Abutters' Responsibilities for Streets and Sidewalks in Ancient Rome
Mandated by the Tabula Heracleensis
Image 1. Street in Pompeii. Image source: Abdarrahman Ait Ali, CC-by-SA-2.0.
This is an excerpt from an unpublished piece I wrote in 2017 with the working title, “A Brief Roman Social History of Streets and Sidewalks.” This essay discusses two mandates from the Tabula Heracleensis, which was a municipal law written for Rome during the Julian period, but discovered on stone tablets in southern Italy, suggesting that other Roman cities adopted this code for themselves. All translations are borrowed from Michael Crawford.
My interest in this arcane subject began with a question about the present. Currently in Houston, abutting property owners are responsible for maintaining sidewalks, but the city assumes responsibility for maintaining the curbs and what is between them, what I call the “carriageway.” Thus, Houston has a double standard for the sidewalk and the carriageway. I was curious about the history of this double standard. How did cities finance street maintenance in the past? This essay is a partial answer to this question for ancient Rome and other ancient cities in Italy, such as Pompeii. In addition to a double standard of street maintenance, there are questions about the language which supports this double standard. That is, when we equate the “street” or “road” with only the part of the right-of-way within the curbs, we make it difficult to articulate this double standard. I propose using street or road to refer to all of the right-of way, which includes a carriageway, planting strips, and sidewalks.
The Tabula Heracleensis (TH) is a set of municipal laws for ancient Rome promulgated very late in the Republic. One provision of the TH places responsibility for street maintenance with abutting property owners, to be overseen by the aediles:[1]
Whatever roads are or shall be within the city of Rome or nearer the city of Rome than one mile, where there shall be continuous habitation, in front of whosever building any of those roads shall be, he should maintain that road, according to the decision of that aedile to whom under this statute that part of the city shall have fallen; and that aedile is to see that, in front of whosever building it shall be and whatever road it shall be appropriate under this statute for anyone to maintain, they all maintain that road according to his decision; and that water not stand at that point, to the effect that the people may not conveniently use that road.
First, the text is specific to Rome. Regardless of what kind of code this was, whether it was passed through the assembly or through a local magistrate in Rome, this was written for Rome. This section assigns the responsibility of maintaining streets to abutting property owners, but authorizes the aediles to adjudicate. Abutters were also responsible for drainage.[2] What exactly is meant here by “road?” Is it inclusive of the entire public easement, and thus does it include sidewalks? Does it mean only the viae, or does it include every kind of Roman street? If we assume that Romans thought that all urban streets were equally important, then viae should be interpreted in the broadest sense. On the other hand, the financial burden would vary with the width of the street since a wider street would require more materials, transportation cost, and labor than a narrow one.
Other than addressing standing water, the language of TH 20-23 is open-ended and gives the aediles discretion over what maintenance should be within his district. What were the priorities between pavement quality and cleanliness? Filth in the street was an acute problem in Rome, with abandoned furnishings, household garbage, human and animal waste, butchers’ offals, and the carcasses of birds, dogs, and most interestingly, dead bears.[3] If the aediles had made street-cleaning a priority, how can we determine how seriously they took this charge, or if they lacked the power and resources to properly execute the orders? On the face of it, it is always possible that property owners assumed some responsibility for their frontages, and new code formalized this common practice. On the other hand, the law might have been necessary if only a few property owners made street repairs. The TH most likely originated during the late Republic, when street maintenance had been neglected.[4] There could have been a mixed response with some property owners acting diligently to maintain their frontages and others who acted with neglect. One butcher can make a big mess. A single plaustra with an extra-heavy load might be pulled by four or five teams; eight to ten draught animals[5] would leave in their trail a great volume of excrement. It is easy to imagine the resentment of property owners allocating labor to clean up after freight traffic bound for some other destination in the city. However Laurence also reminds us that the ancient writers tend to record the extraordinary events,[6] so these accounts of filthy streets might have been the worst case scenarios rather than the norm. There were also a few large, wild animals in the city on occasion, brought into Rome for processions and games. Although they were not used for regular intraurban transport, the simple presence of large animals such as elephants, hippopotami, and rhinoceroses must have resulted in a great volume of effluence.[7]
While Augustus is correctly recognized for his ambitious building program, fewer people know about his interest in bringing existing infrastructure up to a state of good repair.[8] Not long after his coronation, he started repairing the Via Flaminia, the road leading from the north past the Campus Martius. He placed statues bearing his own likeness along some of the arches. This was not just a self-promotion program. He was attempting to raise the prestige of street repairs, which had been spurned by patrons who preferred to build new temples or other public buildings. Even his close friend Marcus Agrippa initially balked at street repair before eventually following the lead of the emperor.[9]
There is a contemporary analog to this situation from the late Republic. Our city streets and intercity highways are in poor state of repair. No politician has ever campaigned on a platform of “I will work hard to make sure you will continue to be able to use infrastructure that you are using now.” They tend to kick the maintenance can in favor of building a new road or adding lanes to existing ones. Politicians like ribbon cuttings. Yet the general public is complicit. Politicians campaign on new stuff because voters like new stuff. On the other hand, the patronage system makes Rome very different from our contemporary republics. However, in respect to street maintenance, the United States shares the same tendency to misorder its priorities to build new infrastructure instead of maintaining existing infrastructure. There was one recent attempt at a remedy. Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland introduced “The Preservation and Renewal of Federal-Aid Highways Act” in 2011.[10] The bill was referred to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, but there is no committee report.[11] Obviously we now value and use streets in a different way than the Romans did. I am making two points here. First is a point of comparison: this provision of the TH was necessary because wealthy patrons preferred capital projects over maintenance projects, just as our politicians do. Second is a point of contrast: the difference in the way we fund transportation easements from the Romans is part and parcel of our differences in the way we value and purpose streets.
