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Indeed, two-thirds of the town-names which are prominent in the later history of Asia Minor and Syria, date from the age of Alexander and his Macedonians. Many discoveries show that these towns were laid out with a regular 'chess-board' street-plan. That method of town-planning now made definite entry into the European world.
Indeed, in some cases the houses seem to have encroached on and distorted the street-plan. Probably it would be true to say that the average block covered an acre and a half or an acre and two-thirds. We do not know enough of the history of Caerwent to do more than guess how this street-plan came to it.
There is hardly one modern town in all the European and African provinces of the Roman Empire which still uses any considerable part of its ancient street-plan. In our own country there is no single case. In Gaul and Germany, two or three streets in Cologne and one or two in Trier are the sole survivals. In Illyricum there is no example unless possibly at Belgrade.
As in art and architecture, so also in city-planning, the civilization of Greece and of Italy merged almost inextricably into a result which, with all its Greek affinities, is in the end Roman. The student now meets a rigidity of street-plan and a conception of public buildings which are neither Greek nor Oriental.
But if its original area be the space of 70 acres which is usually assigned, that is not rectangular but a square somewhat askew, which fits very badly with the rectangular street-plan, and one would incline to ascribe the latter to a later date. See Maionica, Fundkarte von Aquileia. The preceding chapters have dealt with the origins and general character of the Italian town-plan.
They are adapting a military device to the purposes of an industrial age. Since the invention of artillery, the rectangular street-plan has been regarded by soldiers as useful in defending the streets of a town. GENERAL OUTLINE OF PRIENE. A, B, C. Gates. G. Agora, Market. I. Council House, K. Prytaneion. L, Q. Gymnasium. The best instance of the new system is not perhaps the most famous.
The whole town stretched for some two miles parallel to the shore and for about a mile inland, and covered perhaps 1,200 acres. Its street-plan can hardly be older than Caesar or Augustus, but the shape of its 'insulae' appears to be without parallel in that age. One reason for its plan may no doubt be found in the physical character of the site.
The whole area has not yet been explored and we do not know whether the houses were smaller or larger, richer or poorer, in one quarter than in another, but the regularity of the street-plan certainly extended over the whole site. Compare Soluntum, p. 36, n. 2. Despite this reasoned and systematic arrangement, no striking artistic effects appear to have been attempted.
A good parallel to Florence may be found at Lucca, the ancient Luca, where again the streets preserve a rectangular pattern without showing clearly what was its full extent. Luca is said to have been founded as a 'colonia' in 177 B.C., but the statement is of doubtful truth. But of the street-plan there can be no doubt, though its original size is uncertain.
In any case, the town was plainly laid out in a rectangular street-plan. To-day its lanes are as tortuous as those of any other Provencal town. A strange chance reveals what it and many other of these towns must once have been.
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