How was the life of the poor Romans when the Empire was rich and powerful

At nightfall, ancient Rome was a dangerous place. Historian Mary Beard takes us on a tour of the imperial capital after dusk as armed badailants and drunken craters dominate.

Many of us find it difficult to imagine the bright marble spaces of Rome on a sunny day, as it is the image given by movies and novels, not to mention the history books.

But what happened at dusk? More concretely, what happened to the vast majority of the population of the imperial city, who lived in cramped rooms and not in the vast dwellings of the rich?

Remember that in the first century BC, in the time of Julius Caesar, ancient Rome was a city of one million inhabitants: rich and poor, slaves and former slaves , free and foreign.

It was the first multicultural metropolis in the world, with its slums, multi-occupancy homes and human dumping areas, which we tend to forget when we focus on its magnificent columns and squares.

So how was the city of Rome, the real city, after the lights went out?

Can you reconstruct this little story told?

The best place to start is the satire of this Roman boy, Juvenal, who evokes an unpleasant picture of daily life in Rome around 100 AD.

Juvenal warned of the risks of walking the streets at dusk, including the risk of opening the windows.

In the best case, you have rained with human excrement stored during the day; in the worst case, your head has been broken by objects thrown from the upper floors.

"Think about the different and different dangers of the night. (…)

If you come without dinner to a dinner, you will be worthy of being called careless and indiscreet because you are subject to so many dangers

There is death under every open window at your own pace

You will therefore do very well if you ask in heaven that the greatest misfortune you are causing is that which bathes you, falling over the pestilent glbad. "

Juvenal also talks about the risk of meeting rich people who walk with layers of faithful parasitic parasites comitivas and comitivas and who push you brutally on their side.

But what is the precision of Juvenal's vision of Rome at night?

Was it really a place where things crashed against you, the one in which the rich and the powerful threw you to the ground and pbaded you and where (as observed in other pbadages) you ran the risk of To be stolen and stolen by rogue groups?

Probably yes.

While Rome burned

Outside the magnificent civic center, Rome was a labyrinth of narrow streets and narrow corridors.

There was no street lighting, no place to throw your excrement and no police forces.

By nightfall, ancient Rome must have been a threatening place.

The only public protection that could be expected was the paramilitary night surveillance force: urban vigils.

Exactly what they did and how effective they were is a moot point.

They were divided into battalions and their main task was to monitor the occurrence of fires (a common occurrence in poorly constructed apartment buildings, with burning blazes on the upper floors).

But they had few tools to use, beyond a small amount of vinegar, some blankets to smother the flames and poles to destroy nearby buildings and prevent the fire from spreading.

Sometimes they became heroes.

In fact, there is a moving memorial of a vigil in Ostia, the port of Rome, which tried to rescue people trapped in a fire, died during the process and was buried at the expense of the police. ;public opinion.

But they were not always so altruistic.

In the great fire of Rome in 64 AD, a story says that the guards participated in the looting of the city and took advantage of their knowledge to find great wealth.

On your account

In any case, the security guards did not constitute a police force and had little authority when small nocturnal crimes multiplied.

If you were a victim of a crime, you had to defend yourself, as evidenced by a particularly difficult case, dealt with in an old manual on Roman law.

The case concerns a shopkeeper who opened his business at night and left a lamp on the counter facing the street. When a man stole the lamp, the trader pursued him and they started to fight.

The thief carried a weapon (a string with a piece of metal at the end) and used it against the shopkeeper, who fought back with such force that he took the eye off the thief.

For Roman lawyers, the dilemma was whether the merchant was responsible for the injury.

In a debate that echoes some of our own dilemmas as to how far an owner can go to defend himself against a thief, they decided that as the thief was armed with a nasty metal and had worn the first blow, he had to take responsibility for the loss of his eye.

The incident is a good example of what could happen in the streets of Rome after dark: small fights could escalate and, as was the case in another famous case, a ship thrown out of a window could hurt you fatally.

But the Roman night was not only dangerous, it was also fun.

Roman rumba

There were clubs, taverns and bars open late at night.

Even if you shared a narrow room with too many people, if you were a man, you could escape for a few hours drinking, playing and flirting with the waitresses.

The Roman elite despised these places.

Although gambling was a favorite activity of Roman society – it was said that the Emperor Claude had written a textbook on the subject ", this did not prevent the upper clbades from denouncing the bad habits of the poor and their dependence on gambling.

Lightning of pleasure

Fortunately, we have some entertainment images in Roman bars from the point of view of ordinary users, not their critics.

They are not in Rome, but on the walls of the bars of Pompeii and show typical scenes of the life of a bar: groups of men sitting around bar tables, asking for another glbad of drinks, flirting (and more) between customers. and waitresses and lots of board games.

Interestingly, we even have signs of violence.

In this painting representing a Pompeian bar (now at the Archaeological Museum of Naples), we see on the left a couple of players disagree on the game and, on the right, the owner is forced to threaten to throw it.

And the rich?

Where were the rich when this hectic nightlife happened in the streets?

Most slept comfortably in their bed, in their luxurious home, guarded by slaves and watchdogs.

Behind the gates, peace prevailed (except in case of attack, of course!), And the harsh life of the streets was barely audible.

But of course, there were some elite Romans for whom life in the street was extremely exciting in comparison. And that was exactly where they wanted to be.

The streets of Rome were the place where the Emperor Nero could be found during his free nights.

At dusk, according to his biographer Suetonio, he disguised himself and visited the city's bars and wandered the streets, causing unrest with his companions.

When he met men who were returning home, he beat them; when he wanted to, he was robbing closed shops and what he stole was coming to the palace. In addition, he was fighting and seemed to run often the risk of being injured or killed.

So, while many of the city's wealthiest residents avoided leaving their homes after sundown, others did so with their private security team of slaves or their entourage, who were looking for money. entertainment or prosecution.

And, if you can believe Suetonius, the last person you wanted to meet late at night in the center of Rome was the Emperor Nero.