Another section of the TH seems to apply to sidewalks:[12]
Quoius ante aedificium semita in loco <publico> erit, is eam semitam eo aedificio perpetuo lapidibus perpetueis
Integreis continentum constratum recte habeto arbitratu eius aed(ilis), quoius in ea parte h(ac) l(ege) uiaru
Procurat<io> erit.
In front of whosever building a footpath shall lie in a <public> space, he is to keep that footpath properly paved, continuous with the whole building, with whole gravel of top quality, according to the decision of the aedile whose care shall lie in that part <of the city> under this statute.
These specify footpaths in the public easement, so this refers in part to sidewalks as I have defined them. Crawford translates semita and semitam as “footpath,” which is close to the usual translation of “sidewalk.” Semita also means a “narrow street or road,”[13] and this meaning fits just as well in this context. So TH 53–55 I think is best read as a clarification of TH 20–23. It means that a property owner’s responsibility for taking care of the viae is clarified: part of 53–55 says, yes, this responsibility includes the part of the street meeting the building line, and yes, it includes footpaths or narrow streets, confirming the broadest interpretation of viae from TH 20–23.
Yet TH 53–55 adds something about pavement quality. Crawford chooses “footpath properly paved. . .with whole gravel of top quality. . .” while an older translation into French renders the same expression into, “bien pavé en dalles sans fissures,” or “well-paved in stone slabs without cracks.”[14] Either interpretion calls for high-quality pavement of sidewalks, so I will leave it to readers of Latin to further evaluate the translations.
There is reason to believe, however, that there was low compliance with the maintenance aspect of the law. Patrons of Rome were not eager to finance street maintenance and sidewalk maintenance. In ancient Rome—as it is today—street repairs did not convey high prestige to political elites, who preferred to put their names and their resources behind the construction of shrines and temples.[15] Such projects were associated with dedication ceremonies to honor the benefactors. Augustus[16] was an exception. Though he financed many high-status beautification projects, including the dedication of new public buildings[17] and the repair of 82 temples,[18] he also commissioned many street repairs eschewed by virtually all the other patrons of Rome. In addition to leading by example, he also instituted administrative reforms to promote street repair. He sought to raise the prestige of road repairs by elevating the prestige of the administrators who were responsible for such repairs. Augustus created the position of vicomagistrum (neighborhood magistrate), a resident serving his own ward, who was nominated by his neighbors and appointed by a higher magistrate. Vicomagistri administered the upkeep of shrines, fire-fighting brigades, and street maintenance. These last two responsibilites had carried low status. Augustus added a few perquisites to the position. Vicomagistri were allowed to wear magisterial vestments and they were sometimes provided with personal attendants (lictors). By allowing the vicomagistri to display these prestige-markers in public settings, Augustus enhanced the status of the administrators and the job of overseeing the repair of streets.[19] In summary, the provision of the Tabula Heracleensis to make abutters responsible for street repairs may have addressed a problem with the patronage system: wealthy benefactors preferred to sponsor high-prestige projects over street maintenance projects. Augustus complained about street conditions, indicating that the law was not leading to streets repairs, or at least, these repairs were not advancing to the princeps’ satisfaction. He attempted two remedies. First, he sponsored his own street repair projects, hoping that other patrons would follow. Second, he tried to elevate the prestige of street repair as an activity by creating a new position, the vicomagistri. There remains both a question about long these laws remained in effect and the level of compliance with the maintenance mandate, yet it appears that Augustus executed a good plan for promoting this program, and this initiative is consistent with the notion that the Tabula Heracleensis remained in effect during the early Empire.
