Rome’s Traffic Law Was a Nightly Nightmare

Marcus Valerius

You-you-you wouldn't believe the sound of it. Imagine, just try to imagine lying in your bed, three floors up in a wooden tenement, and-and the very bones of your skull are vibrating from a shriek like iron scraping across raw stone. It is the basalt paving... the *basaltes*. And it starts the very moment the sun goes down. You see, everyone thinks Julius Caesar was this... this legislative genius, right? Back in forty-five BC, he passes this grand law, the *Lex Julia Municipalis*, to "cure" the daytime congestion of our streets. And his brilliant solution? He bans all heavy commercial cargo wagons--the *plaustra*--from the city center from sunrise until the tenth hour of the day. That is late afternoon, mind you. So, sure, during the day, you can actually walk through the Forum without being crushed by a cart load of Spanish oil jars. But the-the-the absolute madness of it is what happens when the sun sets.

Marcus Valerius

Once the shadow of the gnomon stretches across the pavement, the floodgates open. The night belongs to the mules. I-I remember last week, it must have been the third watch of the night, utterly dark, and I am lying there trying to catch even an hour of sleep. Suddenly, there is this... this horrific screech. A wooden axle, completely ungreased, grinding against the stone right under my window. Two muleteers, probably exhausted and furious, get their cart wheels locked. They start screaming at each other, cursing by Hercules and Castor, their voices echoing up the narrow alleyway like they are shouting inside a bronze kettle. It went on for hours. Many an invalid dies from insomnia here, though the illness... well, the illness itself might start from something else, the sleeplessness is what finishes them. It-it-it literally drives you mad. If you are poor, like me, living in a cheap *insula* with thin plaster walls, you just lie there and take the punishment.

Marcus Valerius

But you know who isn't losing their mind at three in the morning? The senators. The multi-millionaires in their massive, sprawling *domus* homes on the Palatine Hill. Their houses are built inward, you see, around quiet, colonnaded gardens, insulated by thick stone walls and a small army of doorkeepers. The noise of the street doesn't touch them. The writer Juvenal--he-he actually writes about this--he says that sleep in Rome costs a fortune, and that is why we are all walking around like ghosts. The lack of sleep leads to indigestion, which turns into a burning fever, and then... well, you are dead. The class divide in this city isn't just about what you eat or what you wear; it is about whether you have the right to a quiet night.

Marcus Valerius

But then morning comes, and the nightmare just changes shape. You step out of your door, head spinning from exhaustion, and you have to navigate the daytime crowd. And because wheels are banned, the wealthy don't walk. Oh, no, they travel in the *lectica*--these massive, curtained litters. It-it is like a house on poles, carried by six or eight giant Syrian slaves who push through the crowd like... well, like Liburnian galleys cutting through the waves. Just yesterday, I was walking near the Subura, minding my own business, when this senator's litter comes charging through. One of his outriders, this massive brute of a guy, just shoves me aside. I went flying headfirst into a street-corner cabbage stall. Crushed three heads of perfectly good Greco-Roman cabbage, got dirt all over my clean tunic, and the senator didn't even draw back his silk curtains to look. They just sail on by while we scramble in the mud.

Marcus Valerius

But here is the real kicker. The *Lex Julia Municipalis* has a loophole. A massive, terrifying loophole. If you are hauling materials for public temples, or, say, the emperor's grand construction projects--like the massive renovations for Trajan's Forum--your carts are completely exempt. They can roll right through the crowded streets in the middle of the day. So, you are walking down a narrow street, and suddenly you are staring down a heavy wagon carrying a fifty-foot column of Ligurian marble, or a block of Luna stone weighing tons, creaking under the strain. The wood is groaning, the oxen are straining, and it is hovering right above your head.

Marcus Valerius

And if that axle snaps... if it breaks under that mountain of Ligurian marble... there is no time to run. The weight just pulverizes everything beneath it. The body is... it is completely erased. In an instant, you are nothing but a red smear on the basalt. And for a Roman, that-that is the ultimate horror. It is not just the pain of dying; it is what comes after. If your body is crushed beyond recognition, if your family cannot find enough of you to perform the proper funeral rites, your spirit is stranded. You become a wandering ghost, stuck forever on the muddy banks of the River Styx, unable to pay Charon for the ferry ride because no one could put a coin in a mouth that no longer exists. So, yes... a walk down a Roman street is a gamble with eternity. Anyway, I need to go clean the cabbage off my shoes. Speak soon, my friend.