chieved in the early period of the empire,
and a severe flood might bring the houses in the Velabrum, for
example, tumbling about the ears of their inhabitants.

* * * * *

On the whole the streets of Neronian Rome were neither very
comfortable nor very safe to walk in. At night there was no lighting,
except when, at some great festival, illuminations might be made by
order of the emperor for a whole night or perhaps a series of nights.
In ordinary times torches and lanterns must be provided by yourself,
and even the 7000 watchmen scarcely gave you a full feeling of
security. The precise arrangements made for scavenging are unknown,
but presumably it was done by the public slaves under the supervision
of the aediles. It is, however, easy to discover from contemporary
complaints that the streets were often annoyingly wet and slimy.

One thing the ordinary Roman appears never to have minded, any more
than it is minded at the present day. This was noise. There are
studious men enough in ancient literature who complain that sleep or
study is impossible in Rome. They exclaim upon the bawling of the
hawkers, the canting songs of the beggars, the banging of hammers, the
sing-song of schoolboys learning to read in the open-air verandahs or
balconies which often served as schools, and the shouting in the
baths. All night long there was the rattle of carts and the creaking
of heavy waggons. But the average Roman cared, and still cares, very
little for quiet or sleep, and no emperor attempted to check the
annoyance. Perhaps he could devise no check. Perhaps he himself, being
on the Palatine, and his counsellors, being in their own comparatively
secluded houses on the hills, scarcely realised the full enormity of
the nocturnal roar of Rome. In any case the fact of the noise is
unquestionable. It was then very much as it is now if one tries to
sleep in rooms in the Corso or the Via Babuino. The saying that "God
made the country and man made the town" is met with in a Roman writer
of the age of Augustus, and the noise is one factor in the difference.

The ancient Romans, we have said, were masters of practical
engineering, and a chief glory of the city was its abundant supply of
water. Apart from the Tiber and the natural springs, there were in the
year 64 at least eight aqueducts bringing drinkable water into the
city. It was the emperor's concern to see to this matter, as he did to
the corn-supply