High Density Living, 2000 Years Ago: Inside the Roman Apartment Building (commonedge.org)

25 points by surprisetalk 2 hours ago

everdrive 34 minutes ago

  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 30 minutes ago

comrade1234 36 minutes ago

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.

nephihaha 29 minutes ago

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

nephihaha 24 minutes ago

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.