One passage, however, in Ulpian is commonly quoted as a proof that in his time there were fire-engines at Rome. Where he enumerates those things which ought to belong to a house when sold, he mentions, besides other articles used for extinguishing fires, _siphones_[590]. But if this word means here fire-engines, the passage seems to prove too much; for it must then be admitted that each house had a fire-engine of its own. These implements therefore must have been small hand-engines, such as are kept in many houses at present; and in that case the passage cannot be adduced as a proof of public engines, such as Pliny regrets the want of at Nicomedia. But it is much more probable that Ulpian alludes only to those _siphones_ which, according to the account of Strabo, were to be found in every house at Rome; that is, pipes which conveyed water to it for domestic purposes. From the total want of fire-engines, or the imperfect manner in which they were constructed, what Seneca says must have been true, namely, that the height of the houses at Rome rendered it impossible to extinguish them when on fire[591]. That the buildings there were exceedingly high, and the lanes, the bridges and even the principal streets remarkably narrow, is well-known[592]. It is supposed by Archenholz and others, that the houses at Rome were built of such a height on account of the great heat in that warm climate; but the chief reason was undoubtedly that assigned by Vitruvius[593], which still produces a like effect. For want of room on the earth, the buildings were extended towards the heavens; so that at last the greatest height of an edifice was fixed by law at seventy, and afterwards at sixty feet. In Hamburg, at present, where ground is dear and daily becoming more valuable, the greater part of the houses are little less than sixty feet in height; a few even are seventy; and that it is thereby rendered difficult, if not impossible, notwithstanding the perfection of the German engines, to extinguish fires, is proved by the melancholy instance of Gera, where the houses are now built lower. With Neubert’s engine, which was tried at Hamburg in 1769, eight firemen threw eleven and a half cubic feet of water to the height of sixty-two or sixty-three feet.