Rome's Street Plan example essay topic

Roman City Planning... The design and structure of a city is as important as the people who dwell within her walls. The placement of streets and the structures built there are carefully plotted for optimal use. Foot and cart traffic, fire hazard, and access to water were all key factors in city planning. Eventually the Romans had fine tuned their design principals in such an advantageous way that they molded all of their city states similarly. Rome developed from the combination of small farming communities around a hilltop fortification.

The city, which was founded before regularized city planning, consisted of a confusing maze of crooked and gnarled streets. The focal point of which was the city's forum, the main meeting place and site of the many religious and civic buildings such as the Senate house, records office, and basilica. (Rich, 20) Augustan Rome, with a population estimated at between 700,000 and one million, was the only megalopolis in the West. Rome's street plan, which at its greatest extent had 85 km of road, was an irregular maze.

Most streets Zito 2 were footpaths or could accommodate only one cart at a time. The central city had only two vie a (streets on which two carts could pass each other), on opposing sides of the main forum. (Nicholas, 6) A law passed under Julius Caesar, which was still in force well after his death, stated that carriages were forbidden to use these streets by day, since it was found that there was not room in them both for wheeled vehicles and pedestrians. Public streets would be decorated with marble and stone, some houses, as they decayed, have revealed alleyways and passages that existed before reconstruction. (Bowra, 34) Main streets were often designed carefully to accentuate the housing and monuments that would appear on any given street.

Side streets would often be no more than passages, with flights of steps, and sometimes scarcely broad enough for two people to pass in comfort. Many streets were colonnaded; a Roman technique intended to bring shape to shadow and direct light through the streets. Earlier centuries used the stoa, or free-standing portico, to give effects of light and shade to their constructions. It is suggested that the colonnaded street developed out of the stoa; and partly also, Zito 3 perhaps, out of the thrifty use of available space, with the upper stories of houses jutting forward, supported on columns or pillars to make a walkway beneath. It is also likely that the colonnaded street, backed by shops, took over from the market square for shopping.

(Owens, 154) Towards the city's heavily trafficked center the Roman Forum was constructed for convenient easy access of all the citizens. The foreground of the forum was occupied by a paved square with monuments to famous citizens. The temple to the Divine Julius, dedicated in 29 BCE to the deified Caesar, built in a Hellenistic style, is located in the background on the left; to the right is the temple of Vesta and the house of the Vestal Virgins, guardians of the everlasting flame; further to the right is the temple of the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux dedicated in 6 CE Here the office of weights and measures was situated. The podiums of the temples of Caesar and the Dioscuri were often used as orators' platforms and it is in this part of the Forum that the meetings of the comitia took place. On the far right is the Basilica Julia built by Caesar. Its long facade occupies the entire south side of the Forum.

(Owens, 154) Semi-Zito 4 circular in plan and having consisted of a tall stage building, theaters were a semi-circular orchestra and tiered seating area. Unlike Greek theatres, which were built on natural slopes, they were supported by their own framework of piers and vaults and so could be built anywhere and not where nature dictated. Amphitheatres (literally, 'double theatres') were elliptical in plan; with a central are ana. (Bowra, 38) The city's main temple, the, was built at the end of the forum.

The standard temple was rectangular with a gabled roof, a deep porch with free-standing columns, and a frontal staircase. Roman temples were not only built in the forum, but throughout the city and countryside too. The placement of temples were many times left open to the whims of the wealthy financier. (Nicholas, 9) In Rome, the majority of citizens lived in insula e, street-front shops and workshops with living quarters behind and above them, which together comprised a city block encasing an open courtyard. These crudely constructed dwellings were often part of densely populated neighborhood just outside the city's center and many times Zito 5 lacked sanitary basics such as running water, lavatories, or heat, and were dangerously constructed of wood and brick - making them vulnerable to fire, and liable to collapse.

(Discovery Channel) Augustus limited the height of insula e to no more than five stories. Later, Nero imposed fire regulations because of their penchant for facilitating the spread of flame due to their close proximity to one another across roads. At the time Rome's fire fighters employed a chain of men passing buckets of water to deliver onto the fire. (Morris, 44) Nero, after a large fire in 64 AD, tried to rebuild the city in a more planned manner. However, Even the disastrous fire had not given the town-planners space enough to provide their Metropolis with the regularity and ease of communications which the city so desperately needed. The fire had left only four of Rome's regions untouched; three had been completely obliterated and seven others hopelessly damaged.

Premeditated or not, this fire was needed to remove the worst excesses of high density, shoddy building and grossly inadequate streets, in order to give an opportunity for comprehensive rebuilding which the Romans would not otherwise have accepted. Zito 6 (Morris, 44) The wealthier citizens, who often financed the construction of public buildings in exchange for honors and political favors, were afforded better living conditions than the insula e could provide. Those with a good amount of personal wealth would live further away from the city's crowded and dirty central business district. The rich, and citizens dwelling in more rural areas, lived in a do mus, a house built around an atrium, or unroofed courtyard. (Nicholas, 11) Aqueducts were conduits used to conduct a water stream across a hollow or valley. Although the Romans are considered the greatest aqueduct builders even their systems needed updates and revision on occasion.

One such renewal was overseen during the rule of Augusts which was the first of its kind in a century. The length of the aqueducts was extended to accommodate the wealthier citizens who lived further away from the city's crowded interiors. Only a portion of Rome's aqueduct system actually crossed over valleys on stone arches; the rest consisted of underground conduits made mostly of stone and terra cotta pipe but also of wood, leather, lead, and Zito 7 bronze. Water flowed to the city by the force of gravity alone and usually went through a series of distribution tanks within the city. Generally water was not stored, and the excess was used to flush out sewers. Rome's famous fountains were also supplied in this way.

New fountains were built in strategic positions to facilitate the necessary pressure that would keep the water flowing. A move that was as much political as it was artistically motivated. (Morris, 50-51) This was the basic structure of Rome. However, as the republic grew into an empire the Romans saw fit to refine their city planning skills when developing new colonies. Roman colonies were planted for trade and to exploit the areas agricultural benefits for excess crops which were needed in the home state. To make travel through these cities easier they were planned with two major streets running East-West and North-South intersecting at the forum, which was the center of commerce in the city.

The forum was surrounded by shops, offices and porticoes; it evolved as an enclosed area, linked to but independent of the street system. (Owens, 150) Zito 8 Many of these new Roman cities were former Greek territories and except in cases of earthquake, devastating sack or decline, a street-plan once formulated is rarely changed until the Roman period, although it is not unusual for it to be extended. In many cases the application of planning the city followed the pattern of military camps. Because of the military influences on Roman colonization, Roman planning fully integrated urban defenses with the city plan and the street system.

The walls and the streets were laid out concurrently as part of the coordinated plan of the city. The main streets led directly from the center of town to the gates, and the pome rial road ran around the city immediately inside the walls. (owens, 150) Rome was a living organism constantly changing and evolving as all cities do. However, the design and structure of Rome was born out of knotted roots. The placement of streets and the structures grew from dirt roads to paved passage ways meant to convey movement and beauty. Key factors in city planning revolved around the citizens and their needs. The Roman design principals forged a template by which all of their city states were similarly molded.

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Bibliography

Bowra, Maurice Et. Al. Golden Ages of the Great Cities. London, England: Thames and Hudson, 1951.
Morris, AE. History of Urban Form. London, England: George Godwin LTD, 1972 Nicholas, David.
The Growth of Medieval City: From late Antiquity to Early Fourteenth Century. New York, NY: Longman Publishing, 1997.
Owens, E.J. The City in the Greek and Roman World. London, England: Routledge Publishing, 1991.