tenacious, and hard workers who could ably defend the city
from attack and build its economy.
North Africa had many such cities. An example is Timgad
(Th amugadi), built in 100 c.e. for retired soldiers in Numidia
(in present-day Algeria). It was laid out in a strict grid with
its eastern and western gates opening on signifi cant trade
routes. Within its walls were a forum, basilica, market, and
baths, but somewhat unusually its capitol was placed outside
the wall. As the city grew, perhaps reaching 15,000 people, it
added several baths outside the city walls.
In North Africa the Romans also built cities at the sites
of existing Phoenician towns. Leptis Magna (in modern-day
Libya) was a Phoenician colony that became part of the Ro-
man Empire in 46 b.c.e. It gained fame as the birthplace of
Emperor Septimius Severus (193–211 c.e.) and may have had
a population of 12,000. Timgad and Leptis are examples of
the diff erent fates of Roman cities aft er the fall of the Western
Roman Empire. Timgad survived because it was on an im-
portant trade route. Without Roman engineers to maintain
its once splendid harbor and without the empire’s market for
its goods, Leptis Magna faded and was abandoned during the
Arab invasion of the 500s c.e.
During its long existence the Western Empire itself con-
tained had many examples of cities that became successful
showcases for Roman life. In what is now Germany, Trier (the
Roman name was Augusta Treverorum) began as a military
camp under Augustus and was made a city between 41 and 54
c.e. It was laid out as grid, but its wall curved with the con-
tours of the Moselle River. London (Londinium) was founded
in 43 c.e. and grew to 45,000 people before, for various rea-
sons, its population began declining in the 200s c.e.
POPULATION AND PROBLEMS
To Roman city planners the ideal city would have no more
than 20,000 residents, and thus they designed new cities to
hold no more than that. In a new city the initial residents,
perhaps just soldiers and their families, might number only a
few thousand. When a city fi lled up, the hope of the Romans
was to build another several miles away, thus keeping each
city to a size thought to be comfortable. Th is is one reason Ro-
man cities seem to be everywhere in the lands that fell within
the empire’s borders—they were part of a continuous process
of managing populations, and the building of them was not
expected ever to end. Even so, some cities had exploding pop-
ulations simply because they were ideally located for com-
merce or to be seats of government, and they drew so many
people to them that the cities sprawled beyond their walls.
One example was Lyons, in modern-day France. Under its
Roman name of Lugdunum its population reached 200,000.
Rome itself provided the greatest example of out-of-con-
trol population growth. Even by 509 b.c.e. it had a popula-
tion of 40,000, and during the fi rst century b.c.e. that number
reached a million. Th e city’s original plowed circumference
had to be redone outside the new city limits, with new outer
walls built, but this was hardly the only problem associated
with mushrooming population growth. Rome had become a
place with many tenements and, in the old quarters, narrow
streets. During his reign Augustus attempted to bring some
order to the situation through massive building projects and
a reorganization of the city into 14 regions, each with its own
administrator appointed by the emperor. He created a police
department to battle a crime wave, and he organized a fi re
department. Every Roman city was vulnerable to fi re, and
large portions of Rome had burned on several occasions. Th e
duties of Rome’s fi re department were mainly to organize
bucket brigades (there was never enough water pressure for
fi re hoses) and to knock down buildings around a blaze to
prevent its spread.
Augustus assigned to his son-in-law Marcus Agrippa
the administration of many of Rome’s building projects, and
Agrippa also expanded and added to the city’s aqueducts, in-
creasing the fl ow of water by two to four times. Other public
projects undertaken by Augustus were the dredging of the
Tiber, which was fi lling with silt, and personally overseeing
the distribution of food to the city’s poor. Caring for the poor
became institutionalized in the empire, with some cities even
setting aside a covered area near the forum where homeless
people could gather to stay out of bad weather.INSIDE A ROMAN CITY
A traveler entering the typical ancient Roman city fi rst passed
through an enormous stone gateway. Th e Romans built grand
gates to impress visitors with the feeling of entering sacred
ground that was set apart from the ordinary world outside.
Once within the gates, the traveler would notice the many
small touches that enhanced life in a Roman city. Th e streets
would be paved with either stone or brick and would be wide
enough for two carts to pass each other with room enough
left for a third cart. Most people walked wherever they needed
to go in the city, whether for business or pleasure, and great
care was taken to protect pedestrians. Streets had raised stone
along their sides to prevent carts from straying onto the side-
walks, and sidewalks were everywhere, even among the resi-
dences of the poor. In commercial and residential areas alike
the sidewalks were covered, either by roofs or by overhang-
ing balconies. In some cities the law required homeowners to
provide cover over the sidewalks adjacent to their buildings.
Th ere were also crosswalks consisting of rows of large, fl at-
topped stones set less than a stride apart, on the top of which
pedestrians stepped. (Th e crosswalks also helped to slow traf-
fi c, rather like ancient speed bumps, because carters had to
maneuver their wheels around the stones.)
A Roman city was typically laid out in a grid pattern of
streets and was either square or rectangular. Th is was not a
rigid practice; Roman city planners accommodated the lo-
cal terrain, working around variations such as hills and val-
leys. Once the essential elements of forum, capitol, basilica,
curia, and the theater were mapped, neighborhoods were
laid out, usually divided into sections for the upper class,
middle class, craft smen, and the poor. If the city had beencities: Rome 229