University of Toronto, Associate Professor, Dr. Seth Bernard, joins the show to discuss how the city of Rome in the republican period was constructed.
Some topics explored
- Types of construction including: Aqueducts, roads, basilicas, etc.
- Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (located at the Capitoline Hill)
- The materials used to build roads (e.g., Via Appia)
- The Via Appia (Appian Way), one of the earliest and most important roads in the Roman Republic
- Materials used for construction including volcanic stone, marble, and concrete
- Where materials are being sourced from and how they were conveyed into the city
- Building codes and other related legislation (e.g., The Twelve Tables) in the period
- Writings of Vitruvius, Livy and Cicero
- Urban planning—practices and aspirations
- Home ownership
- Construction companies
- Labour force including compulsory labour required of citizens work and slavery
- A real estate company that Marcus Licinius Crassus (a former Consul and one of the statesmen of the First Triumvirate) operated
- The roles of architectures and engineers
- Training and education for those in the construction sector
Listen to the episode
The episode can be streamed below and is also available on major podcast apps: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.
Show Notes
- Associate Professor Bernard is author of the monograph Building Mid-Republican Rome: Labour, Architecture and the Urban Economy (Oxford University Press, 2018)
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.