Preface
The following pages are an enlargement of a paper read to the University of London as the Creighton Lecture for 1910, and also submitted in part to the London Conference on Town-planning in the same year.
The original lecture was written as a scholar’s contribution to a modern movement. It looked on town-planning as one of those new methods of social reform, which stand in somewhat sharp contrast with the usual aims of political parties and parliaments. The latter concern mainly the outward and public life of men as fellow-citizens in a state; they involve such problems as Home Rule, Disestablishment, Protection. The newer ideals centre round the daily life of human beings in their domestic environment. Men and women—or rather, women and men—have begun to demand that the health and housing and food and comfort of mankind, and much else that not long ago seemed to lie outside the scope of legislation, should be treated with as close attention and logic and intelligence as any of the older and more conventional problems of politicians. They will not leave even the tubes of babies’ feeding-bottles to an off-hand opportunism.
Among these newer efforts town-planning is one of the better known. Most of us now admit that if some scores of dwellings have to be run up for working-men or city-clerks—or even for University teachers in North Oxford—they can and should be planned with regard to the health and convenience and occupations of their probable tenants. Town-planning has taken rank as an art; it is sometimes styled a science and University professorships are named after it; in the London Conference of 1910 it got its deductio in forum or at least its first dance. But it is still young and its possibilities undefined. Its name is apt to be applied to all sorts of building-schemes, and little attempt is made to assign it any specific sense. It is only slowly making its way towards the recognized method and the recognized principles which even an art requires. Here, it seemed, a student of ancient history might proffer parallels from antiquity, and especially from the Hellenistic and Roman ages, which somewhat resemble the present day in their care for the well-being of the individual.
In enlarging the lecture I have tried not only to preserve this point of view, but also to treat the subject in a manner useful to classical scholars and historians. The details of Greek and Roman town-planning are probably little known to many who study Greek and Roman life, and though they have often been incidentally discussed,1 they have never been collected. The material, however, is plentiful, and it illuminates vividly the character and meaning of that city-life which, in its different forms, was a vital element in both the Greek and the Roman world. Even our little towns of Silchester and Caerwent in Roman Britain become more intelligible by its aid. The Roman student gains perhaps more than the Hellenist from this inquiry, since the ancient Roman builder planned more regularly and the modern Roman archaeologist has dug more widely. But admirable German excavations at Priene, Miletus, and elsewhere declare that much may be learnt about Greek towns and in Greek lands.
The task of collecting and examining these details is not easy. It needs much local knowledge and many local books, all of which are hard to come by. Here, as in most branches of Roman history, we want a series of special inquiries into the fortunes of individual Roman towns in Italy and the provinces, carried out by men who combine two things which seldom go together, scientific and parochial knowledge. But a body of evidence already waits to be used, and though its discussion may lead—as it has led me—into topographical minutiae, where completeness and certainty are too often unattainable and errors are fatally easy, my results may nevertheless contain some new suggestions and may help some future workers.
I have avoided technical terms as far as I could, and that not merely in the interests of the general reader. Such terms are too often both ugly and unnecessary. When a foreign scholar writes of a Roman town as ‘scamnirt’ or ‘strigirt’, it is hard to avoid the feeling that this is neither pleasant nor needful. Perhaps it is not even accurate, as I shall point out below. I have accordingly tried to make my text as plain as possible and to confine technicalities to the footnotes.
F.H.
List of Plans and Illustrations
(For precise references to sources see the various footnotes.)
