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Rome ProviC Noise pollution, buildings Reside collapsing on their own accotd, aid floors use to dependent children, food simply du stamrps, air filled with the smell of windows. srnoke and sewge, strip mining, as fortiliz4 absentee landlords, and lead , have cont poisoning. dysentery No, this is not a description of a Buildir modern American city, but instead of theii a description of ancient Rome recounts, 2,000 years ago. public bu Dr. Theodo6re Crane, chairman had no ri Dr. Moreove of the Classical Studies Program at -ored USC discusses these living landlords Ancient Rome in an article which find. appears In Natural History, Crane published by the American the buildi Museum of Natural History in New situatioi York City. hazard, ar Crane points out in an article "great'" "The Squalor That Was Rome" emperor 4 that as the ancient capital became 14) came more populous, the urban rebuilt 89 problems-which are considered indicates modern phenomenon became the city more severe. Crane s, The foreign languages professor probably hypothesizes that the peculiar upper fI mentality of the ancient Romans -- Although one manifestation of which was the even the Coliseum where the sands were veneer, he sprayed with perfume to quench There the smell of blood so.that plannin( spectators would not become wound hf nauseated as thousands of animals the city, were killed -- lead to a decadence grid patte which left thern immune to the night, a unpleasantness associated with venturing urban problems. by slav( The worst form of pollution, he swords. says, was the water pollution. The Rome disposed of its wastes in the ex-slaves, Tiber River which ran through the street ver city. This river carried away the childrer city's sewage, the carcasses of musiciai animals killed in the arenas, the which or bodies of executed criminals, the been fert victims of political assassinations were kE and whatever else Rome chose to dump in. - Crane says he is not sure that the Romans ever grasped the idea of contaminated water as a source of disease; they even took water from the Tiber with them when they IN] travelled outside the city. Sewage was carried to the river by a series of sewers throughout the city, which the wealthier 20 Romans living on ground floors could afford to use. (A' LOOK S A Ni All you can e4 es Pap its living on the upper d 0 basement cistern or mped their wastes out of Often thewaste was useid w, a practice which may. ributed to the spread of gs frequently collapsed own accord, Crane arid since there were no ilding codes, inhabitants %course to legal action. r, most property was )y wealthy absentee who. were often hard to speculates that many of rigs were made of wood, a i which created a fire id that Rome suffered 37 fires. When the first Augustus, 27 B.C. - A.D. to power he repaired and temples, a figure which that he must have found in a state of disrepair. iys that most buildings had wooden shingles and oors made of wood. columns were of marble, temples were of marble believes. was very little street , and narrow streets re and there throughout rather than following a rn. Streets were unsafe at nd wealthier citizens forth were accompanied s bearing torches and treet people included immigrants, prostitutes, dors, beggars, illegitimate of soldiers, and street is. These lower classes, e might expect to have ile ground for revolution, pt docile by a welfare SALE 4 PRICE vER CITY LADRACS 6 GREEN STREET ITUDE What SHE] GOLUM across (ro 7khtly Specit 4 from a $1 er Topic program similar tW our food stamps and aid to dependent children. Crane feels that one factor which perhaps saved the city was its systems of aqueducts -- 4 eventually 250 miles of pipes bringing fresh water from the Apennine Mountains. This system helped carry away the pollution of Rome's sewers and the Tiber. - Paradoxically, however, some of the aqueducts were made of lead; in addition the wealthier classes preferred lead cooking and eating utensiles. Crane suggests that lead poisoning, which causes sterility, may have contributed to the decline of Rome's aristocracy. Strip mining was another phenomenon which distressed thinking Romans. The Roman scholar Pliny wrote that strip mining had changed the climate of a certain area, as had the draining of a lake. There were no environmentalist groups in Rome which fought pollution. One reason, says Crane, is that there was no industrial pollution as such; there were no tensions created between industrial goals and human values, and industrial production was much more in proportion to consumer needs than it is today. Prof. Crane has been asked by Indiana University Press to write a book about pollution in ancient Rome and Greece, which he hopes to have finished in about a year. Easy To Open Gamecock Charge Account *100 . ( Limit) BR ITTONS NTS... 'snew at RATON EBIA INN t the ffregg iop rn (he Coliseum 39 and up 'OLICY: Cost: five cents per vord. Minimum: 10 words. There s no charge for found ads. 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