Why You Wouldn't Last 24 Hours in Ancient Rome

You're five floors up, there's no water, the toilet is a hole next to the kitchen, and the street below is full of carts all night. Welcome to Rome in the year 100: the biggest, richest city on Earth, and one of the easiest places in history to die. This is one full day in ancient Rome, hour by hour, built from what archaeologists dug out of its toilets, drains and skeletons, and from the people who actually lived there: Juvenal, Martial, Tacitus, Frontinus and the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Every time the city gets you, the counter goes up. 0:00 Your morning, today 0:45 5 AM: the apartment block 2:17 6 AM: no water 2:52 7 AM: the public latrine 4:02 8 AM: the morning line 4:41 10 AM: bread full of stone 5:14 Noon: never look up 6:00 2 PM: the baths 6:50 4 PM: fish sauce and lead 7:29 6 PM: the summer fever 8:01 Night: no street lights 8:34 Six deaths in 24 hours Which one would have got you first? Tell us in the comments. Sources: Juvenal, Satires, Book 3 (night traffic, collapsing and burning buildings, objects thrown from windows, the night thug, the marble cart) Martial, Epigrams (the morning salutatio) Tacitus, Annals 15.38–41 (the fire of 64 AD) Frontinus, De aquaeductu (Rome's aqueducts, 97 AD) Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.24 (bath water) Digest of Justinian 9.3, actio de effusis vel deiectis (things poured or thrown from buildings) Strabo, Geography 5.3.7 (Augustus' height limit on buildings) Mitchell, P. D. (2016). "Human parasites in the Roman World: health consequences of conquering an empire." Parasitology. Koloski-Ostrow, A. O. (2015). The Archaeology of Sanitation in Roman Italy. University of North Carolina Press. Delile, H. et al. (2014). "Lead in ancient Rome's city waters." PNAS. Sallares, R. (2002). Malaria and Rome: A History of Malaria in Ancient Italy. Oxford University Press.