ROMAN URBAN TOPOGRAPHY in Britain and the western Empire

section 78), but rarely do the lawyers or even the land
surveyors tell us of any legal rules relating to planning as
distinct from surveying in general. The rate at which cities
were built, and who paid for public buildings, was
individual to each city and a highly complex matter
(Duncan-Jones, this volume, p 31), as was the organization
of the building trade, discussed by Ling (this volume,
pp 14-27). Duncan-Jones has calculated that in north
Africa, depending on the status and wealth of the town, it
could take up to 140 years to provide essential buildings.
The financial resources employed were imperial, municipal,
and private, the labour voluntary, compulsory labour
by the citizens themselves (perpopulum), or forced labour
by criminals (damnatio ad opus publicum). In practice,
though, the development of cities owed much to civic
pride, both private and communal, as reflected in acts of
benevolence towards the city (Frere, this volume, pp
34-6); the emperor Antoninus Pius made no secret of the
fact that he preferred long-term investment in public
building to expenditure on impermanent public festivals,
games, and shows.
Though planning and building controls were few in
respect of founding a city, both municipal charters and
imperial laws protected the townscape from destruction.
The unroofing or speculative demolition of urban buildings
was not permitted unless they were to be replaced
immediately by a building at least as good (Mommsen,
Ephem Epigr, ix; ILS 6086). Many emperors – Augustus,
Claudius, and Nero, for example – were concerned about
the physical aspects of cities because they believed that the
image of a reign could be tarnished or enhanced by the
character of town buildings. But, as Casey shows (this
volume, p 44), notwithstanding the need for fine buildings,
citizens were at great risk of losing their homes from
collapse, since building standards were very poor and
many private buildings were far too flimsy. In addition,
the risk of fire was high, outbreaks being frequent and
extensive; Ulpian informs us that in imperial Rome not a
day passed without several fires (Digest, i. 15.2; cf Strabo,
v.3.7; Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, xv. 1.1-3). Speedy
rebuilding was encouraged in Rome by making contractors’
carts the one exception to Caesar’s edict which
prohibited the entrance of wheeled transport into the city
during daylight (CIL, 1, 206). Whether rebuilding was
always so rapid may be doubted, however, for in London
at least reconstruction after the Boudican and Hadrianic
fires seems to have been protracted.
These factors created constant topographic change
within a city, a theme which is especially clear in the
papers on London and Wroxeter. Marsden presents
evidence for an ‘Antonine decline’ in London and for a
substantially lower population in the 3rd and 4th centuries
(this volume, pp 99-102). In the late 2nd or early 3rd
century an oak quay ¼ mile long and a defensive
perimeter 3 miles long was constructed to enclose 330
acres (134 ha), a remarkably extensive area with scattered
built-up regions but much open ground, recognized
archaeologically by ‘dark earth’ deposits which were
probably laid down by extensive horticultural processes.
In spite of these restoration projects, which were intended
both to stem decline and to stimulate growth by providing
security and improved facilities for waterborne trade, the
reduction in long-distance trading in the north-western
provinces meant that from the 3rd century London’s role
X V
Introduction
was primarily that of provincial administration. At
Wroxeter, however, development took a rather different
course. The imposing public buildings of the early city
underwent major changes of plan and, as in London, were
finally completed in the early 2nd century when a planned
extension was made on the northern side of the city. A
major recent discovery, however, has been that in the late
Roman period large-scale replanning was still underway
and possibly continued up to 500, beyond the end of the
Roman period. 1
In 1910 the evidence examined by Haverfield for the
survival of Roman topography and continuity through the
medieval period seemed as rare as it does today. He was
principally concerned with the continuity of the unaltered
grid system and saw ‘that Roman town plans have far
oftener vanished than endured’ and that ‘only here and
there its vestiges lingered on in the streets of scattered
cities’ (Haverfield 1913,140-l). Seventy-three years later,
in 1983, Reece (this volume, p 37) and others have
commented that even the intensive investigations in
recent decades have not caused Haverfield’s diagnoses to
be revised either in Rome, Italy, or the provinces. Today,
as in 1910, the major challenge of European urban studies
is to understand how Roman town planning – both in its
‘chessboard’ and organic forms – perished and the
medieval pattern emerged. For early in the 13th century
the rectangular gridiron plan returned to Europe, including
England, whence it spread worldwide to reach
America in 1682 with the founding of Philadelphia. If it
can be shown that this movement was a revival of the
Roman system, then a significant historical link is made
between the Old World and the New.
Acknowledgement
Thanks are due to Professor Sheppard Frere for many
valuable comments on this paper.
Note
References