Born in Aușeu, Bihor County, in the Crișana region, he attended primary and secondary school at Beiuș and Oradea. He then studied philosophy, mathematics and theology at the University of Vienna. After graduation, Roman returned to his home region, and was hired at the Romanian gymnasium in Beiuș in 1849, during the Hungarian Revolution. He became its first teacher to hold classes in Romanian. In 1851, he became a Romanian-language professor at the Oradea law academy. In 1862, following numerous petitions, he began teaching Romanian at the Royal University of Pest, founding the Romanian language and literature department. He prepared a Romanian-language manual for village schools, and contributed articles on philology and politics to "Bucovina", "Gazeta Transilvaniei" and "Naționalul", the last based in Bucharest, capital of the nascent Romanian state.