ll. 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 increase the number of their stories. When
Augustus became emperor he enacted what may be called a Metropolitan
Building Act, which insisted on firmer foundations and limited the
height to 70 feet. That act was apparently still in force in th