The Roman Lifestyle
Pantheon In Rome (Model) Some ancient cultures were more important than others. Granted that they were all important for one reason or another, but some were the bedrock that our modern civilizations are based on today. If one were to ask, which two ancient civilizations contributed more to our modern civilization, I think that the answer might have to be Rome and China. China's contributions were in the form of inventions, great inventions, that pushed technology forward. Rome's were not only advancements in building, but in the way a country takes care of its citizens and its legal system. While it was not a Roman invention, apartment building were used in many places in the Roman empire to house the people. It is strange to think of people that lived about 2,000 years ago going home to a three or four story walk-up Is that much different than what a lot of people do today all over the world? The Roman apartment was something to behold. To give you an idea of what one of these buildings was like, we can look at the description of one that was in the port city of Rome, in Ostia. The first floor of the building was shops. This was certainly handy for the tenants and is reminiscent of those apartments in Brooklyn, NY and other areas that were setup the same way. The richest people lived on the next floor and so on, until the poorest were on the top floor. While this may seem strange to you, there was a very practical reason for it. In case of fire, the bottom floor tenants had a better chance of getting out of the building alive. There was no fire department for some time in Rome, but in later times they had people who would pull down buildings on fire, to stop the fire from spreading. Rome was so crowed that the only way they could build was up, similar to New York City and other great cities around the world. Apartment buildings were poorly constructed in the beginning and were built by speculators. Some of these buildings even reached 9 stories high. The buildings were known as insulae. The upper floors were sometimes without bathroom facilities, heat and running water. If you lived up there you might have to use public lavatories. Later height restrictions prevented the extra tall building from being built. Some of these buildings actually fell down due to shoddy workmanship. Over the years the height of these structures kept getting reduced, due to the danger of fire and collapse, until finally the maximum height was reduced to 17.75 meters. Private homes or Domus were reserved for the wealthy. It was crowded in Rome and even the Domus were small compared to the villas outside Rome and because of this, many wealthy Romans owned villas and made them their primary residence. Was living in Rome that much different then, than living in a big city today? One doesn't think of economic policies when they think of the ancient world and yet they were very important. Economic policies caused almost constant war in the Greek states and because of this, Rome became the master of the area. Under Octavian, after the battle of Actium in 31 BC, Rome enjoyed economic freedom. This allowed the country to grow. There was a problem however and that was heavy taxes were needed to maintain the army and there was steep inflation. It almost seems that Rome was suffering in the same economic way as present day countries. Private business thrived in Rome and even Egypt, which was the property of the emperor, had its banks deregulated. Egypt was a special case however and closely guarded since that was where Rome got most of its crops.
Roman Gate Erected After Gauls Sacked Rome Rome had decided to give corn to the poor for free and this had the result of causing an influx of poor into the country. When Caesar took control he managed to cut the amount of people receiving free food from 320,000 to 150,000. It is believed that he did this by just making sure that those that received the grain were citizens of Rome. Over the years after Caesar, this number went up and down, but not greatly. Rome was almost a modern city trapped in an ancient world. Its population had exceeded a million people, making it the biggest city in the ancient world by at least a factor of two, Alexandria being the second biggest with about 500,000 people. Rome was a country of builders. They had learned in the early days from great builders all over the area and put all these techniques together to establish probably the greatest society of builders that ever lived. There have been other great builders such as the Egyptians, but in building things other than temples and pyramids, the Romans were able to build great ordinary buildings, raods, bridges and aqueducts, some of which are still standing today. The Pantheon in Rome, is a building that is still standing and has been restored to its original state. It has the largest concrete dome ever built and yet it is almost 2,000 years old. The Romans were also the inventors of concrete that dried under water and used it to build many ports.
Roman Helmet I guess no discussion of Rome would be complete without a discussion about the Roman army. Even when the army was outnumbered, their enemies trembled in fear. An illustration of this has to do with Caesar crossing into what is now Germany. A couple of hundred thousand German tribesmen were threatening Rome, but were still on the German side of the Rhine River. Caesar had caused quite a stir when he massacred thousands of Germans even though Rome had a treaty with them. He then took his army, which is said to have numbered about 40,000, to the edge of the Rhine River and then built a bridge across it in only 10 days. A feat that is said to be impossible to do today. The Germans couldn't believe what he had done and had never seen a bridge and even though they outnumbered Caesar by anywhere from 5 to 10 to 1, they hid in the forests while Caesar tramped around for weeks before leaving and tearing up the bridge behind him. The Roman Imperial Army was composed of heavy infantry formations of about 5000 to 6000 men. After 29 BC and before 212 AD, only Roman citizens could join. There was an auxilia that was divided into smaller formations that were about cohort size, about 500 men. The auxilia not only had heavy infantry, but also contained light infantry, heavy and light cavalry, archers and slingers. The main place these units were stationed were along the borders to protect Rome. In the end, the Roman army returned to the draft and began using large numbers of barbarian volunteers. They abandoned the old system and maintained only a professional army. The earliest Roman armies suffer from a lack of data. It is known that Rome was a major city in 625 BC and probably had a population of about 35,000 people. This was a lot for that time, as it was about half the size of Athens. While the military details are not known, it is known that there was a treaty between Rome and its Italian neighbors that provided for mutual defense in case of attack. Rome was an incredible place for its day and even its earliest kings were elected by the people. The country had welfare for the poor, living quarters with water and lavatories and public toilets. As a matter of fact, the first pay toilets were in ancient Rome. They had the most advanced doctors for the time and medicine didn't advance after the fall of Rome for over 1,000 years. There are many theories on why Rome fell, but I believe that it all boils down to the fact that Rome got complacent and their neighbors got hungry. |
