2004
Volume 58, Issue 4
  • ISSN: 0165-8204
  • E-ISSN: 2667-1573

Abstract

Abstract

How did Romans organize and use time in their daily lives, and what does this reveal about their image of themselves and of others? In a lesson developed for secondary schools in early 2025, we explored the relationship between time and social norms in Rome in order to raise awareness of the social component of time use, which can be found in antiquity as well as in the everyday lives of modern students. The central texts discussed in this lesson are Martial’s epigrams 2.27, 4.8 and 8.67. In this article, we present this lesson and offer relevant background information. The first part presents an overview of how the Romans divided time in calendar years and months, weeks and hours. The second part gives a commentary on the relevant epigrams and the third part discusses the way in which we executed this lesson at several Dutch secondary schools.

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/content/journals/10.5117/LAM2025.4.004.LUCA
2025-12-01
2025-12-16
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