ARRO -- Blogmeister

Romans vs. Germans Essay

We were assigned to write a five paragraph essay comparing the ancient Romans and the early Germans for social studies class.

Despite being interested in the Roman way of life and moving closer to the Roman Empire, the Germans continued to live in the manner in which they were accustomed. The Romans and Germans each practiced their own ways of living with little influence on one another for many years.The manner in which they trained soldiers and treated enemies, lived in their homes, and wrote their laws were very different. The Romans lived in cities and the Germans lived in the country. The Romans disciplined and trained soldiers intensely and the Germans raised boys to be warriors. The Romans wrote laws and the Germans memorized laws that were chosen by the people.
The Germanic people and Romans trained their soldiers and treated their enemies very differently. Germans began training boys for war when they were young. Young adult males were given spears and a shield in a special ceremony. They were required to carry these weapons with them at all times or risk losing the respect of their fellow men. German fighters were divided into clans which were based on family relationships. The bands of warriors did not make specific plans to fight, but rather roamed the countryside raiding their enemies in surprise attacks. They also believed in leaving their enemies dead on the battlefield.The Romans, however, trained their soldiers for hours. They marched for days and taught their soldiers to build fortresses when they were traveling to protect themselves against attacks. They also were somewhat kind to the people they conquered. They did not tax them, allowed them to become citizens, and let them keep their governments. In return, the Romans asked that the people they conquered to become members of their army.
The Romans and Germans lived in two very different types of homes and environments. The Romans lived in Rome, Italy, which was a very crowded city of almost 1 million people. Pollution, a high cost of living, crime, and few places for people to live made living in Rome difficult for many. Most people lived in 6 story apartment buildings called islands. A shop was often located on the ground floor and upstairs there were dark, windowless, rooms that had no plumbing. Rich Romans lived in multiple story houses that had indoor plumbing and were decorated with expensive stone and jewels. Most Germans lived in villages in the country. Their homes were huts with thatched roofs. The Germans kept animals at one end of their huts while they lived in the opposite end. The heat from the animals kept them warm on a cold winter night. Their furniture consisted of a few wooden tables and chairs.
The Germans and Romans made their laws in different ways. Roman judges often had to write new laws to help them do business with people in territories that they recently conquered. Judges wrote laws with the help of lawyers and other legal writers called juries prudentes. Over time, they developed laws that they felt were fair to everyone in the Roman Empire. They also made their legal rules the same so that everyone was governed in the same manner. The Germans, however, had their laws come from the people. Laws could not be changed without their approval. In addition, laws were never written down, but memorized. Families were expected to teach their children the law to remember when they became adults.
The contrast between the manner in which the Romans and Germans lived their lives was evident in many ways. Law making, living conditions, and the training of soldiers and enemy treatment were completely different for each group. German soldiers were trained at a young age and fought in clans that left dead enemies on the battle field, while Roman soldiers started training and were disciplined heavily. Roman life was very civilized with two general house types for rich and poor, while the Germans lived in villages where they slept with livestock in their huts. The Romans wrote their laws down, while the Germans memorized the laws that were chosen by the people. The Romans and the Germans took years to understand one another and adopt each other's characteristics.

This is a part of my latest project in social studies class. After researching the gladiators of ancient Rome, each student in the class produced a booklet that was supposed to resemble a lost journal. We wrote entries from the eyes of a gladiator, from the moment they were captured to the point where they retired or died.

Roman Gladiator Excerpt:

June 5

I fought at the Colosseum today! I survived my first day at the gladiatorial games! It was a grim sight to see all those men die. It was especially difficult to kill someone. I have never done something like that in my life, but I knew I am closer to my freedom this way.

I was a bit distracted by the Colosseum’s beauty when I was there today. It also has a brilliant layout and structure. The Colosseum is a gigantic oval; inspired by the Roman theatre semi-circle shape. The elliptical shape allows many spectators to have a great view of the arena below. The sprawling awnings above the seating shade all the spectators nicely. The arena is the smaller elliptical field where all the fights are held. The ground is scattered with sand to absorb blood. That is just from the outside, but the Colosseum has a genius substructure and crowd management system that allows great function for workers, gladiators and spectators.

The Colosseum contains many passages that lead you to exactly where you need to go. Each class of people sat in a different area, so it was important that nobody accidently ended up on the wrong side of the arena. I saw that the emperor’s party entered the seating from the north and through the Magistrates entrance. The consuls enter through the south. The performers entered from the west and through the Porta Triumphalis or the ceremonial entrance of the gladiators. All the dead bodies were carried out through the Porta Libitinesis or the death gate. Each entrance and exit functions perfectly.

Everyone seemed to be seated socially when I was there. I noticed that the women sat in the back on the wooden seating. I knew the spectators were seated by marital and profession status because the soldiers and the bachelors were seated separately. The tiers of the seating were separated clearly and far so that nobody would mix together. The Romans hate mixed crowds.

I don’t like going to the gladiatorial games, but I want to find my family one day when I’m free. Andreas told me I fight again in two days. I hope I win again.

My group researched the Battle of Marathon for our Prezi project. Our group divided the work into five parts, one for each member. My job was to include the "who, what and where" of the battle on the Prezi. I also controlled the computer during the presentation for the class. Finding the information on the battle was fairly easy with the resources available in the classroom and on the computers. I used the textbook that we use regularly during class and for homework. I also used Ebsco Host and found an excellent article for the information I needed. The project was fun and an interesting way to learn about the Persian wars.

In math class we are wrapping up Module 1, so we are reviewing the topics we learned. Here are some of them.

We have done lots with frequency tables. They make the transition from data of an experiment to a graph simple. You keep track of your experiment by marking tallies on the “tally column”. When you finish that, all you have to do is count the tallies and write them down in the “frequency” column. Now all of the data for a graph is conveniently organized.

A new thing I used this year is algebra for predicting a term or sequence. If I had to predict the nth term for a series of sequences, it would be an easy task. It is simply finding a pattern in the series, removing the numbers associated with the specific sequence, replacing them with letters, and using the equation to solve n by inserting all the numbers for the sequence you want to figure out into it. It is easier than it may sound.

Probability is something I already knew about, but I used it in new ways this year. We did a project on it and we compared experimental and theoretical probability of the same experiment. I did my project with a partner. We pulled flavored Tootsie Rolls out of a bag without looking 55 times. After completing the experiment and figuring out the experimental probability we compared the 2. We were not surprised when the 2 came out fairly different.

Thanks for reading!