Roman civilization was an intensely urban culture. Wherever the Romans went, they established new towns, which became focal points of Roman administrative control and centers from which Roman culture was disseminated. In addition, Roman cities demonstrated a remarkable uniformity of architectural design and cultural focus all across the empire. Whether a Roman walked into a Roman city in the wild fens of Britain or in the cultured, ancient setting of Egypt, he or she could expect to find almost exactly the same set of urban structures and spaces: a forum, public baths, a local senate house, a theater, some colonnaded temples, and perhaps even an aqueduct. The model for all these cities was, of course, the heart of the Roman Empire—the great capital city of Rome itself, whose architectural wonders were imitated by all lesser Roman cities. For Roman travelers, there must have been a comfortable familiarity to this uniformity—an assurance that came from knowing that no matter how exotic the locale, how unintelligible the local language, or how strange the indigenous culture, in every province there were cities that resembled miniature Romes.
The Roman world is special not only because of the uniformity of its urban culture, but also because the model for that culture, the city of Rome itself, was by far the largest city to have existed up until quite recently. At its height (the first century bc to the second century ad), Rome's population achieved the staggering size of around one million inhabitants; sevEral other cities, such as Alexandria in Egypt, boasted populations measuring in the hundreds of thousands.
Cities such as these were the great urban centers of the ancient world, but it was the network of smaller cities that gave cohesion and identity to Roman civilization. The Roman Empire, while conventionally filled in on maps as a solid mass of red or blue, might more accurately be portrayed as a series of dots denoting cities, with blank countryside in between. It was mostly in the cities that Roman culture could be found; it was there that people spoke Latin and where one would encounter Roman magistrates, buildings, and law. Out in the countryside, many provincials had their own ancestral languages, customs, and leaders. Thus, in reality the Roman Empire consisted of a system of nodelike cities embodying Roman culture connected to one another by a web of roads, leaving the interstitial spaces largely untouched.
As the Roman Empire spread, Roman cities were established in all conquered territories. Many new towns in Italy and in the provinces were founded by granting land to Roman soldiers upon their retirement from the army. Others grew up around or began as Roman army camps. Often these incorporated the gridlike arrangement of streets standard to military camps. The Romans developed a hierarchy of status for cities, just as there was for people. At the top were cities that received the designation of colo-nia, or colonies. Originally these were what the name suggests: colonies of Roman citizens or retired veterans. By the time of the empire, the term colonia became simply a designation of status: all the inhabitants of colonies would have Roman citizenship, and the city itself would enjoy a certain degree of autonomy from the local governor. Next were municipia. While municipia were not as prestigious as colonia, most inhabitants of municipia still possessed Roman citizenship. The remaining ordinary cities were called civitates.
Roman cities featured a number of distinctive architectural features. Chief among these was a general-purpose open space in the center of town known as the forum, around which usually clustered important government buildings and temples. Most Roman towns of any size or pretension also constructed baths, gymnasiums, a theater, an amphitheater, and perhaps a circus. Local aristocrats in the provinces who wished to rise in status would sometimes pay for the construction of such cultural centers in their hometowns. Whether in Spain or Gaul, North Africa or Judea, Roman cities tended to look similar because they all constructed the same types of buildings, which unmistakably identified them as Roman cities.
It is important to note, however, that the average inhabitant of the ancient Roman world did not actually live in a city. While around 90 percent of the people were farmers who lived their entire lives in a rural, agricultural setting, only the tiny remainder who lived in cities defined and shaped Roman civilization and history. Simply put, civilization itself was very much an urban phenomenon. Government, philosophy, religion, law.
Art, architecture, trade, literature, and even history itself were all generated in cities. Therefore, while a very small number of people in the ancient world actually lived in cities, a disproportionately large amount of the events and ideas that we tend to study and remember today happened and were produced in an urban environment.
Something about cities seems to generate new ideas and spur innovation. Law codes may have developed from the need to find a way for people to live in large, densely packed groups without descending into chaos. Great art and literature frequently flourished as the result of patronage by rulers who wished to glorify their capitals and commemorate their deeds. Cities and civUization are inseparable, and the history of one is really the history of the other.
