Model for the plan of a Roman city

Cities help to form the cultural and social structure of Roman civilization: commerce was centralized, conquered lands were communicated and population was usually under control.
Urban design of Roman cities follows clear laws for the development of public and military services. Roman city is basically composed by a number of identic components, disposed in a special way -parallel and equaldistant- separated by streets. The whole forms a unit of rectangular design surrounded by a perimetral wall with watchtowers. All the streets are equal except for two: the North-South one -kardo maximus- and the East-West one decumanus-. Both are wider and end at the four doors of the exterior wall. At the cross of both streets is the city's forum and the market. These components were necessary for the design of public buildings: amphitheatre -two components long and one-anda-half wide-, theatre -one component-, market -one component-, the whole forum -two components-, and so on. These urban rules were developped during nearly 10 centuries in order to create the different cities.

In these cities, kinds of housing could be divided into house, domus, insula and villa. There also were casae or housings for slaves and low classes. Because of their weak systems of building they have all dissapeared in our days. Indeed, there were also great communitary buildings as basilicae, termae and the very important social and cultural systems called forums. In Roman Hispania there was a lot of capital cities.

Roman domus. Press to enlarge.

Roman rich house or domus, was the usual housing for important people in each city. Perfectly described by architects, it was endowed with a structure based on distribution through porticated patios: the

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center, theimpluvium, is a bank for the water falling from the compluvium. At both sides -alae- there are many chambers used as rooms for service slaves, kitchens and latrines. At the bottom, the tablinum or living-room can be found, and close to it, thetriclinium or dining-room. This atrium gave also light enough to next rooms. At both sides of the tablinum, little corridors led to the noble part of the domus. Second porticated patio peristylium, was bigger and endowed with a central garden. It was surrounded by rooms -cubiculumand marked by an exedra used as a chamber for banquets or social meetings. Weather or available room caused that houses had one or two floors. There were also domi with a single porticate patio as an axis for the whole housing. At both sides of the building many doors for access to chambers could be open. These chambers were -tabernae-: little shops belonging to the domus or else rented to other merchants.

fauces- gives access to a small corridor -vestibulum-. It leads to a porticated patio -atrium-. Its

he basilica, a social center for trading, was also for political meetings. Judgements could be celebrated there. Its plan is rectangular and composed by three or five naves separated by columns being wider the central one. Those composed by five naves had often two levels at the central one in order to open doors for receiving sunlight. This nave was headed by an exedra or apse, where presidence was located. At the bottom there was the fauces or entering. The cover, with gabled roof, got a flat inner ceiling though sometimes vault was used.

Plan of a Roman basilica

Termae were buildings of great proportions for public use. They were baths distributed in swimming-pools: the warm caldarium were the minor ones-; moderate -or tepidarium, the biggest ones- at the center of termal whole, and the coolest or frigidarium-. They were endowed with changing-rooms (apodyterium) and next buildings with gymnasiums and recreative functions. Apart from their elemental function, baths had a social one, since they were a point for meetings, business and politics as an expression of Roman greatness for general population. Because of that, baths got not only a magnificent size, but also a magnificent quality in constructive and decorative materials. Its plan showed usually a symmetrical structure: equal elements in relation to an axis. Every important city had to offer a great termal building. In fact there was a lot of them at Rome, competing between them. Famous termae of Caracalla are outstanding. In order to regulate water temperature there were underground rooms where water was heated up with fire proof bricks praefurnium-. Water ran through pipes under rooms until it came to final swimming-room. Paving was made with opus signinum brick with mortar- in order to make easy the circulation of heat and make ground like a radiator.

The Walls. Defence of cities has been one of the capital problems that civilizations had to solve in order to project the futur of their citizens, goods, culture and ways of life. Romans were the first in the technique of improving different kinds of defence, using walls. We have many instances in Hispania. Most of them belong to the first years of domination -1st and 2nd centuries b.C.- and have been restored or rebuilt, showing the weight of these constructions in Roman world. After the "Pax Augusta" the reduction of these kind of walls was clear, being reactivated from 3rd century because of the presence of barbaric invasions. Walls did usually consist of two parallel covers or paraments of masonry -opus quadratum- of a different size. There was between them astuffing of mortar, stones or even Roman concrete. These exterior walls had often padded ashlars and were separated by 4 m. from each other. They were up to 10 m. in rare cases.

Forums were cultural centers in cities. They were often placed at the crossroads of important urban ways: kardo maximus and decumanus. A great porticated square was the center of a group of buildings around it. They were communicated through it. Temples for Imperial worship, schools, basilicae, markets or even termae had a direct access through forum. In many cases even buildings for spectacles -circus, theatres and amphitheatres- were communicated so. Forums were a way in for important persons to tribunals.

City of Barcino, Barcelone.

