URBAN LIFE IN ROME
Ostia -> Tiber -> ROME <- Countryside
Population: 1,000,000 under empire?
Basic Urban Needs
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Water: Aqueducts -> public fountains
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Grain < Sicily, N. Africa, Egypt
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Sold at fixed price (C. Gracchus)
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Free to male citizens (mid 1st c. BC)
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Sanitation:
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Chamberpots (> streets)
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Public toilets & Fuller’s shops
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Cloaca Maxima (-> Tiber)
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Housing
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Insulae ("islands"): large apartment blocks
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Separate houses (more at Pompeii, Ostia)
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Larger mansions, esp. on Esquiline hill
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Shopping
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Shops in insulae at street level
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Open-air marketstalls
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Public Safety:
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Vigiles (fire prevention/night watch)
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Praetorian Guard (vs. civil disturbance)
Public Amenities & Entertainment
Bath Complexes
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Baths (caldarium, tepidarium, frigidarium)
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Libraries, art, lecture-halls
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Outdoor exercise grounds
Theater
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Comedy (Plautus etc.) and Tragedy
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Mime: slapstick & scurrilous plots
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Pantomime: performance art, w/music
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Street theater, musicians etc.
Games (ludi): Colosseum, other amphitheaters
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Wild beast hunts
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Mock naval battles
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Gladiators (first attested 264 BC)
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Origins as funeral ritual
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Often volunteers, rarely fought to death
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Specialty fighters (e.g. Thracian, Samnite)
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Executions and "fatal charades"
Chariot racing
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Circus Maximus & Stadium of Domitian
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4 teams: Blues & Greens most important
Imperial Building
Public Building
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Sewer system (Agrippa, under Augustus)
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Aqueducts (Claudius)
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Harbors at Ostia (Claudius, Trajan)
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Imperial Fora (Augustus, Vespasian, Nerva, Trajan)
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Temples (e.g. Pantheon)
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Stadium of Domitian (-> Piazza Navona)
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Basilica Ulpia & Markets (Trajan)
Palaces, Monuments etc.
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Imperial Residence on Palatine
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Nero’s "Golden House" (Domus Aurea)
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Triumphal Arches: Titus
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Columns: Trajan, Marcus Aurelius
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Mausoleums: Augustus, Hadrian
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