Chapter 1: Subūra

Sabina and her family are living in the Subura, a densely populated district near the centre of Rome, in AD 64. Here huge numbers of people lived packed together in multistorey apartment buildings, and the population density was probably greater than that of modern London or New York. As well as being a residential area, the Subura was a centre of trade and manufacturing. Its narrow, crooked streets were notorious for noise, bustle, and dirt.

At night the streets were unlit, and violence and crime were common. Many of the streets had no pavements and were too narrow for traffic. In order to reduce congestion in the wider streets, wheeled traffic (with the exception of carts carrying building material) was banned in the city for most of the daylight hours.

1. Look at these sentences:

   ego semper labōrō.	ego in Subūrā habitō.
   tū in īnsulā labōrās?	tū in popīnā dormīs.
   amita in popīnā labōrat.	Sabīna in īnsulā legit.

2. In Latin, the ending of the verb tells us who is carrying out the action.

   -ō	e.g. ego labōrō	I work, I am working
   -s	e.g. tū dormīs	you sleep, you are sleeping
   -t	e.g. pater intrat	the father enters, the father is entering

3. The verb in the following sentences follows a slightly different pattern:

   ego sum Sabīna.	I am Sabina.
   tū es mendāx.	You are a liar.
   Subūra est clāmōsa.	The Subura is rowdy.

4. Note that est can mean is, it is, or there is:

   hōra prīma est.	It is the first hour.
   popīna estin Subūrā.	There is a bar in the Subura.

1. Translate these sentences:

   a. ego in īnsulā habitō.	d. ego in cellā legō.
   b. tū in popīnā labōrās.	e. tū nōn dormīs.
   c. Sabīna intrat.	f. ego labōrō.

2. Translate these sentences:

   a. ego sum in īnsulā.

   b. negōtiātor in Subūrā est.

   c. tū es in popīnā.

   d. Subūra nōn est quiēta.

In AD 64 about one million people lived in the city of Rome, making it the largest city in the western world until London in 1801. All these people lived in a relatively small city. The fact that a large part of the city was taken up by temples, palaces, fora, theatres, circuses, and the great town residences of the rich and powerful, meant that the majority of the population lived in densely populated areas. Probably the most famous of these neighbourhoods was the Subura.

Coming to Rome

Rome attracted people both from nearby regions in Italy and from the farthest reaches of the Empire. Wealthy people might have come to Rome to undertake a career in politics, ordinary people might have been attracted by the employment opportunities in the large city, and the very poor might have arrived in the hope of receiving the free grain dole that the emperor gave out. The largest group by far, however, were enslaved people. They came to Rome against their will and most of them were then sold at the many slave markets in the city.

A multicultural city?

It is hard to work out what percentage of Rome’s population had migrated to the city, rather than being born there. Estimates of the total number of immigrants vary from 6% to 30%, so possibly as much as a third of the city’s inhabitants were not from Rome originally. And a much larger percentage of the population would have had parents or grandparents who weren’t from Rome.

Although many people moved to Rome from elsewhere, it is hard to know how multicultural the city would have felt to a modern observer. A wide variety of cultural and religious practices from across the Empire flourished among the immigrants living in the city, and Romans of all backgrounds embraced their new traditions and religions. Judging from the records that survive, it seems that people did not often state where they came from. This suggests, perhaps, that it was not considered particularly important to them. The extent to which immigrants and their descendants felt like outsiders, or slotted seamlessly into a multicultural melting pot of peoples, is nearly impossible to know.

Some women, like Rufina, worked outside the home. It is difficult to know how many women did work, and how much of the work in Rome was done by women (whether enslaved or free). This is because there is relatively little evidence for women working. This may just be because of a bias in the way Romans represented working women, though it might also suggest that it was less common for a woman to have a job.

The lack of evidence might be explained by the fact that many women must have been occupied with having and raising children and domestic work, such as making clothes. Many probably helped in their family business, but this could go unrecorded in our evidence. However, we do also know about women in specialist occupations, such as textile- workers, doctors, and artisans, as well as about women doing jobs usually associated with men (fish sellers, innkeepers, barbers). Additionally, there were women working as performers, dancers, and sex workers.

Like the vast majority of Rome’s population, Sabina’s family lived in a rented flat in a multistorey block. Only the very wealthy owned their own house. Sabina’s father was the landlord of an insula. Faustus didn’t own the building; the owner would be a rich man who had bought the insula as an investment. The landlord was responsible for managing the property and collecting rent from the other tenants. Rents in Rome were extremely high, so evictions for non- payment must have been commonplace.

High rent wasn’t the only problem tenants faced. Many of the blocks were flimsily built, with foundations which were not strong enough to support the structure. As a result, these ramshackle buildings often collapsed or caught fire.

