You would not have wanted to live in a Late Roman City.
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Just a note, the idea that the xylospongium was a shared "buttwiper" is disputed. There's no hard evidence for that and some researchers speculate it was actually more of a toilet brush for cleaning the toilet itself, while a lot of cloth scraps the size of modern toilet paper sheets were found in some Roman sewer ruins.
Imagine if, as some have written here, we were able to time travel to these cities, and we stopped in a public bathroom only to use the toilet brush to clean ourselves. How ridiculous we would appear!
You're more right than you think. It's not only disputed, but outright dismissed by most scholars and historians.
Well i think its a common sense, regardless of their culture and customs, nobody in right mind would like to wipe himself with something stained with other person shit. However perhaps they were shared in a sense that they were multiple use with cleaning in between, like old diapers.
@@Czulu well its also COMMON SENSE....to clean your surgery tools and make sure your hands are sanitized before doing anything and yet how long did it take for doctors to regularly clean their tools? if you soaked the sponge after using and the slaves didn't just stand around the sponges would be cleaner than you think, specially since they did use ammonia for many things, even though that came from everyones urine, since every one would have a bowl with a fire under it outside peoples places just for this.
can you state your source material? No where in any of the 20+ years of rome research has ever stated that it could have been for something else. Paper sheets? in the day of rome? thats not likely. Do you know how ridiciulous it is to think a piece of paper can survive in sewers for? You won't even be able to accurately carbon date it. 2000+ years ago.....the slaves definitely used spounges, they may have cleaned the toilet with them after but if you soaked the sponge in some kind of liquid that wasn't just water, it would be reusable. They had no idea what germs were.
That San Francisco line hits hard lol
Future historians will look back at what is happening today in cites like San Fran and realize that this was the point of no return...
S. F. was our most beutiful city.
@@TEverettReynolds It is a choice, the US does not want to deal with many issues - gated communities and denigrating people and problems are not the solution.
@@MrLanternland and if you analyze how many more resources were dedicated to cities in the past with respect to their populations and the services that people enjoyed you will see the great difference.
@@TEverettReynolds The idea that every part of SF looks like the Tenderloin is just propaganda bulls**t
Tbh I wouldn't want to live in any pre-modern city. I don't even like modern cities even though they are significantly cleaner and healthier than centuries ago.
A lot of modern cities still suck. With the knowledge we have about the influence of urban planning on physical and mental health I wouldn't be surprised if people in the next 200 years look back at us as stupid and dirty
@@danielchequer5842 We definitely will.
Even with all the poop in the streets of San Francisco?
IVC cities laughing in the corner.
But worse architecture. So it's a mix mix.
Very well done, somewhat fitting a barbarian German accent narrates Rome's demise. Excellent work
Interestingly, more recent teachings of history claim that Rome did not fall in the 5th century, but setting an alleged date and later attacking the thus declared enemy was just propaganda and power politics by the eastern guy Justinian. Practically, western Rome faded away and transitioned quite smoothly into the German medieval ages, and the many fights had all kinds of reasons, but not a great geopolitic idea to bring down Rome. It was cool for everyone, as long as it lasted. But it was kind of worn out.
You must really like my accent. Danke
Looks like Los Angeles.
Meanwhile in eastern Rome: A servant postrates* My Emperor, the west has fallen Eastern Emperor: Oh no...anyways, about today's dinner...
Maxentius: "Damn, what a badass builder I am! Sure History will see me as one of the best Emperors of all time" 😃 Constantine: "Unfortunately for you, history will not see it that way..."
I kinda laughed when the college kids were getting hype tearing down old confederate and jesus statues in the us. I said damn bro that shit already happened 1500 years ago lol
Having smelled Guangzhou city sewer odours before I have a pretty good idea what Rome smelt like!
You should smell the Las Vegas strip at night during the summer. The odors from the sewer are unbearable at certain points.
