Streets and Sewers: The City Beneath Your Sandals
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Transcript
Roman cities are often introduced through temples, emperors and mosaics. A street is more honest. It records traffic, property, rubbish, repair and the daily argument between private buildings and public space.
North Street is the widest exposed street in this reconstructed quarter, about seven and a half metres across. Cart ruts survive in its surface. Porticoes lined parts of the route, extending the usable edge of buildings while giving pedestrians some protection from weather. South Street, by contrast, demonstrates how much ancient fabric disappeared after Rome. Its limestone paving was heavily robbed for building material in later centuries. Stones from Carnuntum did not vanish; many acquired second careers elsewhere.
Then there is the city you usually do not photograph: drainage. A brick-built main sewer ran beneath North Street. Other drains carried wastewater from baths, latrines and fountains and helped move rainwater away from streets and roofs. This was not modern sanitation, and Roman cities could still be dirty, smelly and disease-prone. But organised drainage was a serious piece of municipal engineering.
Sewers are also archaeological archives. Sediments can preserve animal bones, food remains, parasites and other traces that elite monuments rarely record. A triumphal arch tells you what power wanted to say. A drain may tell you what people ate and what lived in their intestines. Both are history; one is simply less flattering.
As you walk, notice kerbs, changes in level and the relationship between doors and street. Urban life depended on these small negotiations. A shop needed customers close to the threshold. A cart needed clearance. Rain needed somewhere to go. And a wealthy house wanted privacy without disconnecting itself from the commercial city outside. The street was where all of those requirements collided.