For half a millennium, Rome was the biggest, richest, and most spectacular city on Earth.
It was also the most dangerous. Every bath and alleyway had its thieves and thugs,
and even after Augustus put a stop to the street-fighting gangs of the late Republic,
violent crime remained a problem. Ancient authors mention murderers, guilds of criminals,
and even a mysterious group of assassins who killed their victims with poisoned needles.
Firemen patrolled Rome’s streets at night, and soldiers of the urban cohorts
were stationed in public places during the day. Neither did much to suppress the crime rate.
The urban cohorts, in fact, routinely contributed to the problem by extorting protection money.
The Praetorian Guard – who were sometimes called in as riot police – were even worse,
and became notorious for casually beating and abusing innocent citizens.
Crime was not focused in any one part of ancient Rome.
Although some neighborhoods, as we’ll see, were richer than others, there was nothing like
the rigid separation of high- and low-income areas found in many modern cities. Throughout Rome,
the mansions of the elite stood side-by-side with low-rent apartment buildings and modest shops.
Let’s take a closer look. This is a map of Rome around the year 300.
The outer dark line represents the Aurelian walls, which marked the edge of the imperial city.
The inner line traces the old Republican walls, long disused and built over by this point.
Much of the city center was off-limits to housing: the Roman Forum and imperial Fora, the Capitoline
Hill with its temples, the Palatine Hill with its palaces, the Colosseum in the valley below.
Few Romans, likewise, lived in the Campus Martius – the low-lying area in the bend of
the Tiber – since this district was also filled with public buildings.
The huge imperial bath complexes took up neighborhood-size swaths of land.
So did the vast imperially-owned gardens along the edges of the city.
In short, everyone in Rome besides the emperors and the wealthiest aristocrats had to live in
the spaces between all those red circles. The houses of the elite, as mentioned,
were scattered throughout the city. But there were clusters of mansions in a few areas, usually on
the summits of hills, which were likelier to catch a breeze during the sweltering summer.
One such cluster was on the crest of the Quirinal Hill,
where aristocratic residences lined an ancient thoroughfare called Alta Semita – high street.
There were other groups of mansions along the parks of the Esquiline and Caelian
Hills. And during the first and second centuries, in an early version of gentrification, elite
houses displaced the historically working-class neighborhoods atop the Aventine Hill.
So, where were the less salubrious parts of the city? Rome’s iconic “rough neighborhood”
was the Suburra, in the swampy valley between the Esquiline and Viminal Hills.
Roman authors dwell on the neighborhood’s filthy streets, cheap taverns, and cheaper brothels.
But as in most parts of the city, there were pockets of affluence;
for years, Caesar himself had a house there. The emporium, Rome’s warehouse district,
was another unsavory side of town, inhabited mostly by dock workers and itinerant merchants.
It didn’t help that the whole neighborhood smelled like rancid olive oil,
since it stood beside a gigantic mound of broken oil amphorae.
Trastevere, across the river, was a crowded working-class district,
home to many recent immigrants from the provinces. It wasn’t an especially rough neighborhood,
but it wasn’t respectable either. Everybody who was anybody lived on the other side of the Tiber.
The Vatican, outside the Aurelian walls, was a patchwork of clay pits,
working-class cemeteries, and scraggly vineyards that made the worst wine in Rome.
It wasn’t dangerous, but it wasn’t a place linger either.
This video belongs to the “time traveler’s guide to ancient Rome” series, which provides
advice to those hypothetically possessing means, motive, and opportunity to visit the ancient city.
So let’s talk practicalities. If you were to somehow time travel to ancient Rome,
which parts of the city would you be best advised to avoid?
Obviously you’d be much more likely to be mugged in the Suburra than on High Street. But it’s not
so much neighborhoods you’d have to watch out for, as it is trouble spots within those neighborhoods.
Time travelers who find themselves in ancient Rome’s seedier areas should avoid bars, barbers,
and brothels. Bars first. Roman bars – tabernae or cauponae – were places to get a quick bite or long
drink. They served simple hot foot and cheap wine, and were popular neighborhood watering holes.
They often doubled, however, as brothels, and were centers of illegal gambling and other chicanery.
In a neighborhood like the Suburra, entering one would likely attract unwanted attention.
Second, barbers. What, you ask, was wrong with barbers? Just one thing: they talked too much.
Most Roman barbers worked outside, often on a street corner, where they tended to
keep a steady stream of chatter going with their clients, with neighborhood idlers,
and anybody else within earshot. Hanging out near a barber would thus be a surefire way
to let every criminal in the neighborhood know where to find to the confused-looking foreigner.
Finally, brothels. If you happened, purely by accident, to stumble into a Roman brothel,
you would do best to stumble right back out. Quite aside from the other hazards
of patronizing such places, you would stand an excellent chance of being robbed.
If you planned to spend a substantial part of your visit in dangerous situations, you might want to
hire a bodyguard. A good bodyguard – preferably a retired gladiator – would deter all but the
most determined thieves. Unfortunately, some bodyguards were thieves themselves,
so you’d have to choose your associate very carefully.
Regardless of whether you decided to hire a bodyguard, you could avoid most problems
simply by not drawing attention to yourself and – above all – not venturing out at night.
Ancient Rome was a no-man’s land after dark. You’ll find other useful tips about surviving a
hypothetical trip to ancient Rome and much more in my forthcoming book Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators,
and War Elephants. You’ll find time travel gear on the toldinstone Patreon page. Stay tuned
for the next installment of a Time Traveler’s Guide to Ancient Rome, and thanks for watching.