@@chancellorpalpatineakathes6130 hit a nerve zhang? hahaha
@@vorstellung3861 ahh yes. Someone sharing their experience, triggers you to the point of trying to insult and invalidate them. Child much!!!
@@dinte215 nobody thinks you're a human deep down. you will always be a talking insect. now excuse me
maybe we should bottle those smells and make comparisons?
Sir---your excellent videos bring back the nearly lost science of what used to be called "social history" in academia. Which is the study of how people lived and their attitudes towards the world. People just like the "ordinary Joes" of today. Concerned with their daily living, paying their bills, raising their families, and just trying to survive. Social history is waaaay more interesting (and often more difficult to reconstruct) then "regular" history. Which is mostly concerned about Emperors and kings, battles and dates.
Not just the people but the ANIMALS... so many of them, donkeys and horses and pigs and chickens what not... heck, even up until the early 20th century most urban areas smelled to high heaven because of the offal left by beasts of burden. Thanks for the excellent video!
Killing younglings
Exactly. They practically lived with the animals. A rabbit, hare, chicken or a pigeon was a type of currency, before coins started to become widely used and in circulation around 300 BC. But in those early days people still practiced a swap trade and bartering mixed with coin use. It took some time before people adopted money as a currency as we use it now.
I always think about that! Imagine all of the poop! Super messy...I know they had culvert like sewers, which would be cleaned periodically. I have heard that in some pre-modern cities, the stuff they collected from said sewers, was dried and sold as fertilizer! I wouldn't wanna eat those veggies!
@@79klkw Wdym? We do that even today. They're called "biosolids" and they're still used in farming. And of course animal manure has been used as fertilizer as long as agriculture itself has been a thing. Granted, in the modern day it's a very small amount of our food supply that uses biosolids and it's treated for pathogens/pollutants, but there's a chance you've eaten grains/vegetables fertilized by it. But that's what plants are really good for, breaking down and repurposing the nutrients of decaying/disposed organic matter that would otherwise go to waste.
But at least you had smells now there nothing no smell of bear baking bread etc maybe fume but we lost that sensation
I think that Rome even in it’s heyday of the Pax Romana was a dichotomy of opulence and squalor.
I grew up in the countryside, with every household having no sanitation, just an outhouse. The smell was limited to just about 2 metres around it, as you cover the sh**t with lime, sawdust or something. The village itself smelled just fine :)
My heart sang when i heard the correct plural form of Forum. Proper job!
Lol I love how he uses filthy San Francisco as an example for the disgust when you zoom in haha
It's a perfect example. He forgot to mention the human feces and hypodermic needles though.
@@augustuscaesar8287 the city of Rome was not ruled by leftist who ruined their city because of their leftist ideology. The city of Rome was always shit
Sad but true. WTF happened to this one's beautiful and magical City?,,.
@@theprinceoftides6836 I can tell you the answer, but depending on your political affiliation, the truth might sting.
@@augustuscaesar8287 I'm a big boy. I can take it.
You could do a video about the infrastructure of Constantinople, i was always curious if she also had sewers like Rome, or baths and toilets with running water.
I also second this as a great video! Cursory research says that Nova Roma had baths and toliets with running water, but access to running water in Byzantium were generally more controlled by the Emperor and more exclusively for the wealthy.
@@SaintDane They had communal water pumps even in 19th century London. It's how the cause of cholera was discovered! Running water in plebian homes is a relatively recent thing.
The music on your videos are a real highlight. The tracks set a great scene, reminiscent or even strangely nostaligic of an RPG or strategy game that I've never played.
The computer animation has value, when it is realistic enough about the architecture and fashion/clothing. I believe this because it might represent a cleaned-up concept that the creators back then had in mind already, but could not entirely fulfill. So what is legit to admire, is the concept and planning in all this.
I'd like to see a HG Wells time machine view of Rome (ie, an animation of what it looked from the beginning through time).