Basic plan of the city of Barcino with the most outstanding remainings. The city was founded as a colony -Colonia Iulia Augusta Faventia Paterna Barcino- at 15 b.C. It is a clear position in order to control the port on the top of a little mountain: Mons Taber. It is easy to be defended. It shows the basic urban design of a Roman city: it is crossed by a decumanus being more than 800 m. and a Kardo maximus perpendicular of 550 m. Both end at the four open doors at the wall. Praetoria door had three gates: a central one for cars and animals and both for way in and out of people. Today only the towers remain and one arch por persons. At the left principalis door an arch of the old aqueduct that took water to the city has survived. At the cross of these two streets there was the Comitium, a place for meetings and an urban center with the most important buildings: basilica, temples, termae, markets... Temple of Augustus is outstanding.

Model of the Temple of Augustus Press to enlargeRoman Temple of August at Barcelone (Barcino). There only remain four columns form this Roman temple: those placed at the superior right angle. It also remains a part of the architrave, but it is integrated in a later construction. It was a temple of 35 m. long and 17,5 m. wide. Over a podiumthere were columns around the whole perimeter -peripter-. Its portico in antis was composed by six columns at the front -hexastyle-. They were crowned by composed order capitals. It was a part of the series of temples in the comitium of the Roman city of Barcino and was devoted to Emperor Augustus. His statue was in front the cella.

Main faade of Augustus Temple The preserved wall was built between years 270 and 300, on a prior but worse one. As it was usual in Roman defensive constructions, it hadrectangular towers placed at constant distances and major towers at the doors. The latter were poligonal or circular. In spite of being a small city, Barcino was richly developped during 4th and 5th centuries, when Empire was falling down, It became the capital town on its area, even surpassing Tarraco.

When planning a brand new town where there had not been a city before, Roman civil engineers used a plan similar to the one below when laying out the streets and public facilities of the new community. Two main streets were laid out at right angles to each other, forming an intersection right in the middle of the town. Both of these streets extended outside the town through the four fortified gates in the outer defensive wall. Aqueducts provided water to fill the city's cisterns and feed the public fountains at one corner of each block or insula. The Romans did have pipes supplying water to private homes and they did pay water bills to the city water commissioner, The engineers could actually calculate water usage by measuring the diameter of the pipes tapping nto the city water supply and knowing the number of feet the private water service pipe was below the level of the cistern.Of course, every city had to have its public entertainments, so a theater, an amphitheater, and public baths were an important part of the original planning and ater expansion of Roman cities. These communities and the organized way they were planned seem so modern to many students of Roman history that it is a wonder that modern civic planners don't use more principles discovered by Roman civil engineers today. One almost forgets that these were still dangerous times and most cities, especially those near the frontiers, could be attacked by hostile barbarian raiders or rebel army generals at any time. Because of this, each Roman city had a stout outer defensive wall guarded by strong gates. The symbolic and spiritual wall or outer limit of a Roman city was called the pomerium. This was the strip of land going all the way around the city just inside the walls. Traditionally, the pomerium was a furrow marked out by by a priest plowing with two oxen. Plowing the pomerium was the first act of construction n the building of any new Roman town.

During the course of a military campaign, the Romans would colonize key locations in conquered territory. The constructed colony would be established in one of two places- on top of a pre-existing city or urban center, or built up from a nearby military camp. Because time played such an important role in both the safety and success of a Roman colony, multiple steps were put into place to ensure a smooth operation.

Figure 1:The preliminary layout of a Roman colony.

Rather than send in skilled labor from Italy, they relied on slave labor from captured locals. Because they depended on the slaves cooperating, the first civilians sent to the colonies were always veteran soldiers because they could be trusted, and because they would be well prepared for any sort of resistance. Similarly, because both time was a factor and because there was a deficit of laborers with any professional training, the colonies were constructed out of Roman Concrete, which, despite the fact it was aesthetically unappealing, was much faster and easier to build with than dressed stone. Finally, all cities were constructed from a single, universal design- rather than spend time and money developing a unique layout for each individual installment, city planners ascribed to the plan detailed below. A normal city, in the eyes of the Romans, was laid out in a square or a rectangle crossed by two perpendicular roads which met in the middles of the four outside lines (Grimal, 10).

The two perpendicular roads were aligned with one, the cardo, always on the north/south axis, and the decumanus on the east/west. Developers first determined due East by using observational tools and the rising sun, and then tracing out the decumanus. From there, they calculated the length of the cardo, which was the same length as the cardo, and met at perpendicular angles in the center. Once that was established, they built up the outer perimeter, and built gates where the cardo or decumanus intersected. The standard layout for a city would have looked something like this:

After these figures were determined, the remaining quadrants, the white areas of the diagram, would be segmented with smaller roads into a checkerboard pattern. Within the quadrants, housing, temples, and other public buildings would be constructed. All secondary roads within the quadrants were built parallel to their corresponding main road. The placement of buildings and residencies was determined by military rank or political office,