Roman apartment blocks

Many ordinary Romans lived in insulae, apartment blocks several stories tall. Upper floors were less safe and had no running water, so people often ate at nearby food shops.

Context

An insula, meaning island in Latin, was a city block, and the word also came to describe the multi-storey apartment buildings that filled Roman cities. Rome's population in the early empire is often estimated at about a million, though figures vary, and most people rented rooms or flats instead of owning houses.

Well-preserved examples survive at Ostia, Rome's port city, where brick-faced buildings of several floors stood around courtyards and above shops. Ancient writers describe even taller blocks in Rome itself, and some sources report that emperors set height limits, such as around 60 to 70 Roman feet, after collapses and fires. Exact heights and limits are uncertain.

Lower floors cost more and often had better access to water carried from fountains or pipes, while the upper floors were cheaper but more exposed to fire and collapse. Cooking with open flames in wooden-floored rooms was dangerous, so many residents bought hot food from nearby shops and taverns. Wealthier Romans lived in separate private houses called domus.

Roman writers such as Juvenal complained about the noise, rents and dangers of city life, which gives modern readers a lively, though sometimes exaggerated, picture of apartment living.