That would be awesome
yeah HBO ROME captures this grittiness of the streets in republic era for example
"YOU SEE?! YOU ABANDONED THE GODS FOR THAT CARPENTER AND SO THEY ABANDONED US! THE CROSS WITH WHICH ROME TERRIFIED THE WORLD HAS NOW BECOME ITS DOOM!!!” *Pagans during the Late Roman Empire*
Ave Iupiter Pater!
Bring back the Old Gods!
@@ecurewitz PETA sure wouldn't like that...
@@OptimusMaximusNero Islam still has animal sacrifice
@@Sharp931 that's only in ramadan
Living in any city before modern era would be nightmare unless you were born in to that era and didnt know better.
Living in an ancient city with modern comforts is the best of two worlds!
This is the main omission I noticed in the otherwise-excellent video. It's all a question of degree - medieval cities were far worse off in terms of sanitation with far fewer people, and the few with decent sewage systems we can point to in those times were built on top of evacuated Roman settlements. Compared to a modern city, I don't think industrial-age technology has made things as much better as modern people like to think, the main inventions that make a difference being indoor sewage and private latrines, which only help when they're available (see San Francisco). But even if we take it as a given that most modern cities are cleaner, compared to the alternatives from 727 through around 2650 AUC (well into the industrial age) Roman cities were a true sanitation wonder in that they even had the ability to support the numbers they did. If I were living in late antiquity, I could think of far, far worse places to live than Roma or Alexandria. Of course I'd prefer a villa in the countryside, but then who wouldn't in any era?
@@AulusClaudiusNero I live in a villa in the countryside, and it's pure hell! The famous Norwegian blogger Pål Steigan moved from Oslo to Tolfa in Italy, and he absolutely loves it! Now there's a whole Norwegian community there:-)
the only good thing about being born in the past would be if you was in a rich family back then....for the poor yeh you suffer even worse then today.
@@Anon1370 Ah, before you could belong.
Modern cities are no different it has always been the case if you want to have a clean life a safe life you have to live in the country it is a lot more work but it is a healthy and safe place do what you want but as for me I'll take the simple life on a small chicken farm in the country plain and simple sometimes I even wear shoes when I go to town
Thanks for this video Maioranus!
But I was thought that Roman bathing complexes were fed by a constant throughput. The water was diverted from a nearby aqueduct, heated in cisterns (for the cauldaria), run into the various pools using gravity, and then constantly drained off into storm sewers. They were not stagnant pools. And the tepidarium, equivalent to a modern sauna, if properly functioning, was surely a healthy experience and would help get rid of harmful pathogens.
3:31 Speaking of the famous Zeus at Olympia, there is a very funny anecdote related to that statue. During his reign, Caligula ordered the heads of all the statues of the gods and goddesses to be cut off and replaced with that of the mad Emperor. When it was time to cut off the head of the massive statue of Zeus, the workers inside the sanctuary heard raucous laughter coming from the statue. That divine act completely terrified the Romans, making them flee and preventing them from sullying the gigantic statue. The books "I, Claudius", written by Robert Graves, and "The Kingdom of the Wicked", written by Anthony Burgess, mention that event.
Technically not a fact but an urban legend retold by a Roman historian in whose superstitious belief system omens, prophecies and magic were real world events. It makes for a dramatic passage in *literary* (aka fiction) works but these entertaining and highly fictionalised novels should never be taken as actual historic accounts. I don't dispute that the workers may have believed the laugh came from the statue (how would I know?) although it's easier to imagine that they might have been afraid to anger Zeus and made up that story as an excuse after the fact. In any case the laughter inside the statue obviously never happened.
@@Basauri48970 The statue's laugh is not the fact. The fact is the existence of the anecdote that talks about the statue's laugh. Also, the novels I talk about are pretty faithful to the historical sources, so they could be considered as something reliable in some aspects
@@OptimusMaximusNero I notice you edited your comment immediately after you saw my reply. Before you did that, it literally started with the words "Fun *fact* " and proceeded to tell the story in a straight fashion, as if it had really happened.
