READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 on pages
10 and 11.

In this preface to a history, the writer explains the factors affecting the scope of his study

If our ideas on Roman life are not to become lost in confusion, we must study it within a strictly defined
time. Nothing changes more rapidly than human customs. Looking at our own more familiar world, apart
from the great scientific discoveries of recent centuries which have turned it upside down - steam,
electricity, railways, motor cars and aeroplanes, for example - it is clear that the elementary forms of
everyday life have been subject to increasing change. Potatoes, for example, were not introduced into
Europe until the sixteenth century, coffee was first drunk there in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth,
and the banana w'as used in desserts in Europe at the beginning of the twentieth. The law of change was
not less operative in antiquity. It was a commonplace of Roman rhetoric to contrast the crude simplicity of
the Republic (509BC-27BC) with the luxury and refinement of the imperial times which followed. There is
no common measure, whether of home, or house, or furniture, between ages which are so different.

Since a choice of time must necessarily be made, this history will confine itself to studying the generation
which was bom about the middle of the first century AD, toward the end of the reign of Claudius (41-54AD)
or the beginning of the reign of Nero (54-68AD), and which lived on into the reign of Trajan (98-117AD) and
of Hadrian (117-138AD). This generation saw the Roman Empire at its most powerful and prosperous. It
was witness to the last conquests of the Caesars: the conquest of Dacia, in modem-day eastern Europe,
which brought vast mineral wealth into the Empire, and the conquest of Arabia, which helped to bring the
riches of India and East Asia flooding into Rome. In the material domain, this generation attained the
pinnacle of ancient civilisation.

By a fortunate coincidence - all the more fortunate in that Latin* literature was soon to run nearly dry - this
generation is the one whose records combine to offer us the most complete picture of Roman life that we
possess. We have a profusion of vivid and picturesque descriptions, precise and colourtul, in such works
as the Epigrams of Martial, the Satires of Juvenal and the Letters of Pliny. In addition, the Forum of Trajan in
Rome itself and the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, the two prosperous resorts buried by the eruption
of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD, supply an immense fund of archaeological evidence. Later excavations have
also restored to us the ruins of the city of Ostia, which date in the main from the time when the Emperor
Hadrian created this great commercial city as a realisation of his town planning ideas. Fortune has
favoured the historian of this time.

It is not enough to focus our study of Roman life only on a fixed time. It would lack foundation and
consistency if we did not also focus it in space - in the country or in the town. Even today when the
facilities for communication bring something of the city into the smallest and most isolated country
cottage, there remains a significant difference between rural existence and the excitement of city life: a
much greater gulf separated the peasant from the townsman of antiquity. So large was the inequality
between them that, according to the historian Rostovtzeff, it pitted one against the other in a fierce and
silent struggle which pierced the wall protecting the Roman privileged classes from the barbarian flood
from the nort. When the barbarian forces began to invade Roman territory, the peasants decided to fight
alongside them.

The townsman, in fact, enjoyed all the goods and resources of the earth. The peasant knew nothing but
unending labour without profit, and was unable to enjoy the activities available in even the poorest of
cities: the liveliness of the sports field, the warmth of the public baths and the magnificence of public
spectacles. In a work on the history of everyday life, we must give up any attempt to blend two such
dissimilar pictures into one, and must choose between them. The time which we have chosen to describe
day by day is that of those Roman subjects who spent their time exclusively in the town, or rather in The
City, Rome, which they regarded as the hub and centre of the universe, proud and wealthy ruler of a world
which seemed at that time to have been pacified for ever.

To perform our task well, we must first try to form an adequate picture of the surroundings in which our
subjects lived, and by which their lives were coloured, freeing ourselves from any misconceptions
concerning it. We must seek to reconstruct the physical nature of the great city and the social milieu of the
various classes of the hierarchy by which it was governed. We must also investigate the moral background
of thought and sentiment which can help explain both its strength and its weaknesses. The way in which
the Romans of Rome employed their time can only be studied satisfactorily after we have plotted out the
main lines of the framework within which they lived and outside of which the routine of their daily life would
be more or less unintelligible.

Questions 27 - 30

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Mite the correct letter in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet.

27 What does the writer say about the period mentioned in the second paragraph?

A There was a high level of immigration into Rome.

B The export of minerals made Rome rich.

C Rome sent armies to control trade with India and East Asia.

D The Roman standard of living reached its highest level.

28 Ostia is mentioned as

A. a city which often features in literature.

B. an important area for archaeological research.

C. the birthplace of a Roman Emperor.

D. a city whose layout was similar to that of Rome.

29 The statement that ‘Fortune has favoured the historian of this time’ refers to the fact that

A. historians of this period have become wealthy as a result of their discoveries.

B. works on this period are popular among the reading public.

C. a wide range of sources is available for this period.

D. this period has been less studied than many others.

30 In comparing urban and rural life in the Roman Empire, the writer states that
A. rural Romans were largely illiterate.

B. rural life and urban life had little in common.

C. little information is available concerning rural life.

D. most readers of history are more interested in city life.

Questions 31-36

Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer

in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 31-36 on your answer sheet,

write

YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer

NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

31 Rome’s conquest of Arabia resulted in large-scale immigration from the east

into Rome.

32 More can be learned about Roman life from the literature of the period
studied in this book than from later Latin literature.

33 Discoveries at Herculaneum and Pompeii showed that certain beliefs about

Roman life were wrong.

34 Roman peasants provided assistance to the Empire when it was attacked.

35 Rural inhabitants of the Roman Empire had a difficult life.

36 Entertainment facilities were limited to the city of Rome itself.

Questions 37 - 40

Complete the summary using the list of words, A-I, below.

Write the correct letter, A-I, in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.

The scope of the writer’s study

It was important for the writer to limit several aspects of his 37… ......................... He decided to
focus on a limited 38… ..................... in Roman history, and to concentrate on the section of the

population who were 39… .............................. The writer was interested in the physical environment, the

people that ruled the country and the 40….............................. that contributed both to Rome’s strength

and to its weaknesses.

A emperors B setting C values

D peasants E city-dwellers F social classes

G myths H period I investigation