FIRES

One of the most common hazards faced by city residents was fire. Everyone had to cook over open flames, and for poor apartment dwellers, this might have been a fire kindled on the floor of their apartment or in an improvised stove. Olive-oil lamps, the main source of light, were easy to knock over. Not surprisingly, under these circumstances, fires were extremely frequent. In addition, due to the narrowness of the streets, the widespread use of wood as a building material, and the lack of effective fire-fighting techniques, once started, fires spread easily and caused enormous destruction.

The impression given by ancient authors is that not a night went by without a serious fire somewhere in Rome; larger fires that destroyed entire neighborhoods seem to have struck roughly every other year. One source describes a group of friends climbing up the Cispian hill and seeing a multistory apartment building ablaze. As they watched, the fire spread to the neighboring structures, creating a mighty conflagration. It is interesting that they seem to regard this dramatic spectacle as a routine occurrence, and rather than being shocked or alarmed at the sight, they instead engage in a scholarly conversation about literary allusions to fireproofing methods (Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 15.1).

To combat the fire menace, Augustus set up a brigade of approximately

7,000 watchmen known as vigiles, who patrolled the city at night carrying buckets and attempting to extinguish any fires before they could spread.

They were organized into seven cohorts so that each was responsible for 2 of the 14 regions of the city. Eventually, each cohort was housed in its own barracks in the appropriate part of the city. Their presence in the streets at night may have served as a deterrent to crime, but their principal duty was fire fighting rather than policing. Their equipment consisted of buckets, ladders, axes, and some sort of siphon device for spraying water. In addition, each cohort had several pieces of artillery that could be used to destroy buildings and create a firebreak.

The most destructive fire of all was the Great Fire of ad 64. It began near the Circus Maximus and rapidly spread to other areas of the city. It raged for six days, after which it appeared to have been brought under control, but it then broke out again and burned for an additional three days. By the time it was all over, 10 of Rome's 14 districts had been severely damaged, with 3 of these districts completely leveled. After this fire, the city was rebuilt with wider streets and using more fireproof materials. However, these efforts do not seem to have really curbed the frequency of fires, although they perhaps helped to inhibit their spread.

FLOODS

Floods and civilization have always been companions. The very earliest civilizations, such as those in Mesopotamia, arose along rivers in floodplains. The reasons for settling in such hazardous regions are obvious: by definition, floodplains are flat and near water and, hence, well suited for agriculture. Also, rivers offer routes of communication and transport, and the floods themselves deposit sediments that renew and enrich the soil. The very factors that caused these areas to be attractive for settlement are the same ones that make them vulnerable to the devastation caused by floods. Rome developed where it did because there was a natural ford across the Tiber just below Tiber Island. Rome is built on a series of small but fairly steep hills, but between the hills are valleys that were originally swampy marshland, as was the entire Campus Martius. The Tiber is a turbulent river whose waters, when swollen by rain or snowmelt, routinely inundated these low-lying areas of Rome.

There are accounfs of nearly three dozen major floods that struck the city of Rome between 414 bc and ad 400, and later records show that such floods have continued unabated into the modern era. Research suggests that, at a minimum, there has been a severe flood about once every 20 years on average. The normal level of the Tiber is between five and seven meters above sea level. The greatest flood ever recorded was that of 1598, which reached a height of nearly 20 meters above sea level. Any flood over about 13 meters above sea level would have inundated nearly all the low-lying regions of the city, including the Campus Martius, the Roman Forum, the Forum Boarium, the valley of the Circus Maximus, the Emporium district, and the Transtiberim. These areas include nearly all the

Figure 7A Map of the flood-prone areas of Rome. These include almost all the major political, commercial, and entertainment structures of the city. (Adapted by the author and David West Reynolds, Phaeton Group, Scientific Graphic Services Division, from map of Rome in The Urban image of Augustan Rome by Diane Favro, 1996, with the permission of Cambridge University Press.)

Major political, commercial, and entertainment districts and buildings of the city.

Ancient sources record instances of floods lasting so long that the streets had to be traversed by boat for an entire week. Both ancient and more modem data suggest that the typical flood lasted five days overall, of which two to three days were the period of high water. The Tiber is highest in winter and spring, when it becomes swollen by the winter rainy season and the spring snowmelt. Almost all recorded floods have occurred during these seasons.

