Date: March 14th, 2006

The earliest apartments: Roman insulae

14 March, 2006 (09:53) | Uncategorized |

As far as I can tell, the oldest apartments — multi-family multi-story dwellings — were built more than two millennia ago, in the Roman republic — and they are spookily modern.  Our best evidence comes from Ostia:
 

Ostia Antico, layout
 
Back then, cities were bounded by walls.  Land inside them was valuable.  But the workers – [...]