ROMAN URBAN TOPOGRAPHY in Britain and the western Empire

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Fig 53 Colchester: the fortress (top) and the pre-Boudican colony (bottom) 79 Crummy: Colchester: the mechanics of laying out a town
Crummy: Colchester: the mechanics of laying out a town Fig 54 The street system of Silchester (taken from Boon 1974), with dimensions in pedes monetales (Actual measurements in italics, theoretical dimensions in upright bold) eastern grid there was a hiatus long enough for construction of the theatre to begin. Taken together, the various strands of evidence indicate that the eastern grid may not have been laid out until the mid 50s. The process could have been quite complex, with various stretches of the defences being levelled independently over a period of years. The layout of the town’s street system in its original form is accurately known in places, so that theoretically it ought to be possible by careful measurement to determine the strategy of the planners. It appears that in at least some towns and fortresses planners adopted a common approach: the layouts were formulated in terms of round figures and the planning of buildings was secondary to the street system. In other words, the buildings were made to fit the street plan rather than vice versa. At Silchester, careful measurement of Boon’s large plan of the town (Boon 1974) reveals that its layout was based on a series of rectangles sharing the dimensions 250, 275, and 400 standard Roman feet (pedes monetales) (Fig 54; Crummy 1982a, 130-2). The streets seem to have been 25 feet wide. To show this, the width of each row of insulae 80 was measured at either end to gauge the degree of accuracy of the layout. From these measurements, the scheme conceived by the planner emerged. To check its consistency, measurements were taken across several rows of insulae and these were found to compare well with the theoretical dimensions. Thus, east-west the actual measurements of 1297 and 1283 compare well with the theoretical dimension of 1300, whilst north-south the measurements of 1794 and 1795 are very close to the theoretical 1800 feet. The measurements were made in metres (since the plan is metric) and converted into Roman feet by taking one pes monetalis to equal 0.295m. The fact that the measurements in Figs 54 and 55 are all to the nearest Roman foot does not reflect their degree of accuracy. Various factors affect the quality of the measurements and combine to make it very difficult to estimate the actual level of precision. No doubt it would have been more realistic to have rounded off the figures to the nearest multiple of five, but it seems simplest to leave the measurements in their raw form. Inspection of the street system of Caistor-by-Norwich reveals that it was formulated on the basis of a series of
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No 59 ROMAN URBAN TOPOGRAPHY in Bri
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Copyright © 1985 Authors and Counc
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Illustrations Fig 1 Miletus Fig 2 C
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Introduction: the study of Classica
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Introduction and the land divided i
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Introduction Fig 3 Timgad: the colo
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Introduction Fig 6 Lepcis Magna: th
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Introduction xvi
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Cunliffe: Aspects of urbanization i
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Cunliffe: Aspects of urbanization i
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PART II THE PLANNING AND BUILDING O
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Dilke: Ground survey and measuremen
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The mechanics of the building trade
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Ling: The mechanics of the building
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Page 39 and 40: Ling: The mechanics of the building
Page 41 and 42: Ling: The mechanics of the building
Page 43 and 44: Who paid for public buildings in Ro
Page 45 and 46: Duncan--ones: Who paid for public b
Page 47 and 48: Duncan-Jones: Who paid for public b
Page 49 and 50: Civic Pride: a factor in Roman town
Page 51 and 52: Frere: Civic Pride: a factor in Rom
Page 53 and 54: Reece: Roman towns and their plans
Page 55 and 56: Reece: Roman towns and their plans
Page 57 and 58: Wacher: The functions of urban buil
Page 59 and 60: Casey: The Roman housing market leg
Page 61 and 62: Casey: The Roman housing market Evi
Page 63 and 64: Casey: The Roman housing market Rom
Page 65 and 66: Drinkwater: Urbanization in the thr
Page 71 and 72: Forum and Capitolium in the early E
Page 73 and 74: Todd: Forum and Capitolium in the e
Page 75 and 76: The quick and the dead: suburbs, ce
Page 77 and 78: Esmonde Cleary: The quick and the d
Page 87 and 88: Salway: Geography and the growth of
Page 89: Colchester: the mechanics of laying
Page 97 and 98: Crummy: Colchester: the mechanics o
Page 99 and 100: Crummy: Colchester: the mechanics o
Page 101 and 102: New streets for old : the topograph
Page 103 and 104: Jones: New streets for old: the top
Page 109 and 110: London in the 1st and early 2nd cen
Page 111 and 112: Perring: London in the 1st and earl
Page 113 and 114: Perring: London in the 1st and earl
Page 115 and 116: Marsden: London in the 3rd and 4th
Page 125 and 126: Barker: Aspects of the topography o
Page 131 and 132: Fig 81 Wroxeter: the area of excava
Page 133 and 134: probably from Viroconium, the robbi
Page 135 and 136: Forum Iuhi (Cividale) (Italy) 61a f
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ROMAN URBAN TOPOGRAPHY in Britain and the western Empire

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