Roman Lives – The Plebeian In the city, most Romans were called plebeians. Plebians included those who produced
and sold anything such as bread, footwear or clothes down to the very poor. Plebeians lived in insulae, apartment blocks which were five or six storeys tall. The rooms at street level were rented as shops. Better-off families rented a number of well- furnished rooms on the lower floors. Poorer families lived in the upper-floors. They had bare rooms and lived in bad conditions. Usually, there were no toilets in the insulae, so tenants had to use public toilets.
There was no water supply either, so people had to draw water from the public fountains which were supplied through aqueducts (channel for water). Rubbish was thrown out the windows onto the street. Wood-burning stoves provided heat, but there was a great danger of fire.
A Roman street with insulae (apartments), and shops on the ground floor
Did You Know? The streets had thermopolia – take-away
shops which sold hot food.
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Can you identify what is happening in each part of the insula?
List some of the differences
between the lives of the patricians and the lives of the plebeians.
