Imagine living near the ruins of an ancient culture. Each day offers both delights and challenges, as you witness the ways in which time and modern problems have affected these precious artifacts. What are the costs of protecting these signs of history? And how has daily life changed for people living in such places in the 21st century, at the far end of a timeline reaching back generations?

In this lesson we invite students to learn about one ancient society, the Roman Empire, through stories about the communities that have developed in its wake. From modern Rome to the far reaches of the ancient empire in Syria, France, England and northern Africa, they will seek to understand the role that history can play in everyday lives. Then students can go further, conducting research on a specific site and learning how the goal of historical preservation comes into conflict with modern life.

_________

If You Have Only One Class Period …

Warm Up

Begin by using a map to orient students to the town of Lecce in southern Italy. Give them a quick visual tour using this travel video of the region. Then read the scenario below, detailed in the first lines of the article “Centuries of Italian History Are Unearthed in Quest to Fix Toilet.”

All Luciano Faggiano wanted when he purchased the seemingly unremarkable building at 56 Via Ascanio Grandi was to open a trattoria. The only problem was the toilet. Sewage kept backing up. So Mr. Faggiano enlisted his two older sons to help him dig a trench and investigate. He predicted the job would take about a week. If only. “We found underground corridors and other rooms, so we kept digging,” said Mr. Faggiano, 60.

Imagine if you were Mr. Faggiano, and you uncovered underground hidden rooms while trying to open a trattoria, a simple Italian restaurant, in Lecce. What would you do?