The most obvious effect of the floods would have been the disruption of daily life in the city. The low-lying areas of Rome would probably have been inundated by several meters of water, making travel impossible. No fewer than nine of the descriptions of ancient floods specifically mention that it was necessary to travel through the streets in boats. Floods would have had serious disruptive consequences on the movement of people and on the economy. Naturally, any property in those regions reached by the waters would have been destroyed, damaged, or lost. There are many substances that could be damaged or ruined by exposure to water, but probably even more property loss would have been caused by the force of the water, which would have swept through buildings and streets, carrying away everything in them. This would have included even quite large objects, as observed during modern floods, in which less than half a meter of water is sufficient to carry away entire automobiles.

The most dramatic immediate effect would have been the spectacular collapse of large buildings. While monumental architecture was usually built fairly solidly, Rome was full of rickety high-rise structures. There are numerous sources attesting to the shoddy construction techniques of the often seven - or eight-story apartment buildings erected by unscrupulous slum-lords such as Cicero. These precarious structures often collapsed of their own accord, and the stresses placed on them by floodwaters would certainly have brought many toppling down. Not surprisingly, this is one of the most common effects of flooding related by the primary sources. Almost half the accounts of floods, even very brief one-line descriptions, mention buildings collapsing.

The final immediate consequence of a flood is, of course, loss of life, caused by drowning, exposure, and trauma from objects being tossed around in the floodwaters. When deaths are mentioned in ancient sources, it is usually to say that large numbers lost their lives in the waters, although specific figures are never given.

When floodwaters finally receded, this was not the end of the city's problems. One very unpleasant side effect of most floods is that they leave behind a viscous and foul-smelling layer of mud and debris. While no specific mention of this is found in ancient sources, the appearance and effect of this slimy deposit can be inferred from records of modern floods. The 1966 flood in Florence left behind 600,000 tons of stinking mud coating everything up to a depth of one meter.

The detrimental consequences of a flood lingered long after the waters receded. One of the most frequently mentioned delayed effects was the subsequent collapse of buildings that had suffered damage or weakening during the flood. Buildings constructed out of bricks were singled out as being particularly susceptible to damage due to floods. Most of the huge warehouse complexes, which housed Rome's food supply (and, above all, its grain), were quite logically located near the river for ease of unloading. This unfortunately also meant that these warehouses would have been among the first structures to be inundated by floods. The storage of grain is a tricky matter since it needs to be kept cool and dry to deter the growth of fungus, which will ruin it as a comestible product. Even the moisture from humidity can be enough to cause grain to go bad. Naturally, a major flood would have resulted in the complete loss of all grain that was reached by the water.

Another delayed effect of flooding would have been an increased incidence of disease. Those suffering due to food shortages or famine would have had a lowered resistance to illness. Those who had lost their shelter would have been more susceptible to infection and pestilence. Due to the common practice of dumping one's excrement in the streets, another nasty consequence of floods would have been the spread of this waste throughout the flooded areas, contaminating everything it touched and rendering the water in the city unfit for drinking. Floods would also have caused the drains and sewers to back up, depositing their contents throughout the buildings and living spaces of the city. Any food products not ruined outright by the water would at the very least have been contaminated by this filth, severely sickening whoever ate them. Last, the corpses of human and animal victims of the flood would have further added to the omnipresence of contamination and disease.

It is testimony to the importance of floods in Roman history that perhaps the first great public work to be built in the city of Rome was a drainage sewer. According to legend, the Tarquins constructed the first version of the Cloaca Maxima in order to make the forum area habitable. The best way to protect the city from Tiber floods was to build embankments to contain the river. The Romans had probably begun this process by the second century bc, and we have confirmation of such projects preserved on stones from 55 bc onward put up by the magistrates charged with overseeing the river (the ciiratores riparum). The Romans also deliberately dumped fill in key low-lying areas such as the Roman Forum to raise the ground level and make these regions less prone to flooding. By the end of the Roman period, many areas had been raised two or three meters higher than they had been originally. One final ancient response to the problem of flooding was a supposed scheme of Julius Caesar's to divert the course of the Tiber along the Vatican hills. However, this project was never carried out.

Rome did not receive reliable protection until the flood of 1870 prompted the government to construct the current set of high embankments, which reach about 18 meters above sea level all along both sides of the river. Since then, there have been no destructive floods in the city.