Rich and poor lived in the same building. Unlike modern high-rise blocks where the penthouse is often the most desirable apartment, in a Roman insula the best accommodation was on the ground and first floors, while the poorest tenants had rooms on the upper floors and in the attics. The risks from fire and collapse were greater on the upper floors. Moreover, there was no running water on the upper floors, so the tenants at the top had to collect water from the public fountains and carry it up several flights of stairs. The rooms at the top were dark and, in winter, they could have been very cold. The windows did not have glass, so the only protection from the wind and rain was wooden shutters or curtains. Some tenants owned a portable heater (foculus), which would have heated the room by burning wood or charcoal, creating a very smoky atmosphere.

The ground floor of an insula was often divided into shops and workshops, which had openings facing onto the street. These units sometimes had a backroom or a mezzanine floor where the shopkeeper or craftsman and his family lived – very cramped quarters for a family. (A mezzanine is a half-floor, between the ground floor and the first storey, which was accessed by a ladder.) There were all kinds of shops and workshops in the Subura – bakers, barbers, cobblers, and many others – and lots of places selling food and drink either to eat in or to take away. Many flats had very limited cooking facilities, perhaps an open fire, or none at all, so if people wanted cooked food they had to eat out. Many people would have survived on a diet of bread, cheese, and fruit.

For most of its inhabitants, life in Rome was dangerous, unpredictable, and, compared with what we are used to, unsanitary. As accommodation was so cramped and cooking facilities limited, most people would have spent a lot of time outside, so public spaces and amenities were very important.

oil lamp chamber pot fountain

1. Look at these sentences:

   ego in Subūrā habitō. I live in the Subura.

   Sabīna in popīnā labōrat. Sabina is working in the bar.

   The Latin sentences tell us who is carrying out the action, then where, then what they’re doing. The English sentences tell us who is carrying out the action, then what they’re doing, then where.

2. Look at these sentences:

   Sabīna est in cellā. Sabina is in the room.

   ego sum in Subūrā. I am in the Subura.

   In these Latin sentences, the order of the words in the Latin and the English is the same.

3. When you are reading Latin, try to read it from left to right and get used to the order in which the information comes.

4. If you are translating into English from Latin, you will need to make your English sound natural.

3. Complete the sentences with a correct choice, then translate your sentences.

   ego

   tū

   ambulat

   habitō

   iuvenis

   dormīs

   a. .... in lectīcā dormit.	d. .... nōn sum in cellā.
   b. .... labōrās, soror?	e. .... Sabīna in viā
   c. ego in Subūrā .... .	c. tū in īnsulā .... .

Beginnings

The origins of Rome are shrouded in mystery. The original settlement expanded from a secure hilltop location, gradually absorbing its neighbours until it dominated the whole Italian peninsula.

The descendants of those early settlers wanted to create a date for the foundation of their city. Using calculations based on the four-year cycle of the ancient Olympic Games, the Romans chose the year 753 BC for the beginning of Rome. They even selected a date: to this day modern Romans celebrate their city’s birthday on 21 April. By the time Emperor Augustus established one-man rule in 27 BC, more than 700 years later, Rome was the centre of a vast empire (see the map on pages 2–3).

Nero

In AD 54 the teenage Nero became the fifth emperor. The title of emperor always passed down through the male line, because women could not hold political office in Rome. However, some female members of the imperial household, including Nero’s mother Agrippina, exercised considerable power.

By the time our story begins, Nero has been emperor for ten years. The early part of his reign was relatively stable. The young emperor was under Agrippina’s control and supervised by two advisers: the philosopher and intellectual Seneca (see page 15) and a military commander called Burrus. Violent uprisings at opposite ends of the Empire were successfully put down, and in Rome Nero behaved as a generous and benevolent ruler.

Nero was also a great supporter of the arts. Unusually for an emperor, he took part in plays himself, and he gave poetry and musical performances. He was also a fan of sports, and on occasion drove chariots in races (where his competitors let him win).

However, there was another side to Nero’s character, and he did not cope well with the power available to an emperor. His behaviour became more erratic and cruel, and on his orders increasing numbers of people (usually those who displeased him or he felt were a threat) were exiled or killed. Just five years into his reign, he even had his mother killed, possibly because she disapproved of an affair he was having, or because he resented her attempts to control him. Perhaps it was a combination of the two. From that point on, he set few boundaries on his own behaviour.

Nevertheless, Nero’s support for arts and sports made him popular with much of the population of the Empire, particularly the poor, who benefited most from the spending on entertainment. Others felt that it was not appropriate for an emperor to act in plays or take part in chariot races. Some wealthier Romans resented his legal and tax reforms which benefited the common people.

Most of our information about Nero comes from Roman historians, who themselves belonged to the wealthy upper classes and were hostile to Nero. However, like us, Romans were a broad mix of people, with a range of views and interests. In AD 64 different individuals would have had varying opinions about their city and their emperor.

Traditional foundation of the city of Rome.

Augustus becomes sole ruler of the Roman Empire.

Nero becomes emperor at the age of 16.

The year our story begins. How old is Rome?

753 BC

27 BC

AD 54

AD 64