Think about Rome and your brain probably goes straight to the Colosseum. Or maybe the marble statues of guys in togas looking very serious. But the reality for about 95% of the people living in the capital of the Empire wasn't marble villas or sprawling gardens. It was bricks. It was wood. It was narrow, dark, and honestly, pretty terrifying stairs. Most Romans lived in ancient Roman apartment buildings called insulae.
Literally, "islands."
They called them islands because these massive blocks took up an entire city square, surrounded by narrow, filthy streets. While we obsess over the ruins of Pompeii—which was basically a posh vacation town—the real heart of Rome beat inside these cramped, multi-story tenements. They were the skyscrapers of the ancient world. They were also total deathtraps.
The Reality of Living in an Insula
Life in an insula was a game of "the higher you go, the cheaper you pay." It's the exact opposite of how modern penthouses work. If you were wealthy or at least "upper-middle class," you lived on the ground floor (tabernae level). You had easy access to the street. You maybe even had running water if you were lucky and lived near a lead pipe connection.
But if you were poor? You were climbing.
Up four, five, or sometimes even seven flights of stairs. These upper floors were built out of cheap timber and sun-dried brick. They were flimsy. The Roman satirist Juvenal used to complain that most of Rome was held together by "slender props" and that landlords would just plaster over cracks in the wall and tell the tenants they could sleep soundly, even though the building was literally about to collapse. It wasn't just talk. These buildings fell down all the time.
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Imagine living in a room with no kitchen. No chimney. No bathroom. If you wanted to cook, you used a small brazier (basically a charcoal grill) in a room made of wood and dry straw. You can see why Rome burned so often. If a fire started on the ground floor of an ancient Roman apartment building, the people on the top floor were essentially doomed. There were no fire escapes. Just one narrow, winding staircase that acted like a chimney for the smoke.
The Famous Case of the Insula Felicles
We actually know the name of one of the biggest ones: the Insula Felicles. It was located near the Circus Flaminius and was so huge that it became a landmark in its own right. The writer Tertullian compared its height to that of the heavens. It was the Burj Khalifa of the second century. While we don't have the exact floor count, historians like Andrew Wallace-Hadrill suggest it likely pushed the limits of Roman engineering, potentially reaching eight or nine stories.
Construction was a business. A cutthroat one.
Wealthy Romans like Crassus—the richest man in Rome—made a fortune in real estate. There’s a famous, somewhat grim story that Crassus would wait for a building to catch fire, then offer to buy the burning property and the neighboring buildings for a pittance while the owners watched their livelihoods go up in flames. Once he owned the land, he’d rebuild. This wasn't "luxury living." This was high-density, high-profit urban housing.
Architecture, Materials, and the Smell
Walking into an ancient Roman apartment building would have been an assault on the senses. The ground floor usually stayed busy. You’d have a baker, a dyer, or a small tavern (caupona) spilling out onto the sidewalk. The smell of fermented fish sauce (garum) and woodsmoke would be thick.
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- Opus Latericium: This was the standard brick-faced concrete that made these buildings possible. Roman concrete was amazing, sure, but in the hands of a cheap contractor, it was often spread too thin.
- The Mezzanine: Many ground-floor shops had a tiny "half-floor" above them where the shopkeeper’s family would sleep. Imagine living in a space where you can’t even stand up straight, right above your place of work.
- Latrines: Unless you were on the ground floor, you didn't have a toilet. Most people used chamber pots and—this is gross but true—frequently emptied them out the window. Roman law actually had a specific category for "damage caused by things thrown or poured from windows."
The windows themselves didn't have glass. Not for the average person. They had wooden shutters or maybe some stretched animal hide to keep the rain out. In the winter, you chose between freezing in the dark or sitting in a room full of smoke from your brazier.
Why Augustus Had to Step In
The situation got so bad that the Emperors had to start passing building codes. Augustus, after seeing way too many collapses and fires, capped the height of ancient Roman apartment buildings at 70 Roman feet (about 21 meters). Later, Trajan lowered that to 60 feet.
They also mandated a certain thickness for the walls. But you know how it goes. Landlords found ways around it. They’d build right up to the limit and then add a "decorative" wooden roof structure that was basically another floor.
The Insula dell'Ara Coeli, which you can still see today at the foot of the Capitoline Hill in Rome, is a perfect survivor. It dates back to the 2nd century AD. When you look at it, you realize how modern it feels. It looks like a walk-up apartment building you'd see in Brooklyn or London. It’s four stories of brick, with shops on the bottom and apartments above. It’s a sobering reminder that the "grandeur of Rome" was built on the backs of people living in 10x10 rooms.
The Social Divide of the Insula
It's tempting to think of these as just "slums," but that’s not quite right. They were mixed-use. You might have a fairly well-off professional living on the second floor (the piano nobile in later Italian terms) while a day laborer lived in the attic. This proximity created a weird social friction. You had the noise of the city—the iron-rimmed wheels of carts at night (carts were banned during the day), the shouting of vendors, the constant fear of fire—all shared by everyone regardless of their floor.
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The legal status of these buildings was also complex. Most people didn't own their apartments; they rented them on a yearly basis. Every July 1st was Moving Day in Rome. This was the date when leases typically expired, and the streets would be jammed with people hauling their meager belongings from one insula to another, trying to find a landlord who hadn't raised the rent or a building that didn't look like it was about to lean over.
How to Explore "Insula Life" Today
If you’re heading to Italy and want to see what this was actually like, don’t just stick to the Forum.
- Ostia Antica: This is the best place, period. It was Rome’s port city. Because it was abandoned rather than built over, the ancient Roman apartment buildings there are incredibly well-preserved. You can walk into the Insula of Diana and see the central courtyard and the multi-story layout.
- The Ara Coeli Insula: In Rome itself, right next to the Vittorio Emanuele II Monument. It’s tucked away, but you can see the different levels of the building and how it was literally carved into the side of the hill.
- The Case Romane del Celio: These are "houses" under the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo. They show the transition from a row of shops and an insula into a more private residence. It’s a subterranean maze that captures the claustrophobia of Roman urban life.
Living History
We often view the past through the lens of the elite because they’re the ones who wrote the books and built the temples. But the insula is where the "real" Rome lived. It was a place of incredible ingenuity and horrifying instability. It was where the subura—the city's red-light and working-class district—throbbed with life.
When you look at a modern city today, you're looking at the evolution of the Roman insula. The concept of the apartment block hasn't actually changed that much in 2,000 years. We’ve just swapped the sun-dried brick for steel and (thankfully) added better fire escapes.
Actionable Steps for the History Enthusiast
- Read the Satires of Juvenal: Specifically Satire III. He gives a firsthand (if highly cynical) account of the dangers of living in a Roman apartment.
- Virtual Tours: Check out the digital reconstructions of the Insula of Diana at Ostia Antica. It helps visualize the height and density that's hard to grasp from ruins alone.
- Support Archaeological Preservation: Many of these lesser-known sites in Rome struggle for funding compared to the "big" monuments. Visiting them and paying the entry fee helps keep the non-marble side of history alive.
The next time you walk past a crowded apartment building in a big city, just remember: a Roman would have recognized it instantly. They might have just asked where the nearest fountain was and if the landlord was a crook.