Amid all this splendour and spaciousness of public buildings, what is the aspect of the ordinary streets?  In this respect Rome was by no means fortunate.  As in Old London, Old Paris, or Old New York, the streets had for the most part grown up as chance circumstances would have it.  There were very few thoroughfares laid out straight from the first like the Flaminian or “Broad” Road.  Alexandria and Antioch were the creations of monarchs who began with a clear field and a consistent scheme.  Their straight, broad streets might well be the envy of the capital.  The Romans, then as now, possessed the engineering genius, but they could not well undo the work of a struggling past, which had necessitated the crowding of population, within the defences of a wall.  They knew how to supply the city abundantly with water, and how to drain it with sewers of great capacity and strength.  The chief of such sewers—­the Cloaca Maxima—­which passed underneath the Forum to the Tiber and was laid down more than twenty-five centuries ago, is still in working order.  But no republican or imperial government ever took it in hand to Hansmannise the city, even after one of those devastating conflagrations which might seem to have cleared the way.  It is true that all traffic of vehicles, except for special processions, for Vestal Virgins, and a few other cases—­was forbidden for ten hours in the day.  All through the morning and afternoon there were no wheels in the Roman streets, unless some public building imperatively demanded its load of stones or timber, or unless the few privileged persons were proceeding in their carriages to some festival.  Nevertheless the rich men and women in their litters or sedan-chairs, attended by their servants or their clients; the porters carrying their heavy loads; the itinerant hucksters; and the ordinary man on errand or other business bent, made up crowds which were often difficult to pass through.

Another consequence of the old compression within narrow walls was that, as population increased, the houses grew more lofty.  How high the Romans built, or were allowed to build, in republican times we cannot tell.  The tendency was certainly to build higher and higher, and sky-scrapers would perhaps have become the rule if the ancient Roman had understood the use of materials both sufficiently light and sufficiently strong, or if he had been forced to establish his work on secure foundations.  In point of fact there had been, and there continued to be, too much of jerry-building.  Houses sometimes collapsed, and many were unsubstantially shored up.  A flood or an earthquake was apt to find them out, and there was frequent peril in the streets.  The majority of the abodes of people of humble means were not like those in smaller towns, such as Pompeii, still less like those in the country.  They were “tenement houses,” large blocks let out in rooms and flats, and it was natural that landlords should make haste to run them up and to