ROMAN URBAN TOPOGRAPHY in Britain and the western Empire

The functions of urban buildings: some problems J S Wacher
Normally most archaeologists’ eyes are focused downwards
on the ground, but to appreciate the general
problems of ancient urban topographies and those particular
to the function of buildings, it is very necessary to
reverse the line of vision. This is especially true of Britain,
where few remains survive above ground level and where
it is difficult to visualize a Roman town or village when
standing in a grassy field or an area of exposed foundations.
It is even more difficult to imagine people walking
about among buildings, babies crying, dogs barking, and
all the noises of a busy community, together with the
inevitable smell of unwashed humanity, open drains, and
cess-pits. By their very nature archaeology is unlikely to
be able to provide evidence of such things, even if they
once existed.
Colour, texture, and vegetational cover are just as
important in these assessments, and one has only to
compare visually a modern village in Kent with one in
Northumberland to appreciate the differences, which
must have been equally marked in the Roman period,
caused by variations in building materials and local
vegetation. In addition, skyline studies of modern cities
often provide identification as readily as do fingerprints
and are a useful way of recording topography. They
should also remind us how a Roman temple, theatre,
amphitheatre, or basilica frequently towered over its
surrounding buildings, in much the same way as medieval
cathedrals still often, but sadly less so now, dominate their
urban scenes.
These points are all significant if - as is often the case in
Britain - we are to attempt the restoration of ancient
urban topographies and the buildings of which they were
formed from little more than foundations and a few floor
levels. Without such restorations it is seldom easy
convincingly to associate functions with buildings, and,
more often than not, attempts at restoration stop at the
structures and forget the people who had to use or work in
them. Even modern practitioners from time to time
commit some unpardonable architectural solecisms,
mainly through lack of communication with the ultimate
inhabitants, and there is no reason to believe that their
predecessors were more efficient.
But no attempt at the restoration of an ancient building
from its foundations or shell is ever likely to achieve total
accuracy, no matter how careful the excavation (Drury
1982). Consequently, archaeologists are usually left with a
choice between two or three acceptable possibilities. Even
then, although it may be justifiable to say that such-andsuch
a building is a basilica, a forum, or a bath-house, it is
seldom possible to state the precise function of each and
every constituent part of the building, except in the most
general terms.
Among the many types of buildings found in Roman
urban environments the easiest to identify are those
related to some public use, although, even here, there are
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traps for the unwary and variations in plan between
buildings of similar function can cause further difficulties.
A Roman forum is a Roman forum, but there were
probably no two exactly alike anywhere in the Empire, so
that, while the general identification is easy, interpretation
of the individual elements often depends on restoration of
the building’s parts. A domestic dwelling may often be
inferred from the arrangement and adornment of its
rooms, while buildings given to industrial use may contain
traces of the processes carried on within them. Seldom,
though, will a building indicated as a shop yield much
evidence of its trade. Overall, the sheer range and mass of
material makes it impossible to consider any more than a
small number of specific examples of current interest,
picked largely at random, within the scope of this brief
paper.
One of the most recent published examples of inspired
restoration is that by Professor Frere of the basilica and
parts of the forum at Verulamium, where he has put
forward two alternative versions, with a third incorporating
some later alterations (Frere 1983, 59). In these he has
been able to demonstrate that Verulamium, far from being
a backwater of Roman style, was in fact setting the lead for
the north-west provinces in building design. But, vital
though these restorations are if we are to understand the
building, they still leave the detailed functions of constituent
parts to be inferred.
Even more confusion can arise if only incomplete plans
are known, since it is possible that some structures, in part
similarly planned, can have small but significant differences
in their functions. The market halls at Cirencester
and Leicester, for instance, are superficially similar to fora
(Wacher 1975, 298, 347); indeed, at Augst (Stähelin 1948,
601 & Abb 188) and some other Gaulish towns there are
buildings which have sometimes been described as
‘second fora’. Fortunately the principal fora of all these
towns have been identified, and it is clear that the
secondary buildings were mainly constructed for commercial
use; this is suggested, for instance, by the absence of a
tribunal at the west end of the Leicester market hall and
the fact that the whole building only occupied half the area
of a full-sized insula. In at least one section of the market at
Cirencester there was evidence for butchery (Wacher
1975, 299). It is true that principal fora may have seen
similar activities in provincial contexts, but it is normal,
by reason of their associated basilicas, to assign additional
administrative, political, and judicial functions to them.
Bath-houses in general present few difficulties of interpretation
unless structural survival is poor, as at Leicester,
where doubts continue to abound over the original
assessment of the individual rooms (Kenyon 1948, 28).
Perhaps some of the most enigmatic buildings are
mansiones. In Britain the example most often assigned
such a function is that in insula 8 at Silchester (Boon 1974,
138), although similarly planned buildings are known