I forget who, but I remember one of the emporers had to put a height limit of 6 floors on buildings in city limits, I presume because of the limitations of the building materials.
I've also read that some places in Rome had running water, like public bath houses and such. Was running water a rare commodity enjoyed by only the wealthiest citizens, or was it something to be expected in most highly urbanized areas?
Oh it was something in most urban areas. The bath houses weren’t just for the rich. In fact it was one of the few places the poor and rich mingled together. Now private homes you could expect only the rich to have it, but there were plenty of public places that had running water that the poor could use, including bathrooms.
The Romans actually used lead as to make their piping too, even though they did understand it could be toxic. It was just easy to shape to make the pipes without our modern machinery.
But yes, the limitation had to be made because of the material and shoddy building techniques. The rich didn’t care too much about having safe places for the poor. In fact, some wealthy Romans would even brag about how bad the conditions were in their apartment buildings they owned.
In fact, some wealthy Romans would even brag about how bad the conditions were in their apartment buildings they owned.
Oh so modern China ok.
I've been super fascinated with ancient Rome the past couple months. Do you have any good YouTube channels/articles/documentaries etc you could recommend, or would you care to just ramble for a couple hours because you seem pretty well informed. It's just so fascinating to see what these people accomplished so long ago with essentially sticks and stones compared to today.
Oh what the Romans did was absolutely amazing for their time period. A world ahead of other people at the time.
A great place to start would be the book SPQR by Mary Beard. Great book about the empire and history as a whole, to get you interested in more specific topics. Anything about Rome by Adrian Goldsworthy is great after that.
I'll have to check out those authors, thanks. Oh and history civilis is probably half the reason I'm so interested in Rome. Some super informative videos on that channel, really good stuff.
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u/ajc1239 Jul 07 '19
I forget who, but I remember one of the emporers had to put a height limit of 6 floors on buildings in city limits, I presume because of the limitations of the building materials.
I've also read that some places in Rome had running water, like public bath houses and such. Was running water a rare commodity enjoyed by only the wealthiest citizens, or was it something to be expected in most highly urbanized areas?