@@Basauri48970 Yeah, I edited the comment and talked about the anecdote in straight fashion like it really happened because that's how you tell an anecdote. Is there any problem with that?
There seem to be many accounts of talking statues in antiquity
Don't forget all the animals that were coming and going in the city. They tend to leave deposits as well.
Thank you, Maiorianus! I did know that Roman cities were often not that clean despite the best efforts of sewer systems and public baths and that they got worse as the Empire declined and crumbled, but I didn't know just how bad things got.
Of course. Modern historians always try ti sweeten up the truth
Ancient Rome was always a dirty, cramped, and dangerous city. Some of the apartments have actually survived, and they were extremely cramped. Entire families to a single, small room. At night, parts of the city were so build over, they would have been an unlit maze of smelly, meandering dark corridors and tunnels. Even at its peak, much of the city would be like this. Murder, robbery and rape were the norm. Only small parts of the city around the government district and public temples would resemble the stuff you see in movies. The much of the rest would resemble Cairo, Damascus, or Bangledeshi slum - especially the foreigner district, where newcomers often ended up. It was notorious for its poverty. Wealthier families tended to live outside the city on estates.
Nobody knew, and knows. Not just you. It is all just an educated assumption and hypothesis based of what we know from archeology and can piece together. Unless time travel is invented, we will never know. No detailed, descriptive record from that period of how the public latrines were used has been found yet, so... 🤷♂
I think it is rather trivial, as we have the examples of our own life time in many regions in the world, and the human being has not changed since then, only culture at some level. To maintain an empire it requires a metropole, and the cybernetic/systemic factors will lead to the highest possible density that can maintain a population at all. It is as big as it gets, given too many people will die and it will shrink back, as the narrator has told. In colder climate, life was hard as well, even with smaller cities. It was hard to build huts and houses that could withstand a freezing winter that lasted 5 months. Many people in small rooms again. So i guess the more interesting question is cultural and physical limits, about what was accepted routine although very hard, and what was unbearable and a guaranteed breakdown.
It's like San Francisco isn't it.
Beautiful visuals, well done.
Brother you are a machine! And I watch all your videos! Excellent work!
Thank you for this excellent and necessary corrective to the pristine computer generated images of the cities of Late Antiquity.
Loving this channel.
Thank you for the video, it was very educational
Wonderful video!
6:32 , This man made the best career switch possible, from Action shop clerk to Roman ring smith
Sounds like a city of our times.
fantastic video Maiorianus
You're a super underrated channel. Thanks for uploading and sharing. Keep it up plz
Hello Sohail, thanks a lot for your kind words :) With youtube, one has to be very patient. The channel is growing, and one day, maybe it will have more recognition, who knows :)
Fascinating video!
Wonderful. Thanks.
Thanks!
And thank you, Amicus, for this generous donation. It is thanks to awesome people like you, that I can work full-time on making videos for Maiorianus. So really, thanks a lot, I really appreciate your kind support :)
A very interesting and fascinating video 😊👍
Ence the Bacaudae, ence the ex-romans that Priscus found in Attila court, ence the deserters that plague the late roman and Belisarian armies. Becoming Visigoth, or Hun, or Frank possibly was the best option for someone that want to get a better life.
THANKS for the reality check, something not ubiquitous in history courses. Thanks for the proper context.
It has often been said that Hell is "other people."
Very interesting. Thanks
I guess this video is describing a Late American City. Because, he basically is. Especially the way the rich are displaying wealth in an extravagant manner.
Definitely in certain states more than others lol
Thanks, interesting 👍
I will check out that SPQR shop!
Makes sense that incense was so popular. Frankencense, benzine, myrrh, and similar resins are very strong and they burned ounces and ounces of it. Also, this explains why incense resins were so expensive and highly valued. Imagine living in that stench, you would want some strong incense to make it bearable. Smoke in the air would have helped a little with all the airborne pathogens, too. Hence why they thought that incense warded off evil spirits. If you don’t understand germs, but you notice that your house has less disease from burning a lot (I mean, a LOT) of incense, you would think that the incense was magic and repelled the evil spirits that bring disease and sickness.
