Roman Culture, Mythology, and History
This domain covers the institutions, daily life, gods, legends, and historical turning points that Latin texts assume. Questions may ask about a magistracy, a festival, a god's attributes, or the sequence of the Republic and Empire.
Government and society
- Republic: two consuls annually; the Senate was advisory but powerful; assemblies passed laws; tribunes of the plebs could veto.
- Cursus honorum: quaestor, aedile, praetor, consul; dictatorship was normally temporary in the Republic.
- Social order: patricians, plebeians, equestrians, freedpeople, and enslaved people; the paterfamilias held legal power.
- Daily life: forum, baths, insulae, domus, amphitheater, Circus Maximus; roads and aqueducts.
Mythology and legend
- Roman names: Jupiter (Zeus), Juno (Hera), Neptune (Poseidon), Minerva (Athena), Mars (Ares), Venus (Aphrodite), Mercury (Hermes), Diana (Artemis), Vulcan (Hephaestus), Ceres (Demeter).
- Aeneas fled Troy for Italy; Romulus founded Rome; the violation of Lucretia led to the expulsion of the kings.
History
- Monarchy to Republic traditionally 509 BC; Punic Wars against Carthage; Gracchan reforms; Marius and Sulla; Caesar's dictatorship and assassination in 44 BC; Augustus's principate after Actium in 31 BC; Pompeii buried in 79 AD.
Worked example
Which Roman god was associated with the sea? Neptune, not Jupiter, who is sky, or Pluto, who is underworld. The Roman name is the expected term; Poseidon is Greek. If a question asks for the Greek equivalent, answer Poseidon.
Traps that cost marks
Mixing Greek and Roman names; assigning Greek myths to Roman gods without noting variant versions; conflating Republic and Empire; and choosing a famous date that is not the one asked for.