GOALS AND STRUCTURE OF BOOK
The goal of this book is to provide an in-depth study of life in the Roman city and especially in the capital city of Rome itself. It is intended not just to provide a description of the physical buildings of the city, but also to explain how the city functioned, who lived there, and what the inhabitants' lives were like. It is a portrait of the city as an organism and of all its constituent parts. This book is not intended to offer a comprehensive survey of Roman history but rather to investigate what day-to-day life was like for those who lived in a Roman city. Therefore, the focus is on the typical inhabitant rather than on the exceptional one. Famous men like Julius Caesar may occasionally appear—and did in fact play key roles, but wherever possible, the emphasis will be on the lives of the thousands of more obscure, but also more representative, urban dwellers. It is hoped that this book will serve as a useful reference work for students, as a possible textbook for a course on Roman civilization, and as an accessible source of information for general readers interested in aspects of life in ancient Rome.
The study of ancient Roman cities is of more than just historical interest. The influence of Rome and its culture is still present nearly everywhere one looks today, and we in the modern world are still affected in a surprising number of ways by the culture of the ancient Romans, These influences include such basic areas as the language with which we communicate (a large percentage of words in English derive from Latin), the laws by which we organize our society {the majority of the world's legal systems are based on Roman law), and even how we tell time {our calendar is almost identical to the one developed by the Romans). Rome is arguably the most influential city in Western history. For nearly half a millennium, Rome dominated the Western world, and even when the empire fell and Rome lost its political dominance, it continued to be the seat of the Catholic Church, which itself occupied a central place in the next 1,000 years of history. It is really only during the last 400 years that Rome has Ceased to be a center of power, but for 1,500 of the last 2,000 years of Western history, Rome has played a pivotal role. The many popular aphorisms associated with Rome, such as "All roads lead to Rome," "When in Rome do as the Romans," and "Rome, the Eternal City," reflect the cultural, religious, and historical significance of the city.
Even the individual buildings that made up the city have had long-reaching influence. The Flavian Amphitheater (popularly known as the Colosseum) is the direct ancestor of the modern sports arena, and the Pantheon, with its colonnaded facade and triangular pediment fronting a large dome, is the direct architectural inspiration for nearly every seat of government in the United States ranging from the Capitol building in Washington, D. C., to nearly every state capital building. Even the more humble yet all-important engineering infrastructures of modern cities can trace their origins to Roman sewers, aqueducts, roads, and bridges.
Finally, Rome was the first megacity and as such is the precursor and model for all great cities today. Ancient Rome's population of one million people was probably not equaled for 1,500 years until Paris and London attained a similar size in the nineteenth century. Ancient Rome also embodied all the good and bad cliches of a big city. Two stereotypes of urban life dominate both ancient and modern perceptions. On the one hand, cities are seen as the focal point of opportunity, wealth, culture, and luxury, consisting of magnificent public works and ceremonial buildings. On the other hand, the city is also viewed as a place that is corrupt, decadent, crowded, and dangerous, with rampant poverty, crime, and disease. Since ancient Rome encompassed all of these stereotypes, both positive and negative, it is the prototype for the modern city; therefore, by studying it, we can hopefully also gain insights into cities today and the problems that are faced whenever large numbers of people live in a densely packed urban setting.
This book begins with a brief survey of Roman history to provide an overall context and then narrows its focus to present the geographical setting and chronological development of the city of Rome itself. Subsequent chapters describe the infrastructure of the city, the system of government, the groups that made up the urban population, housing conditions, the dangers and the pleasures of life in Rome, the famous (or infamous) entertainments that were staged for its populace, and the roles of religion, the economy, and emperors. While the majority of the book concentrates on Rome and on urban life in the Roman Empire generally, additional chapters offer portraits of two specific smaller cities: Ostia and Pompeii. These cities shared the characteristic of being among the best preserved of all Roman cities, but they also offer contrasting images of Roman urbanism. Ostia was a gritty, industrial port town, whereas Pompeii, located on the scenic Bay of Naples, was dominated by the wealthy. A conclusion compares the different experiences of urban Roman life presented by these three cities, and a number of appendixes offer guides to different aspects of Roman culture and bring the story of Rome up to the present.
Where ancient authors are directly quoted in the text, the author and common title of the quoted work are provided in parentheses. Nearly all of these sources are available in multiple modern translations; the bibliography of primary sources lists some of the more important ones. Two abbreviations appearing in the text refer to several multivolume collections of Roman inscriptions (in Latin): CIL (Corpus Inscriptionum Lati-narum) and ILS (Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae). A bibliography of secondary sources, organized by chapter, offers suggestions for further reading. The secondary-source bibliography has been restricted to English-language publications, although much important scholarship on the Roman world is only available in Italian, German, and French.
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World History
