Roman Towns

Introduction

The Romans built towns all over Britain as centres to administer the people they had conquered. Veteran soldiers and Celtic chieftains were rewarded with houses in the towns and would hold important jobs in the law courts or town councils.

The Forum

Roman towns were very well organised, with neat rows of buildings. The town plan was often based around a town forum. This was the civic centre and heart of business life. It was a large open space surrounded on three sides by a colonnade with various important public buildings grouped closely around it. It was used by the people of the town as a meeting area, a place to do business, discuss town matters and hold markets. They also included religious buildings such as shrines and temples.

Model Towns

The Romans did not force people to copy the Roman way of life but it did help them. For example, in Britain there were no towns before the Romans invaded. But soon after the invasion, model towns were built for the Britons to copy. These were the first signs of Romanisation.

Model towns were often based on the plan of a Roman fort and most of them were built by soldiers. They also contained Roman style buildings. As time went on the Britons did build many towns based on the Roman model. For example, if the town plan of Silchester is compared to the plan of Pompeii (below) there are many similarities. Silchester had similar facilities to those found in towns throughout the Roman Empire.

Roads

All Roman towns had straight paved roads which were planned on a grid pattern.

Some Roman roads were broad streets with pavements. Others were alleys just wide enough for a donkey. Most streets were busy with noisy crowds, street merchants, carts and rowdy bars. The streets divided the buildings into blocks called insulae.

Water supply

Fresh water was brought into towns through a system of channels called an aqueduct. The water was piped to fountains and public baths, often through underground lead pipes. The Latin word for lead is plumba which is where we get our word “plumbing” from. Most people drew their water from the public fountains but wealthier citizens paid a special rate to allow them to take a private supply from the public pipes straight into their homes.

Houses

The homes of wealthy families were spacious and comfortable, large attached houses made from stone or brick called villas.

The villas looked quite bare from the outside. They were built to be private and safe from burglars so there were very few outside windows. The villa interior was very colourful with bright painted walls, murals and beautiful mosaics on the floors. The house faced inwards around a courtyard. In Britain the Romans found it so cold that they invented under floor heating called a hypocaust.

Poorer Romans often lived in apartment blocks that were badly built, crowded and in constant danger of burning down. They often worked as carpenters, potters, shopkeepers and craftsmen.