Day Five: Last Day in Baltimore

Dining at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore: A group of the NEH

teachers decided to head down to the hot spots of Baltimore

and have some crab cakes!

Today was another day of study. I learned a few new things about Roman women and marriage. Here is a sampler you might be interested in knowing:

1. In the late Republic/early Empire, families were organized into this system called paterfamilias. The oldest father of the household would be the boss. Everyone, and I mean, everyone answered to him. He even had the power to welcome a newborn into the family or leave it on the street to die.
2. There are five ways of getting married in Ancient Rome: the wife could be given "into his hand", meaning the new bride was now under the complete power of her new husband; she could get married, but still be under the power of her father; the couple could enter into a sacred union - honoring Jupiter (Zeus); the bride's friends and family could fictitiously "sell" her to her new husband (all in good fun, of course); or you could just be a common-law marriage (after living together for one year). Complicated, huh?
3. Girls could get married as early as 12; boys could get married as early as 14. Girls and boys could get betrothed as early as 6 (by their parents' arrangement, of course!)
4. Women wore an iron engagement ring on their left ring finger.
5. Divorces were as common as marriages in the late Republic/early Empire.

After a morning of study, we headed off to the Walters Art Museum. The collection had belonged to a wealthy railroad owner who lived in Baltimore. After Walters' death, he willed the entire collection to the city of Baltimore. The collection is very eclectic, but it contained many lovely samples of Etruscan and Roman artwork. my favorite piece was a statue of a Roman woman from the first century BC. I loved the complexity of the garment folds all over her dress. the marble really looks fluid and draping around her body. Here she is:

The size of the statue indicated it was probably part

of a public monument, possibly honoring a local benefactor.

Overall, it was another great day in Baltimore. Tomorrow, we head out to Newark to fly to Rome. I'm really excited to see all of the sites that we have studied this week. Next posting. . . ROME!