[117] Mommsen, _Eph. Epigr._ ix, p. 9; Dessau, _Inscr. sel._ 6086; 'nei quis in oppido quod eius municipi erit aedificium detegito neive demolito neive disturbato nisei quod non deterius restiturus erit nisei de senatus sententia. sei quis adversus ea faxit, quanti id aedificium fuerit, tantam pequniam municipio dare damnas esto eiusque pequniae quei volet petitio est.' (English translation in E.G. Hardy's _Roman Laws and Charters_, p. 101.) [118] Dessau, 6087, 6089; Hardy, _Roman Laws_, part 2, pp. 34, 108. [119] For these decrees, which are practically equivalent at this date to laws, see _CIL_. x. 1401 = Dessau 6043, and de Pachtère in _Mélanges Cagnat_, p. 169. [120] For the letter of Hadrian see _Bulletin de Corresp. Hell._ x. 111; it is quoted by Bruns, _Fontes_, 1909, p. 200. Compare the _Historia Augusta_, Life of Hadrian, ch. 18. [121] Mommsen, _Eph. Epigr._ iii, p. 111 and _Ges. Schiften_, i. 158, 263, 371; Liebenam, _Städteverwaltung_, 393. Rules were also laid down occasionally to forbid balconies and similar structures which might impede the light and air in narrow streets, and it was a common rule that cemeteries and brickyards must lie outside the area of inhabitation. At Rome too, efforts were made by various emperors to limit the height of the large tenement houses which there formed the 'insulae'. These limits were, however, fixed haphazard without due reference to the width of the streets; they do not seem to occur outside of Rome, and even in Rome they were very scantily observed. But in general no definite laws were framed. Probably the municipalities were somewhat closely tied in the administration of municipal property and had to refer schemes for the employment even of the smallest bit of vacant space to the 'patron' or the _curator_ of the town. But, apart from the provisions mentioned above, they had no specific rights, that are recorded, against private owners or builders. It was only once, after Rome itself had been burnt out, that an imperial order condemned landowners who 'held up' their ground instead of using it, to forfeit their ownership in favour of any one who offered to build at once. CHAPTER XI THE SEQUEL What was the sequel to this long work of town-planning? Two facts stand out distinct. First, the Roman planning helped the towns of the Empire to take definite form, but when the Empire fell, it too met its end. Only here and there its vestiges lingered on in the streets of scattered cities like things of a former age. But, secondly, from this death it rose again, first in the thirteenth century, with ever-growing power to set the model for the city life of the modern world.