In addition to that, “fullones” (laundry owners) put vessels outside their shops and invite passers-by to relieve themselves into them, as urine was used to wash clothes or dye them.
Excellent. The comparison to big US cities like SF is spot on.
Not just big US cities! Visit any large city in a developing or Third World country and you will get a pretty good idea of what any City in antiquity was like. Have you ever been to Asia with their teaming cities with population density probably higher than ancient Rome. Bangkok stinks and the river running through it is an open sewer. You see human waste floating on the surface. India especially is filthy. Ever been to Africa? I was recently in Ghana and even in the capital city the poorer older neighborhoods have open sewers running down the center of the street.
@@williamegler8771 Yes, I’ve traveled extensively. I’ve seen dead carcasses floating in the port in Guayaquil Ecuador. The riverbanks have people living in cardboard huts, who bath and drink from that water. It’s awful. Many cruise companies routinely repaint their ships following their “Asia” season because the pollution destroys their livery and the acid rain damages the hulls and infrastructure. So, yes, it’s a problem, everywhere. The difference is that the US has not always been this way.
@@DeanStephen There have been poorer and more rundown areas in US cities since their foundation.
The US lost its way 40 years ago. It didnt have to be like this, but now IT is a cancer that is slowly eating away the body America. As far as those congested high density 3rd world nations, they are still better off than ever. Just look at their life expectancy.
@@dbpgh Better off than ever? Really? Iraq? Libya? Ukraine? Venezuela? Cuba? Argentina? South Africa? Ethiopia? Afghanistan? Lebanon?
Thank you for the reminder that History does indeed repeat itself. Our own Civilization is also beyond the point of no return.
Well that’s a depressing thought!
It only repeats itself if you don't learn what happened .
@Maiorianus I'm ordering one of those rings from this SPQR shop! I like how their making rings in the ancient style, that's awesome!, the bronze versions look really nice, but i don't want to start with clear polish and all of that , so i'm ordering one in silver.
Excellent video! At least in ancient times, and up to relatively modern times, people had no idea of the Germ Theory of Disease. Why so many moderns don't understand it is a mystery to me.
During the Black Death plaque epidemic in the 1350's in Italy they thought a bad smell was causing the disease. So the wealthy tried to escape bad smells any way they could, best by moving to their countryside estates to enjoy a fresh air. But also sniff boxes filled with perfume were invented to "protect" one from getting the disease should they encounter an unpleasant "deadly" stench somewhere!! LOL! The connection with living in filthy, squalor, and rats infested cities never occurred to them! And we're talking 1000 years after the Ancient Rome era!!! One would imagine SOME advancement in common sense was made. Unfortunately uneducated, illiterate, superstitious masses indoctrinated by religion had to learn the hard way and wait for the break through in science and invention of sanitation and hygiene for few more centuries...
@@MichelleVisageOnlyFans Ha ha one would think that the Bible would at least command one to boil their water and wash their hands before eating and after going number two if at all possible. After all, bacteria and parasites are God's creatures too and a little heads up would of saved a tremendous amount of needless human suffering..
@@buckwylde7965 Youd think the romans would have had some sort of idea in the science department of hey we should kinda make our cities more hygienic or these diseases are gonna keep killing people, the fact they had to depopulate their own country side to keep the cities stable is ridiculous.
Microbes are invisible to the naked eye so they were unknown to the Romans and even when the microscope was invented and microbes could be seen nobody believed that such tiny things could harm something so big as a human being. That thinking persisted until the latter half of 19th century.
@@buckwylde7965 and this my friends is proof that a benign Creator is totally made up along with that compilation of fan-fiction the Bible.
With such wretched living conditions, it's surprising that you don't hear about things like Roman serial killers and criminal gangs. It'd be cool to hear about Roman criminals, what their laws and punishments were, and how their prison system worked, if they even had prisons. We make a spectacle of crime today, so I'm sure they did the same.
