This module will deal with collective 'public'leisure activities such as spectacula and circenses, and also with leisure activities in the private sphere including dining and bathing. That division is purely convenient and activities like gambling and feasting as well as the public ramifications of the private pleasures of emperors reveal the difficulties of insisting on a rigid division between public and private. Students will be encouraged to decide what the term 'leisure' might mean, with reference to the study of its use in history writing from Veblen to Plumb and beyond, and with reference to the semantic range of Roman terms such as otium. Roman leisure will be set in its political, social and religious contexts. Leisure will also be used as a means of revisiting familiar topics such as cultural difference, through study of the spread of bathing, gymnasia and gladiatorial games and also social cohesion through examination of patterns of segregation and participation in collective leisure.
Course co-ordinator: Professor Greg Woolf
The theatre at Pompeii with the gladiator barracks behind. Image courtesy of Maecenas
This page is designed to provide access to course materials that should be useful to those taking AN3028 Roman Leisure. It will also provide links to sites that may be useful, including some that make available texts we shall be using throughout the course. Suggestions for other links that might be useful for this course will be gratefully received.
This section is not designed to supercede the module booklet, but will contain additional material, some of which should be useful to those taking the course. More material will be added as the course continues.
The following files are in PDF format. To view these PDF files, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer. Many web-browsers already come supplied with this, but if yours does not, you can download a free copy of the Acrobat Reader from Adobe's web site at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html.
Roman Baths a small site but with some good illustrations.
Roman Baths with useful bibliography.