STREETS IN TIMGAD. From a photograph
1. BABYLON. After Koldewey and others
2. PIRAEUS. After Milchõfer
3. SELINUS. After Cavallari and Hulot and Fougères
4. CYRENE. After Smith and Porcher, 1864
5. SOLUNTUM. After Cavallari, 1875
6. PRIENE, GENERAL OUTLINE. After Zippelius
7. PRIENE, DETAILS OF A PART OF THE EXCAVATED AREA. After the large plan by Wiegand and Schrader, 1904
8. PRIENE, PANORAMA OF THE TOWN. As restored by Zippelius
9. MILETUS. After Wiegand, 1911
10. GERASA. After Schumacher
11. TERRAMARA OF CASTELLAZZO DI FONTANELLATO. After T.E. Peet
12. MARZABOTTO. After Brizio and Levi
13. POMPEII. After Mau, 1910
14. MODENA. From the plan of Zuccagni-Orlandini, 1844
15. TURIN. Reduced from a plan published by the Society for the diffusion of Useful Knowledge (Maps, London, 1844, vol. ii) after Zuccagni-Orlandini, 1844
16. AOSTA. From Promis and others
17. FLORENCE. (A) Modern Florence. (B) After L. Bardi (1795?) and Zuccagni-Orlandini
18. LUCCA. From Sinibaldi, 1843
19. HERCULANEUM. After Ruggiero and Beloch
20. NAPLES. From the Neapolitan Government map of 1865
21. INSCRIPTION OF ORANGE. From the Comptes-rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1904
22. TIMGAD. After R. Cagnat and the large plan by A. Ballu (Ruines de Timgad, Sept années de découvertes (Paris, 1911))
23. DETAILS OF INSULAE IN TIMGAD. After R. Cagnat, Timgad, p. 337
24. A PART OF CARTHAGE. Plan based on the Carte archéologique des ruines de Carthage, by Gauckler and Delattre
25. A PART OF LAIBACH. From a plan by Dr. W. Schmid (VI. Bericht der römisch-germanischen Kommission, 1910-1911)
26. LINCOLN, OUTLINE OF ROMAN WALLS
27. LINCOLN, BASES OF THE COLONNADE UNDER BAILGATE. From a photograph
28. LINCOLN, SEWER UNDER BAILGATE. From a photograph
29. AUTUN. After H. de Fontenay (Autun et ses Monuments, Autun, 1889)
30. TRIER. Plan reduced from plan (1:10,000) by the late Dr. Hans Gräven, Die Denkmalpflege, 14 Dec. 1904
31. SILCHESTER, GENERAL PLAN. Reduced from the large plan by W.H. St. John Hope (1:1800), Archaeologia lxi, plate 85
32. SILCHESTER, DETAILS OF FOUR INSULAE, THE FORUM AND CHRISTIAN CHURCH. From Archaeologia
33. CAERWENT, GENERAL PLAN. Reduced from plan by F. King (1:900), Archaeologia lxii, plate 64
34. BOSTRA. From a plan in Baedeker’s Guide to Palestine
35. SAUVETERRE-DE-GUYENNE, A BASTIDE OF A.D. 1281. From plan by Dr. A.E. Brinckmann
36. RUINS OF KHARA-KHOTO, A CHINESE TOWN OF ABOUT A.D. 1100. Geographical Journal, Sept. 1910
For the loan of blocks I am indebted to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (fig. 21), to the German Imperial Archaeological Institute (fig. 9), to the Royal Geographical Society (fig. 36), and to the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Editors of the Transactions of the Town-Planning Conference, 1911 (figs. 7, 8, 17, 30, 32, 35). Fig. 11 is from Mr. T.E. Peet’s Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy. The other 26 blocks have been prepared for this volume.
Table of Measures
The following figures may be found convenient by readers who wish to take special account of the dimensions cited in the following pages, and may also help them to correct any errors which I have unwittingly admitted.
1 Roman foot = 0.296 metres = 0.97 English feet.
For practical purposes 100 Roman feet = 97 English feet.
1 Iugerum = 120 x 240 Roman feet = 116.4 x 233.8 English feet.
For practical purposes a Iugerum may be taken to be rather over 2/3 of an acre and rather over ¼ of a hectare, and more exactly 2523.3 sq. metres.
1 Metre = 1.09 English yards, a trifle less than 40 ins. 402.5 metres equal a quarter of a mile.
1 Hectare (10000 sq. metres) = 2.47 acres (11955 sq. yds.).
1 Acre = nearly 69½ x 69½ yds. (208.7 ft. square) = 4840 sq. yds.