Insula, insulae: island; apartment (Latin feminine noun)
The high number of insulae in particular regions that seemingly have little space for housing has led many to question the definition of an insula. The Aurelian Wall encompasses a total area of 5.3 square miles but contains around 46,500 insulae.[1] Neville Morley argues that if the average insula had a footprint of 250 square meters or 2,691 square feet, then inuslae would cover 11.6 square kilometers or 4.5 square miles; “that suggests a total of about 25,000 insulae.”[2] Are then insulae being counted as individual apartments or an entire apartment building in the Regionary Catalogs? How much space is occupied by housing within the 5.3 square miles and how much room is taken up by roads, gardens, monuments, and other public buildings, and is it even possible to have this many insulae within the city?
A few interpretations of insulae have been suggested include a "room in a house (Preller); a hearth (Kahrstedt, Castiglioni); an apartment (Cuq); a floor in a multistoried house (Richter, v. Gerkan); a multiple dwelling (James Packer); an entrance door, a door opening, equal to modern Italian vano (Homo); some kind of cadastral unit (G. Lugli, F. G. Maier),” and a city block (Storey).[3] These varying interpretations are based on the analyses of textual evidence in context to provide different readings of the term. Some of the definitions do not work when applied to the numbers in the Regionaries. For instance, if we were to interpret an insula as a city block then the numbers seem too large, the other extreme being if we count an insula as an individual room or entrance then the numbers would be too small to conceivably house the population of Rome, estimated to be around one million. Mark Grahame summarizes the problems of applying literary evidence to physical evidence:
The high number of insulae in particular regions that seemingly have little space for housing has led many to question the definition of an insula. The Aurelian Wall encompasses a total area of 5.3 square miles but contains around 46,500 insulae.[1] Neville Morley argues that if the average insula had a footprint of 250 square meters or 2,691 square feet, then inuslae would cover 11.6 square kilometers or 4.5 square miles; “that suggests a total of about 25,000 insulae.”[2] Are then insulae being counted as individual apartments or an entire apartment building in the Regionary Catalogs? How much space is occupied by housing within the 5.3 square miles and how much room is taken up by roads, gardens, monuments, and other public buildings, and is it even possible to have this many insulae within the city?
A few interpretations of insulae have been suggested include a "room in a house (Preller); a hearth (Kahrstedt, Castiglioni); an apartment (Cuq); a floor in a multistoried house (Richter, v. Gerkan); a multiple dwelling (James Packer); an entrance door, a door opening, equal to modern Italian vano (Homo); some kind of cadastral unit (G. Lugli, F. G. Maier),” and a city block (Storey).[3] These varying interpretations are based on the analyses of textual evidence in context to provide different readings of the term. Some of the definitions do not work when applied to the numbers in the Regionaries. For instance, if we were to interpret an insula as a city block then the numbers seem too large, the other extreme being if we count an insula as an individual room or entrance then the numbers would be too small to conceivably house the population of Rome, estimated to be around one million. Mark Grahame summarizes the problems of applying literary evidence to physical evidence:
The traditional practice of using the literary sources to identify certain social identities and practices and then map them onto the physical remains, in order to explain their form and function, is more problematic than is usually thought. Firstly, this practice of labeling is limited in that it is not possible to describe all the spaces within the house according to traditional Latin terminology. In addition, we have to assume that the conventional text-based nomenclature, when applied to specific spaces, is a reliable guide both to the social identities of the persons who habitually occupied them and to the practices routinely carried out in them. Finally, this method does not allow us to resolve the spatial structure of any house in such a way as to account adequately for the actual pattern of relations present within it.[1]
Grahame explains that associating terminology from literary sources onto physical structures is problematic because we do not know how Romans would have used such terminology. Also, there is a social disparity between the writers of ancient Rome and the general populace that would have occupied the insulae. The lower class are underrepresented in ancient sources, however, they would have been the main inhabitants of insulae. Therefore, it is difficult to get an accurate portrayal of daily life in an insula as well as the way the terminology would have been used by the actual residents.
To begin we should look at what an insula is not, which is a single family household or a domus. Because of the low quantity of domus in the city it can be assumed that the atrium-style house was the primary residence of wealthy and elite citizens.
To begin we should look at what an insula is not, which is a single family household or a domus. Because of the low quantity of domus in the city it can be assumed that the atrium-style house was the primary residence of wealthy and elite citizens.
Search of perseus.tufts.edu
Searched the Greek and Roman texts only.
Key word searches in English:
Apartment: 70
House: 2,559 (this number is higher most likely from the Greek texts)
Key word searches in Latin:
Insula/ Insulae: 166 (this number would include references to islands, so we can assume from the English translations that only 70 times does this term reference apartment buildings)
Domus: 271
I agree that the term insula is polysemantic, but I would take it one step further to argue that it is used interchangeably with the word domus in some instances. The rather low number of hits for the word 'apartment' compared to 'house' indicates that either ancient authors are not mentioning insulae because they would have been focusing on upper class and political affairs in their writings, or they are using different terminology to reference this predominant architecture type in Rome. It is possible domus is used to mean 'home' and not only 'house.'
I believe these numbers are possible for the amount of insulae. If we look at region VIII, the Forum Romanum, the Regionary Catalogues states it has 3,480 insulae and 130 domus. This region is .11 square miles and has many civic buildings and monuments, yet if we use Morley's average square footage footprint of insulae, then they would only take up around .33 square miles. Rome was undoubtedly crowded, but I do believe this is possible and more examination would be needed to assess this.
Searched the Greek and Roman texts only.
Key word searches in English:
Apartment: 70
House: 2,559 (this number is higher most likely from the Greek texts)
Key word searches in Latin:
Insula/ Insulae: 166 (this number would include references to islands, so we can assume from the English translations that only 70 times does this term reference apartment buildings)
Domus: 271
I agree that the term insula is polysemantic, but I would take it one step further to argue that it is used interchangeably with the word domus in some instances. The rather low number of hits for the word 'apartment' compared to 'house' indicates that either ancient authors are not mentioning insulae because they would have been focusing on upper class and political affairs in their writings, or they are using different terminology to reference this predominant architecture type in Rome. It is possible domus is used to mean 'home' and not only 'house.'
I believe these numbers are possible for the amount of insulae. If we look at region VIII, the Forum Romanum, the Regionary Catalogues states it has 3,480 insulae and 130 domus. This region is .11 square miles and has many civic buildings and monuments, yet if we use Morley's average square footage footprint of insulae, then they would only take up around .33 square miles. Rome was undoubtedly crowded, but I do believe this is possible and more examination would be needed to assess this.
[1] Neville Morley, “Population Size and Social Structure,” The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome, New York: Cambridge University Press (2013), 32.
[2] Ibid, 34.
[3] Hermansen, “Population,” 130.
[4] Mark Grahame, “Public and Private in the Roman House: Investigating the Social Order of the Casa del Fauno,” Domestic Spaces in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond, quoted by Storey, “Meaning of Insula,” 48.