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The Bones of Romans
 Rita Mailheau
To walk the ruins of ancient Rome is like discovering skeletons in an elephant graveyard. One senses the differing purposes these grand edifices once served, but time has boiled away the life, like the flesh off of a High School Biology project. The people who lived here seem strange and remote. So it comes as a bit of surprise, even taking into account the often savage nature of their society, that the same everyday troubles that we are heir to also plagued the Romans.
The free Romans fell into two classes, the patrician and the plebian rich man, poor man. In researching an earlier article, I came across photos of a dig in a dining room where wealthy Romans once lived. When eating, the patrician reclined around a table on a raised platform, three to a side like spoons nested together. No doubt, their torsos were bolstered with pillows making dining a somewhat elegant affair. But, taking into account the amounts of rich food eaten at this angle, they must have suffered from poor digestion. Many of us today would be appalled if we saw our loved ones reclining hedonistically on our family room sofa gorging on Thanksgiving dinner, the way the patrician did each day. I mean, even in cave paintings, a man sat up when eating.
The plebian ate sitting up and though they had meat upon occasion, their diet consisted primarily of grain and vegetables. In consideration of cost the plebian had smaller portions. Ironically, the plebian maintained better health due to lower levels of fat and sugar.
Experts disagree as to why Rome declined. Its undeniable excesses evident, in diet and other pleasures, and the resulting madness and incompetence of its rulers, played at least some part in the internal rebellion and later the collapse of this great empire.
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