Quod usus armorum interdictus est. Rome had one of the strictest weapon bans in history. A civilian needed a permission by the emperor himself. In general, violence was limited to cudgels and knifes.
Problem is that our sources for the time period didn’t write much about the every day life of the poor. They mostly wrote about politics and the life of the elite, which they were apart of.
They didn't need prisons. Criminals were made slaves and worked to death in places like the infamous salt mines of Sardinia. Perhaps we might profit from their example. The death penalty was common. The paterfamilias, or head of the family, could, within reason, execute or otherwise punish family members who transgressed.
Imprisonment in Roman times (as in later periods in Europe) wasn't really used as a mode of punishment in and of itself. You just locked people up until you decided what to do with them.
Our modern Western lives are very sheltered compared to nearly all other times in history, when death lurked around every corner and life was a lot cheaper. And just like today, bandits, murderous individuals and rogues would have been easily encountered whenever people were in vulnerable situations like the city backstreets late at night or travelling lonely areas by themselves, except that back then it would have been more common without streetlights, police forces, mechanised transport or patrolled roads. Places like that can still be found in the world today, where labels like 'serial killers' and 'criminal gangs' are redundant, because taking advantage of others or the use of violence can be just another vocational choice where situations and places are desperate enough.
Still better than most of Africa today.
I would want to live in a small city in the province where they had built up quite something, and had some healthy deal with the locals, that lasted for the 70 years I might have lived. Perhaps, Carnuntum was an example for some time, though I don't know the history of that town and garrison. Looks like they had some infrastructure back then, and not too many inhabitants.
fascinating!
Interesting video
Very interesting we dont see enough on what it was like to live in a decaying Rome.
sounds like your typical day in NYC
New York is modern day Rome in lot of aspects.
Any Democrat controlled city.
Unfortunately my friends, the modern west is headed the same way as Rome, the only difference is Rome was better because they had no tiktok.
There are so many comparisons that I can make between Rome as it deteriorated and our own country. As with all things modern, the downhill slide is happening much more rapidly here than what occurred in ancient Rome.
I can imagine future civilizations looking back on us, and saying I cant believe they….”.
Very good
"Late antique Rome and Constantinople would have smelled _really_ bad!" Compared to what? Are you saying other cities smelled better? Or that "Rome at its apex" was better smelling? What's the frame of reference here? To the ancient citizen, it would've smelled normal. Imagine you're at a camp with 100 people. The bathrooms are portable. They're kept in a secluded area, like 20-30m from the nearest tent. Does the whole camp smell like shit? No, but yet it's sitting over there. The city of Rome during late antiquity had a very sophisticated bureaucracy and civil service, with public works. Latrines were cleaned, streets were swept. Abandoned tenements would be torn down, both because of the danger they would pose, and for building materials. At the height of Rome, the city was incredibly crowded. There were masses of people who had no jobs, got drunk every day, went to watch bloodsports, and lived on the dole. Read Juvenal for what Rome was like at its height. The aristocracy didn't even live there for most of the year.
Hi, is it possible o have the name of the movies/clips your shorts clips came from ? Thanks !
Will we soon see the nobili and coloni in their estates, and the bagundae and the proto serf stuff? Cause yea the cities were iffy!
So many parallels between the decline of Rome and the current decline of the USA....
Beautiful choice of images especially 12:25, does anyone know this painting?
The Anglo-Saxon poem "The Ruin" leaps to mind. ⚔️
Just fascinating, …
Thanks To Great Vídeo.