There are other historical examples of making property owners responsible for improving their own streets. London rebuilt streets after the Great Fire of 1666 by imposing special assessments on abutting property owners. In the United States, a similar system for financing streets emerged. New York initiated such a scheme for street paving as early as 1691.[20] In colonial Boston, property owners were responsible for paving the road beds and setting posts along the borders at their own expense.[21] Well into the 19th century, the United States continued to use schemes to collect assessments from abutters to capitalize street improvements; however, local governments almost always assumed the cost of maintenance, distinguishing this system from one of the prescriptions from the TH.[22]
The TH made abutting property owners responsible for street improvements and street maintenance. However, street must be understood more broadly as the entire corridor between the opposing property lines, and included the sidewalks just as much as the carriageway; or, just as much outside the curbs as within them. So abutting property owners were responsible for this public space, but equally responsible for the carriageway and the sidewalk. Second, in ancient Rome, dedications to new temples were more attractive to patrons than repairing old ones just as ribbon cuttings for new facilities are more attractive to politicians than resurfacing streets. No elected official runs on the promise, “I will make sure that all the old infrastructure remains in a state of good repair.” That is why Augustus pressured patrons into funding more maintenance projects. He understood the tendencies of patrons.
[1] M. H. Crawford, (trans.) Tabula Heracleensis II. 20–23 in M. H. Crawford, Roman Statutes, Volume I (London: Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 1994), 355–91. See also Crawford, “Tabula Heracleensis,” in Roman Statutes, 373.
[2] Claire Holleran, “Street Life of Ancient Rome” in Ray Laurence and David J. Newsome, Rome, Ostia, Pompeii: Movement and Space (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) 250. Jeremy Hartnett, “Power of Nuisances,” in Laurence and Newsome, 243. Mary Beard, Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2008), 56.
[3] Alan Kaiser, Roman Urban Street Networks (New York: Routledge, 2011), 21–2, 210 n. 45–57.
[4] Elisha Ann Dumser, “The urban topography of Rome,” in Paul Erdkamp, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 136; Diane Favro, The Urban Image of Augustan Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 29.
[5] Jeremy Hartnett, The Roman Street: Urban Life and Society in Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 37.
[6] Ray Laurence, Roads of Roman Italy: Mobility and Cultural Change (New York: Routledge, 1999), 81.
[7] Cornelius van Tilberg, Traffic and Congestion in the Roman Empire, 78–81 on the presence of wild animals in the city.
[8] Favro Image of Augustan Rome, 87–112; Dumser, “Urban topography,” 139–140.
[9] Favro, Image of Augustan Rome, 111–112; Bert J. Lott, “Regions and neighbourhoods,” in Erdkamp, ed, 170.
[10] “Senator Cardin introduces bill to prioritize repair of bridges and roads.” T4AmericaBlog. 14 June 2011, retrieved 15 September 2017; S. 1193 “To amend title 23, United States Code, to preserve and renew Federal-aid highways to reduce long-term costs, improve safety, and improve the condition of Federal-aid highways.” Congress.gov. 14 June 2011, retrieved 15 September 2017. https://www.congress.gov/112/bills/s1193/BILLS-112s1193is.xml
[11] https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/senate-bill/1193/committees
[12] Tabula Heracleensis II. 53–55. Crawford, “Tabula Heracleensis,” 374.
[13] Kaiser, Roman Urban Street Networks, 31. He also claims that semita appears in contexts which can be translated as “sidewalk.”
[14] Crawford, “Tabula Heracleensis,” 373. Henry Legras, trans., 20. La table latine d’Heraclée, 20. This translation is already 110 years old, and preceded modern engineering and modern values concerning street pavements. Translation mine.
[15] Favro, Urban Image of Augustan Rome, 111–2, also citing Cassius Dio 53.22. See also Elisha Ann Dumser, “Urban topography,” 136.
[16] I refer to him as Augustus throughout this passage for the benefit of those who may not know about his name change.
[17] Favro, Urban Image of Augustan Rome, 87–9.
[18] Favro, Urban Image of Augustan Rome, 106, also citing Suetonius Augustus 30.
[19] Favro, Urban Image of Augustan Rome, 138, also citing Cassius Dio 55.8.
[20] Clay McShane, Down the Asphalt Path (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 6.
[21] Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in Revolt: Urban Life in America, 1743–1776 (New York: Capricorn Books, 1955, 1964 reprint), 33.
[22] McShane, Down the Asphalt Path, 6–7, 63.