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The Roman Day: Role-Playing in the Ancient World
“We have done things that will be deemed mythical by those who come after us....”
(Pliny the Elder, Natural History XXXIII.53)
In ancient Rome, as dawn's light cut through the shadows cast by the city's seven hills, almost everyone climbed
from their bed and contemplated the day to come. Late night revelers moved more circumspectly than most, and school
children buried their heads beneath their pillows just one more time, seeking a novel excuse that would keep them from
going to school. Most everyone else realized that the daylight hours were precious for their livelihood, whether
it was the arrangement of a business deal, the baking of bread, the tanning of leather, or the cleansing of one of the
city's massive public buildings. But the way in which each person's day unfurled thereafter depended entirely on where
that person stood on the ladder of Roman society. The daily routine of a household slave bore no resemblance to that of
a senator's; and a woman's life, since it revolved about her husband's wishes and aspirations, was a different experience
at each social level.
The MASCA website, The Roman Day, which is now under construction, offers a unique opportunity for a site visitor to
role-play as the persona of a specific Roman individual—with choices ranging through the patrician to the plebeian,
and the over-indulged to the down-trodden—and intimately explore the nature of his/her life’s routine in ancient Rome,
from dusk to dawn; then change persona and role-play time-and-again, so as to experience the entire social gamut of life
during the reign of emperor Hadrian (A.D. 117-138). Various options within The
Roman Day will allow for frequent meetings
between personae at times when their activities coincide (e.g., a husband and a wife at supper); and occasionally it will
offer some choice in how a block of time is spent (e.g., at the arena or at the theater), or allow the persona to ponder
how someone like themselves would be spending that same time in a distant part of the Empire.
While The Roman Day will be e-linked to websites that already serve as excellent resource hubs for macroscopic views of
various aspects of ancient Roman life (housing, slavery, public bathing, etc.), its personalized style is ground-breaking
in that it will give the visitor a unique sense of "being there," as certain lives intertwine in just the ways they must
have done in antiquity.
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