I will, of course, be totally unable to find this link now, but some months ago, while we were discussing Cicero at (I think!) the ADI group, one of the members came up with a net video showing an actor not only reading, but enacting, one of Cicero's speeches. I'm trying to recall, but it seemed to me that the actor did it in two different 'takes' - one using one form of Latin pronunciation, the other, another. The sounds were quite different! Of course, I've never quite 'gotten' the 19th century Latin wave that said that all soft "cs" should have, in the ancient world, been pronounced like "k" - hence "Kayeezer" andd "Kickero." But this actor's resonance, the dignitas of the sounds of the Latin words, was impressive whether done hard or soft "c".

As for Xtreemli's very kind re-posting of Dr. Fantham's questions - as for the common people, one of the things I loved about "Women in the Classical World" was that it made an effort, through grave stele and archeological evidence, to at least give us a slight picture of what ancient Roman women were seen as in their own time. I understand this is relatively "new" in classical studies - last two decades?