Page 24 - SYTYGIB: Ancient Rome

While a rich Roman family might have had a large town house and a luxurious country villa, the less well-off weren,t quite so lucky . . .
Rome was a massive city for its time, with over a million inhabitants. Most middle-class and poorer people lived in tall blocks of flats called insulae, with shops and workspaces on the ground floor and apartments above.
Each insula could be horribly overcrowded, sometimes with entire families living in one room. And let’s face it, it’s sometimes bad enough living on the same pLaNeT as your annoying brother or sister, let alone the same room!
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People who were better off lived on the lower floors in large apartments, and the poorest people lived on the very top floors, sometimes in dReAdFuL conditions.