What did you discover?
There is no single right answer here. Think about everything you explored and choose the thing that interested you most.
Here’s what Toby made of it
Listen to Toby’s short story. Everything you need for the five questions is here.
Need some help? You can watch Toby again, or open “This is what I just said” and look for the answers.
Hi guys. Wasn’t Ancient Rome an amazing place?
What amazed me most was how huge it was. Nearly a million people may have lived there. And as Mr Abbott talked about it, I realised that many of Rome’s problems were just like the problems our towns and cities have today.
First, where did everybody get water?
Rome brought clean water into the city along aqueducts. It was then distributed around the city, including to public fountains where ordinary people could collect water and carry it home.
Then there was food.
A city that big couldn’t grow all the food it needed nearby. Huge amounts came from across the Roman Empire, much of it by ship. It was stored in warehouses and then distributed to markets, shops and food sellers where people could buy what they needed.
And where did everybody live?
A few wealthy families lived in large houses called domus. But Rome needed to fit far more people into a small space, so it built upwards. Many people lived in blocks of flats called insulae. The word means islands — blocks of buildings surrounded by streets.
Many of those homes didn’t have their own water, bathroom or even a safe place to cook.
So some things we have inside our homes today were shared services in Rome. People collected water from fountains, went to public baths to wash and keep clean, and could buy cooked food from shops and food sellers.
But who did all the work?
Free Romans worked as builders, bakers, shopkeepers, craftspeople, officials and lots of other jobs. But Rome also depended heavily on enslaved people, who worked in homes, workshops, businesses and many other places.
And finally I wondered: how could Rome afford all this?
Rome was at the centre of a huge Empire. Taxes, goods, resources and trade came from across that Empire and helped make Rome enormously wealthy.
So that’s what I remembered.
A huge city needs water, food, homes, shared services and people to do the work — and it needs wealth to pay for everything.
When you think about it like that, Ancient Rome isn’t quite so strange. Our cities still have to solve many of the same problems today.
Everything you need for my five questions is in what I’ve just said. You can listen again or read my words while you answer.
See what you can find.
How did many ordinary Romans get their water?
How did ordinary Romans get much of their food in the city?
Where could Romans go to wash and keep clean if they didn’t have a bathroom at home?
Who did the work that kept Ancient Rome running?
What helped make Rome such an enormously wealthy and important city?
Now put the pieces together.
This answer is not marked by the computer. You may use Toby’s story while you write. It will be printed on your Progress Record for your teacher—and, if you take it home, your family—to read.