The three questions we'd like to answer here are:
(1) how was this population in ancient Rome housed?
(2) how was it supplied with food and clothing?
(3) how was it employed?
It was of course impossible in a city like Rome that each man, married or unmarried, should have his own house the plebeian population too; this is not so even in the great majority of modern industrial towns, though we in England are accustomed to see our comparatively well−to−do artisans dwelling in cottages spreading out into the country. At Rome only the wealthy families lived in separate houses (domus). The mass of the population lived, or rather ate and slept (for southern climates favour an out−of−door life), in huge lodging−houses called islands (insulae ), because they were detached from other buildings, and had streets on all sides of them, as islands have water. These insulae were often three or four stories high; the ground−floor was often occupied by shops, kept perhaps by some of the lodgers, and the upper floors by single rooms, with small windows looking out on the street or into an interior court. The common name for such a room was coenaculum, or dining−room, a word which seems to be taken over from the coenaculum of private houses, i.e. an eating−room on the first floor, where there was one. Once indeed we hear of an aedicula, in an insula, which was perhaps the equivalent of a modern “flat”; it was inhabited by a young bachelor of good birth, M. Caelius Rufus, and in this case the insula was probably one of a superior kind. The common lodging−house must have been simply a rabbit−warren, the crowded inhabitants using their rooms only for eating and sleeping, while for the most part they prowled about, either idling or getting such employment as they could, legitimate or otherwise.
In such a life there could of course have been no idea of home, or of that simple and sacred family life which had once been the ethical basis of Roman society. When we read Cicero's thrilling language about the loss of his own house, after his return from exile, and then turn to think of the homeless crowds in the rabbit−warrens of Rome, we can begin to feel the contrast between the wealth and poverty of that day. “What is more strictly protected,” he says, “by all religious feeling, than the house of each individual citizen? Here is his altar, his hearth, here are his Di Penates: here he keeps all the objects of his worship and performs all his religious rites: his house is a refuge so solemnly protected, that no one can be torn from it by force.” The warm−hearted of Claudius the emperor is here, as so often, dreaming dreams: the “each individual citizen” of whom he speaks is the citizen of his own acquaintance, not the vast majority, with whom his mind does not trouble itself.
These insulae were usually built or owned by men of capital, and were often called by the names of their owners.It is more than likely that many of the insulae were badly built by speculators, and liable to collapse. The following passage from Plutarch's Life of Crassus suggests this, though, if Plutarch is right, Crassus did not build himself, but let or sold his sites and builders to others: “Observing (in Sulla's time) the accidents that were familiar at Rome, conflagrations and tumbling down of houses owing to their weight and crowded state, he bought slaves who were architects and builders. Having collected these to the number of more than five hundred, it was his practice to buy up houses on fire, and houses next to those on fire: for the owners, frightened and anxious, would sell them cheap. And thus the greater part of Rome fell into the hands of Crassus: but though he had so many artisans, he built no house except his own, for he used to say that those who were fond of building ruined themselves without the help of an enemy.” The fall of houses, and their destruction in the frequent fires, became familiar features of life at Rome about this time, and are alluded to by Catullus in his twenty−third poem, and later on by Strabo in his description of Rome . It must indeed have often happened that whole families were utterly homeless; and in those days there were no insurance offices, no benefit societies, no philanthropic institutions to rescue the suffering from undeserved misery. As we shall see later on, they were constantly in debt, and in the hands of the money−lender; and against his extortions their judicial remedies were most precarious. But all this is hidden from our eyes: only now and again we can hear a faint echo of their inarticulate cry for help.
Avslappning
Swedish self hypnosis site
Dadaf Web Directory
top |
