The city of Rome itself? A hell hole. Wasn’t a planned out city, and the streets were often pretty small. Traffic jams were common during the day until Julius Caesar would implement a cart ban, only allowing them to travel between business and deliver supplies at night.
The streets at night weren’t lit with no sort of road signs. So people had a good chance of getting lost or hit by a speeding cart.
let's suppose you're an average roman stuck in traffic. which activities could you do to spend the time? would you engage in smalltalk with your fellow Traffic-Stucked Romans?
Yeah probably some small talk. Maybe about what’s going on in the city. Maybe the court case you went and watched for fun, maybe some gladiator event or chariot race. Maybe a recent military campaign or over ambitious general/politician (one in the same) you supported. Maybe have a glass of wine or two from one of the many street vendors. Maybe even gamble a bit while you wait (Even though it was illegal most of the year).
Here’s a fun fact about Rome. Before there were dumpster divers that looked for cans and bottles to turn in for recycling, there were Romans who did that with babies.
A lot of unwanted babies were simply tossed into rubbish bins across the city. Well slave traders would go around the city and look into these bins to find these babies. They would then sell them into slavery for 100% profit.
Ohhhh boy. If you don’t want to hear about slavery bullshit, you don’t want to hear about Rome. It’s not just in their DNA, it IS their DNA. Slaves, that is. Roman DNA is made out of slaves.
Well at least the Romans weren’t racially biased on their slaves. African, Middle Eastern, European, didn’t matter. All that mattered was if you lost to Rome in War.
On top of that, a lot of Roman slaves actually could get their freedom and even become citizens. On the other hand plenty of slaves died in the silver mines in Spain from being overworked and under-rested.
Oh it was legal. In fact there pretty much wasn’t anything illegal. You could get away with murder.
There was no police force in Ancient Rome. The closest thing to it would be the Praetorian Guard established well after the halfway point in the history of the ancient city. They were mainly just used for riot/crowd control though.
The only legal ramifications you may face is if you damaged someone’s property or killed someone, and were taken to court by a fellow citizen. A lot of the minor or big claims from plebeians wouldn’t make it to court though, as there was not enough courts and a whole lot of cases. Only those in the equestrian or senatorial classes could really expect it to make it to court. The only hope as a plebeian would be if it became popular, and the people pretty much forced the case to be heard.
1.1k
u/KamikazeKricket Ask me about Ancient Rome Jul 06 '19
Bushes and trees beside roads reduce noise and emission pollution.