The insulae

The legend of the birth of Rome

The Ides of March

The seven kings of Rome

The Great Emperors: Augusto

The great filosopher

The Great Emperors: Marco Aurelio

The Roman calendar

Daily life on Ancient Rome

The vestals

The rise and fall of Roman Empire

The aqueducts of Rome

Video: Romulus and Remus

The islets were the homes of ordinary people (plebeians) in ancient Rome late -repubblicana and, then, imperial.
It had tall buildings (up to 20 meters high!) With three or four floors, divided into small apartments, with no water and heating; the walls were of mud brick, the windows were closed by wooden doors and the ceiling, which is also made of wood. On the ground floor of the islets, were shops and taverns frequented.
The houses were cramped and dark but, on the other hand, the lives of ordinary people took place mostly? outside the home, in practice it was home only to eat and sleep.
Because of overpopulation, the materials used in construction, lamps and stoves (used to light and heat the rooms), these houses often caught fire, killing many victims then, the introduction of the aqueducts and the spa, in the Republican era, contribu? greatly reduce the spread of epidemics.

The remains of an insula of age? Imperial discovered during the work carried out between 1929 and 1942 are located at the foot of the Capitol in Rome.
The building, used as private homes, is developed in height on different floors of which remain on the ground floor, mezzanine and three of the upper floors, while the fourth only traces remain.
The ground floor consisted of a series of tabernae open on a cortical the paved and surrounded by a porch with pillars. Besides the mezzanine began apartments, separated from the rest of the building from the balcony cited earlier and consist of a large number of environments that received light through windows rectan- tangolari; how? custom, little by little we went up these environments had more and more dimensions? reduced and were intended for poor people. This insula could accommodate over 380 people. The remains of the insula are stored together with those of age rear belonging to the church of San Biagio in the market, which one? still visible a arcosolium decorated with a fourteenth-century fresco and the Romanesque bell tower.