their customs and traditions. If you attend a non-denominational church, you can research pretty much any denomination. The catholic, lutheran, presbyterian, or episcopal churches are great ones to research.
3. For extra credit memories the Apostles Creed.
4. Work on Viking Ship.