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High Density Living, 2000 Years Ago: Inside the Roman Apartment Building

55 points by surprisetalk ago | 12 comments

vintagedave |next [-]

I can highly recommend Lindsey Davis' Falco series, murder mysteries set in Ancient Rome. She brings the city to life, it's remarkably vivid, and -- I promise this comment is on topic for this thread! -- Roman apartment living is threaded throughout the series and apartment building construction even forms a major plot point in one book.

I can't say more without spoilers. Excellent for "feeling" what Rome was like.

https://www.goodreads.com/series/42173-marcus-didius-falco

Aurornis |root |parent [-]

I’m looking for new fiction to add to the queue but my reading time is limited (unless you count children’s books in which case I’m reading 100s of books per year).

Do I need to read the first book in the series, or are they independent? If independent, can you recommend the best one for someone who only has time to read one?

vintagedave |root |parent [-]

It's been several years since I read them, but I think starting with the first book is good. It's not quite as polished as the others, and I think not quite with the same tone, but it introduces the characters that will be throughout the series. My memory is the series is more lighthearted in general than the first book is.

You make me think I should reread, and I will start at the beginning here too.

everdrive |next |previous [-] 

  See how pots strike and dint the sturdy pavement.

  There’s death from every window where you move.

  You’d be a fool to venture out to dine,

  oblivious of what goes on above,

  without your having penned that dotted line,

  of your last testament.
This feels very modern. "Sure, you might get randomly killed by a pot flying out a window, but there are _walkable_ restaurants!"

josefritzishere |root |parent [-]

That's still very real in NYC. https://tribecacitizen.com/2026/04/27/rubble-falls-from-the-...

comrade1234 |next |previous [-]

I really enjoyed the film Fellini Satyricon because it shows a couple of regular guys on a crazy adventure after their apartment building in Rome collapses in an earthquake. Most other stuff about Rome/Romans follows leaders, generals, aristocrats, etc. so it was refreshing to see regular people.

And completely not based on reality, I also liked the British comedy series Plebs that also follows regular people living Rome. But it's just a way to show modern issues satirically, not really historical.

vjvjvjvjghv |root |parent |next [-]

“ Most other stuff about Rome/Romans follows leaders, generals, aristocrats, etc. so it was refreshing to see regular people”

A lot of history focuses too much on leaders and elites. I would like to see much more information about how regular people lived. Or for example, when a some king “built” something, maybe we should know how life was for the workers there.

swatcoder |root |parent [-]

It's not as widely promoted, but if you're genuinely interested, there are more of those histories written then you'll ever have time to read yourself.

There's a classic five volume series "A History of Private Life" that works through a breadth-first survey over time. It can make for a great starting point, and is a bit like an encylopedia in the way you can engage with it as essays on certain times and topics instead of being expected to read it through serially.

nephihaha |root |parent |previous [-]

Plebs felt to me like the Inbetweeners set two thousand years earlier.

nephihaha |previous [-]

They called them insulae meaning "islands". They had no concept of fire escapes, and barely any plumbing (despite this image of Roman engineering). They really were the harris end of Roman architecture.

ableal |root |parent [-]

> the harris end

I guess that's the rear (or arse) end, if anyone else is puzzled and doesn't have a couple of spare minutes to chase it down ...

>> top floors were the least desirable. Poorer residents occupied the upper story.

Some writers placed Julius Caesar's aristocratic but down at the heel family in the lower floors of a Subura tenement, but apparently it really was a house.