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Updated: May 1, 2025
But for town-planning we must go elsewhere. The traces of prehistoric planning detected by some writers in Rome are very dubious. The sources of our knowledge are twofold. In a few cases archaeological excavation has laid bare the paving of Roman streets or the foundation of Roman house-blocks.
But, as there were nine 'insulae' from east to west, the main north and south street could not bisect the town. Indeed, the south gate seems to have had five house-blocks west of it and four east of it, while the Porta Palatina stands further west, with six blocks on the west side of it. The north and south gates, therefore, are not opposite.
The motive of various military camps may perhaps be found rather in a wish to secure the same area as that of an orthodox rectangle, even though the ground forbade the strict execution of the orthodox figure. Whatever the reason, the trapezoidal house-blocks of Pompeii exhibit a feature which is not alien to the earlier town-planning of Italy, though it is strange to the cities of Greece. Norba.
In general, the oblongs seem to have been laid out with great regularity and the angles are right angles, though the 'insulae' in the northern and southern rows of house-blocks cannot have been fully rectangular and symmetrical.
These points yielded a regular plan of streets crossing at right angles, which in many of its features much resembles that of Autun. The east and west streets, with two exceptions, lay some 320 ft. from one another. The north and south streets varied, some observing that distance, others being no more than 260 ft. apart. As a result, the rectangular house-blocks varied also in size.
That the result is not an unpractical form of building is shown by the fact that similar long and narrow house-blocks are a characteristic feature of modern Liverpool, though they seldom occur in other English towns, unless intermixed with square and other blocks. The provinces, and above all the western provinces of the Roman Empire, tell us even more than Italy about Roman town-planning.
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