- Unit 4. Urbanism and Art
- Getting Started
  - What Are We Learning?
  - Observe and Think
  - Map Your Mind
- Urbanism and Architecture
  - The Greek City
    - Urbanism
    - Housing
    - The Acropolis & Agora of Athens
  - Greek Architecture
    - Parthenon
  - The Roman City
    - Urbanism
    - Housing
    - Urbs Roma
  - Roman Architecture
    - The Colosseum
- Sculpture and Painting
  - Greek Sculpture
  - Roman Sculpture
  - Greek and Roman Painting
- Self-Evaluation Quiz
- Complementary Activities
  - The Greek and Latin Roots of English
  - One Myth, One Song
  - Games, Comics and Stuff
- References

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# The Roman City

The Roman Empire was in essence an urban empire. Towns were the political, administrative, economic and cultural centres.

All the newly-created towns were built according to a similar city plan: it had square or rectangular shape, was surrounded by walls and was organised around two central roads: the cardum (from north to south) and the decumanus (from east to west). They had a central square, the forum, with the main buildings and the market, and the rest of the town was organised into streets which formed a grid.

The forum had arcades and was decorated with statues of the main emperors and distinguished people from the city. These were the main buildings around the forum:

> - capitol, the main temple
> - curia, meeting place for the city council
> - basilica, place for trade and justice

Near the forum, there were shops, markets and workshops.

Roman cities had all kinds of facilities, such as theatres, amphitheatres, fountains and sewage systems (cloacae). Click here to find out more about the sanitation system.

## Activity: Visiting Gerasa

Watch this voiceless video of the Roman city of Gerasa (modern Jerash, Jordan) and describe what urban elements you are seeing.

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