The Old Roman World : the Grandeur and Failure of Its Civilization.Lord, John
History
The Old Roman World : the Grandeur and Failure of Its Civilization.
Lord, John
Rome -- Civilization
spacious streets, eighty golden statues of the gods; sixty-six large
ivory statues of the gods; forty-six thousand six hundred and three
houses; seventeen thousand and ninety-seven palaces; thirteen thousand
and fifty-two fountains; three thousand seven hundred and eighty-five
bronze statues of emperors and generals; twenty-two great horses in
bronze; two colossi; two spiral columns; thirty-one theatres; eleven
amphitheatres; nine thousand and twenty-six baths; two thousand three
hundred shops of perfumers; two thousand and ninety-one
prisons. [Footnote: St. Ampere, _Hist. Romaine a Rome_.] This seems
to be incredible. "But," says Story, "Augustus divided the city into
eighteen regions: each region contained twenty-two vici; each vicus
contained about two hundred and thirty dwelling-houses, so that there
must have been seventy-five thousand houses; of these houses, seventeen
thousand were palaces, or domus. If each contained two hundred persons,
(and four hundred slaves were maintained in a single palace,) reckoning
family, freedmen, and slaves, we have three millions four hundred
thousand people, and supposing the remaining fifty-eight thousand houses
to have contained twenty-five persons each, we have in them one million
four hundred and fifty thousand, which would give an entire population
of four millions eight hundred and fifty thousand." If Mr. Merivale's
estimate of seven hundred thousand is correct, then the Colosseum would
hold nearly one in six of the whole population, which is incredible.
Indeed, it is probable that even four millions was under than above the
true estimate, which would make Rome the most populous city ever seen
upon our globe. Nor is it extravagant to suppose this. The city
numbered, according to the census, eighty thousand people in the year
197; and in 683 it had risen to four hundred and fifty thousand. Is it
strange it should have numbered four millions in the time of Augustus,
or even six millions in the time of Arelian, when we bear in mind that
it was the political and social centre of a vast empire, and that empire
the world? If London contains three millions at the present day, and
Paris two millions, why should not a capital which had no rival, and
which controlled at least one hundred and twenty millions of people? So
that Pliny was not probably wrong when he said, "_Si quis altitudinem
tectorum addat, dignam profecto oestimationem concipiat, fateatur qui
nullius urbis magnitudinem potuisse ei comparare._" "If any one
considers the height of the roofs, so as to form a just estimate, he
will confess that no city could be compared with it for magnitude."
[Sidenote: The monuments which survive.]
[Sidenote: Games of Titus.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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