Urban Development Of The Roman City

Ancient Rome is well recognized for its potential to produce large, dense and complex network of infrastructure ranging from roads, aqueducts, bridges, baths and temples. The Romans were impressive builders, and some of the structures built by the Romans that still stand up today exhibit this. By having large infrastructure, it was one of the fundamental aspects that allowed the Roman empire to maintain its expansive territory. The Roman empire began to flourish and sparked a golden age of technological advancement.

Pioneering of the arch and vault (figure 1) increased the scale of construction in Rome gave the Romans the ability to produce tall buildings that lead to the invention concrete in the second century BC, that developed a whole new age of architectural and constructional thinking. As a result of these technological advancements, the Roman population increased and eventually lead to

Roman cities had two major roads, the Cardo Maximus, the main street running through the north-south and the Decumanus, running east-west, serving as a secondary street, emphasized in the ancient Roman city of Timgad, which was a typical aspect of Roman cities. In essence, the Cardo Maximus and Decumanus played an integral part of city planning, but also served as a central hub for economic life and business.

Furthermore, Roman grid-based city plan was replaced with urban planning by the first century B.C.E which was not planned completely in advance during the development of the Roman empire. On the other hand, by superseding grid-based plan, an urban plan was a more flexible solution resulting in a more elaborate and organic ‘plan’ that evolved over time, thus theatres, public buildings, basilicas, temples, libraries, and amphitheatres were ‘sprinkled all across the urban fabric, so that no neighbourhood was without some public monument’.

(Kostof 1991, page