The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-08-21
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FLATS BOTHERED OLD ROME.
Complaints of Romans Were About the
Same as Are Heard Today.

From the New York Sun.
How an old Roman would laugh il he
should suddenly pop in here and hear us
talk about the apartment house as a
product of modern civilization said tho
scholarly appearing man with glasses as
he squinted at very ornate partment
building which was in process of cree
ton.
" Get up to date, he would probably
say. Why. we had apartment houses as
early as 455 B. c., and big ones, too;
some of them so or 10 feet high. Why
don't you think of something new?'
"Those apartment houses were called
insulae dslands), and very appropriate
name it was, considering that they housed
q floating population. The tenants had
their troubles, too, just as they have to-
day, for many of the insulae were poorly
built. and there were probably kicks
about the poor woodwork. the faculty
ventilation. clumsy stairways and the
thinness of the partitions.
Yes, and there were the janitors, too,
for the mobiles who owned such real es-
tate employed agents, called insularii. to
care for these buildings and look after
the collection of the rents. Rents were
very high, and thrifty souls would hire a
whole apartment and sublet rooms, just
as a thrifty New York woman who must
earn her own living does today.
There was the same hue and cry then
. -,
the time of Augustus there was law re-
stricting the height of dwelling houses
to 70 feet but this law was evaded
with all the impertinence of the TWEEN
tieth century. The offenders went unpun-
ished, for there were In Rome at the time
of Augustus more than 10O0,0O0-which
was crowding the city. some-and. of
course. the natural tendency was to build
up rather than out
LAS for skyserapers Well, those old
Romans knew something about Them
The pertinent of the Temple of the Sun
rose about 260 feet above the Campus Mar
thus, IN which 1t was situated. The pal
ace of septimius severus rose to a height
of more than 225 feet above the arena of
the Circus Maximus.
another thing that would make an
old Roman howl with delight Is the en-
thuslasm with which we call attention
to the glorious future in store for con-
crete We point out that houses of great
excellence are to be built of 1t, that roads
are to be paved with 1t, that 1t is to en-
ter widely into manufacturing processes,
that 1t has properties of endurance never
before dreamed of in a building mate
rial
AN old Roman would probably shout:
The future of concrete? My dear fellow
don't you know that concrete has a glori-
Gus past and that it was the agent that
made Rome an eternal city? Don't you
know that although all the rest of Rome
decayed and erumbled away its wonder
full concrete structures remain today as
substantial as when they were built?
THE stories of the destruction of tenn
pie after temple of magnificent marbles,
brilliant mosaics and massive foundations
always conclude with only the concrete
base remains This concrete was made
by mixing pozzolana, a volcanic dust,
with coarser pieces intermngled. and
lime. made by burning travertine. This
made a cement of tremendous power.
which would set even under water.
Now the Roman temples were set on
high foundations of this cement. called
podiums The podium consisted of four
stone walls forming box into which con-
crete was poured even with the top. These
podiums you will see now in Rome. but
nothing but ruins remains of the magnifi-
cent structures which were set on them"
The scholarly looking man settled his
spectacles a little more comfortably on
his nose.
There is nothing which will so take
the wind out of the sails of our boasted
up-to-datedness as a little contemplation
of ancient Rome" he said as he lodged
into his own insula.