Imagine a service which offers adventurous people a time travel safari back to ancient Rome. "Spend an hour or two 2000 years ago!" First....only the very rich could afford it. Next...comes the preparation period. "Okay...here's the downlow on this trip you're about to take. Yes, you WILL see Rome in its ancient glory, and its worth seeing. And yes, you WILL smell Rome in all its ancient glory. We will be very subtly moving through the streets and you will be assaulted by the most foul, ugly scents imaginable. The city itself is horrific in its smell....but as we pass through the interior you will come across air that you just don't smell, you taste. Therefore, candidates for this trip will pass through a "scent trail" during which you will be exposed to....I'll be blunt, nauseating odors. Those who cannot withstand this sensory experience, who get so nauseus that they vomit, or gag, or otherwise behave in a way which would draw attention to the tour group, will be eliminated from consideration for the tour. We can't afford to be exposed as foreigners in an ancient city. If you feel that you cannot or do not wish to undertake this test in order to be accepted, now is the time to speak up. The final determination is NOT negotiable. Anyone failing will not be going. So...do I hear any admissions?"
Please write a short story about this! So good 👍🏼
Very interesting Video. I studied this decay at the high school because studens had to draw many examples of greek and romans buildings time by time . But Italians cities have great examples remained till today. Come and see! Rosella, Torino. :)
Writing from Italy - you can see how contemporary apartment buildings and urban planning is still so influenced by the past.
One day, it's my dream.
Hi Maiorianus! another great one! Is it accurate to say the Roman Insula where more like dorms then apartment buildings? People slept and lived there but went to the lav and did their eating in communal facilities? No bathrooms and no kitchens?
They would surely have used some kind of chamber pots, I guess.
@@londonwestman1 I wish I had thought of that when I was in undergrad!
I smelled 1990 in Leipzig the odor of a traffic jam, most cars with 2-stroke engines, this was bad enough.
Since I saw one of Mary Beard's documentaries that included the topics of baths, Its really really odd to me that the Romans, clever as they were, did not have the eye to notice that changing the water regularly was a good idea.
_This is one of the reasons why I spent 2/3rds of my 18 year reign in the provinces. The plebs, the s*nators, and the godsawful urban density and lack of hygiene was causing me to lose my mind. It's no wonder Diocletian only visited the city once during his reign - and cut his stay short. Leptis Magna is just so much more agreeable._
Sounds like the world today !!!
The reality is that none of us would want to live anytime/anywhere in history if we weren’t in the top 3%.
Have you played Assassin's Creed: Origins? It's not Roman, but it's got a good depiction of Ptolemaic Alexandria, complete with beautiful buildings, people, and trash
Now I wanna that game just for that scenario alone lol. Cheers.
The contrast during the late empire was the same as the contrast during the early empire
Interesting
At some point, computer graphics and game development will give up a less clean-looking rendition of ancient Rome. Things like the Unreal Engine can do this, it's just really expensive to create the assets. Besides, if done realistically, most of the game would feel like you are in some old version of the slums of Bangladesh. Lots of narrow streets, tight living, filth, and crowds of people.
That would be a realistic game. GTA Rome anyone?
Back in the mid 80ies, I traveled through Maroc and visited the city of Fes. It was very tight and in some aspects dangerous. But the Medina, Souks or Bazars worked very well. They had their own smart solutions for everything, with using mostly "natural" techniques and resources, though there was electricity, a few pumps and very loud battery cassette players. Also, they had covered the small streets and lanes with special textiles and shapes, and it was not too hot, and fresh air was blowing through the whole system.
Hmmmmm reminds me of modern day NYC 42nd street
Roman civilization besides shining statuesque, columns & attractive buildings..excellent historical coverage of Roman empire health circumstances at that times which converted several normal flora micro organisms to pathogenic microorganism & created epidemics....also poorness, decayed & other side effects of economic, political & social tyrannical procedures were widely found...excellent introducing
It was certainly politically more stable place than anywhere else in history in todays territories of the Empire.Sure there were civil wars but if you were just regular person and wasnt involved in any of them you lived pretty peaceful and normal lifestyle,the news about wars were distant unlike today where ever you live there is a chance that the war is 2-3 countries away from yours.When it come to tyranny its quit similar as today,except in those times you had a direct ruler who openly ruled over everything and you knew that you cant influence anything,unlike today where they give you an illusion that your voice matters in politics.Other than that economically it was also a good period,sure people didnt earn much but you could go to various places in the Empire and hopefully find place for your self,also you could travel with less restriction unlike today with so many countries and different laws.All in all it wasnt an ideal place,and it had its forms of many injustices but it was advanced and stable place to live and if wars didnt reach you you didnt had to worry and could live your daily life undisturbed until your death,unlike the Middle Ages that came after that that were much worse and primitive with many wars and no freedom at all to move around if you were a peasant and commoner.Something to consider when you make short summaries like this one in the future.
So Attila Total War got the look of the Roman cities right, the colour decorations on the column and the walls were faded away, so everything looked grey and unpolished.
Like Los Angeles, Seattle or San Francisco...
Not much has changed: look at today's Beverly Hills vs LA's Skid Row... 🤷♂There's always been a divide between the rich and powerful and the poor and it has always been reflected in the parts of the community where they lived.
Look how quickly poor illegal immigrants were removed from Marthas Vineyard
@@dbpgh Many of the people who come are not "poor", they are educated and were professionals in their own country and due to circumstance chose the difficult path to flee. Your poor little mind can't get beyond easy mems and what you see in a 2 minute in-depth service on American television!
I like the comparison to San Francisco, ha,ha,ha,
Very much resembles the modern western world.
I may yet have the opportunity
Really interesting documentary. We can't miss the parallels between the decaying cities of ancient Rome and the decline of North America and Europe since becoming Africanized. Terribly tragic and sad... 😥
The only tragic thing is all the hoops people like you are willing to jump through to make everything about your racist believes
@@valkeakirahvi The only tragic thing is how our decline was fomented and enabled by people like you, who deny obvious facts and blind yourselves to common sense. I know what I'm talking about - you do not. BTW, the word is "beliefs," not "believes." I guess that's a manifestation of your "superior" Millennial "education," ha ha! 😄
@@GLC2013 bro the Roman empire did not fall because of migration
@@rrrr-xj6ll "bro" it most certainly did, as any encyclopedia will confirm. Try reading one, instead of getting your "education" from KZhead. PS: You capitalize the first word in a sentence, and end with a period or other punctuation. And "empire" in this context should also be capitalized. An example of your "superior" Millennial education, no doubt...
@@GLC2013 ok go read your encyclopedias I will not because the primary sources do not agree with them
Nice pictures, I'd like to know the authorship.
So it's just like today, some things never change.
It is currently not believed that the sponges in the public toilets were used for cleaning oneself, but the actual toilet. People would likely have used own tissues or towels which could be cleaned on site as well. At least such the more up to date interpretation in archaeological circles. :)
The word population sink gave me chills.
Just for fun: Read "Lest darkness fall" set in this time period. An American professor of classical Rome is struck by lightning near the Colesseum. He wakes up here. No other explanation. L. Sprague de Camp wrote this just before WW II. No doubt it meant much to him. Spoiler: Yes, he saves Rome. Introduces brandy for money fast, double entry bookkeeping / place value / decimal numbers, printing, and so on.
I lived in Roman city...so Unique...
An interesting comparison, which prompts me to slightly disagree on the assumption of omnipresent bad smell, are the slums of India. I have been there and there are also no toilets, it's even more densely populated and it has not even a sewer system most of the time. It does smell of course. But not unbarably. Mostly it smells of street food and a bit of animals here and there. But not of omnipresent feces. :D Antique city planners generally had these things in mind and found astonishing solutions for these mundane problems. It might not have worked everywhere and always, as decay and disrepair are ofc a thing. But in the early 4th century, much sanitary infrastructure was probably still working quite as it should, at least, according to archaeological examination.
"Bevor Augustus, Rom was built by Stone. After Augustus, Rom was built by Marmor"
and after Augustus' successors by clay and wood.
sounds like any other western city today.