L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 8 THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 2021 L'Italo-Americano A l b e r t o A n g e l a , famous Italian paleontologist and author, is known and appreciated for the audience-friendly yet a c c u r a t e w a y h e s p e a k s a b o u t h i s t o r y : w h e t h e r you're watching one of his documentaries or read one of his books, history becomes accessible to all, even to those who know little about it and may not have much e x p e r i e n c e . A n g e l a a l s o manages to please scholars, thanks to the accuracy and d e t a i l s o f h i s h i s t o r i c a l reconstructions and to the fact that he himself his, as an archeologist, a scholar. In his latest book, pub- lished just before Christmas b y H a r p e r a n d C o l l i n s , Angela introduces his read- ership to Rome at the times o f E m p e r o r N e r o , j u s t before the tragic fire that was to destroy the city almost c o m p l e t e l y : i n d e e d , t h e imperial Rome we know and are besotted with is the one that came after the Great F i r e . L ' U l t i m o G i o r n o d i Roma — this is the title of the book — gives readers the opportunity to see a side of Rome that is little know to most of us: a city largely built in wood, with tall buildings similar to our condos that made up most of its popular areas, and narrow, intricate alleys, where getting lost must have been the norm. Now, because the book is dedicated also to the Great Fire, there is a category of R o m a n c i t i z e n s o f t h o s e years who play an essential role in Angela's narration: vigiles, Rome's own fire fighters. They are, in fact, the eyes and legs showing and walking us around the city for a full day, teaching us about the habits, costumes and day to day activities of people coeval to them. Vigiles were an essential corp for the safekeeping of the city: we said that Rome, in those years, was mostly built in wood and, with the widespread use of oil lamps, the narrowness of the streets and the presence in the city centre of large cereal and flour deposits (yes: flour is highly inflammable, did you know it?), the risk of fires was enormous. Roman vig- iles are the ancestors of our modern fire fighters and, with them, share a lot, start- ing from the types of inter- vention, their instruments and the way they were orga- nized. One notable difference is that vigiles also had polic- ing duties: the safeguard of t h e l a w d u r i n g t h e n i g h t hours was their job. The vigiles corp, or Militia Vigilum was instituted by Emperor Augustus in 6 AD to protect the city from fires and also to ensure law was respected. It was the first organized and special- ized fire brigade in history. On the day of institution, o n l y 6 0 0 m e n h a d b e e n trained to be vigiles, but with time, their number rose to a s t a g g e r i n g 7 , 0 0 0 . T h e i r name comes from the verb vigilare, which means to sur- veil and, in Italian, our mod- ern fire fighters, i vigili del fuoco, inherited theirs from their Roman ancestors. Rome was already a large city in those early days of the Empire, and Augustus had it divided in 14 regions to facil- itate administration. Then, he created seven fire fighters' brigades, known as cohortes, each formed by around 1000 men. A single cohors was responsible for 2 regions of the capital, and had its own barracks, or stationes, and a series of field offices known as excubitoria (excubitorium at the singular). When it comes to the fac- tual organization of the corp, the Militia Vigilum followed the military standards of those times: as said, there were seven cohortes, each of them divided in 7 centuria. Each centuria was led by a c e n t u r i o . T h e M i l i t i a Vigilum as a whole was led by the Praefectus Vigilum. As every military corp, they had their own motto: "Ubi d o l o r i b i v i g i l e s , " w h e r e there is pain, there are fire fighters. Vigiles all knew how to extinguish fires, as that was their main duty, but each cohors had vigiles special- i z e d i n o t h e r m a n s i o n s (although mostly related to fires): there were the aquarii, who were in charge of water supplies while extinguishing fires; the balneari, who were responsible of safety in pub- lic baths, the horreari, who e n s u r e d s a f e t y i n R o m e ' s warehouses and the sebacia- rii, who had to light up all oil lamps in the city at night and make sure they kept burning through the early hours of the morning. Without a doubt, however, fires were their main respon- sibility. As we said, pre-Nero Rome was mostly built in wood and a large part of its architecture was represented by insulae, buildings similar to today's condominiums, where many families would live. If you add to this the fact that the only source of light and heat in those times was fire, it's easy to imagine how common and easy fires were and how quickly they could spread. It wasn't an easy task yesterday, as it isn't today: the narrow streets of the cap- ital were always filled with CHIARA D'ALESSIO traffic and, often, quickly reaching a fire meant having to fight against the crowds. And the area to control was huge, as Rome had 423 dif- ferent boroughs, with more that 147,000 buildings and more than 1 million inhabi- tants. And this, 2000 years ago! If you are interested in archaeology and, when we'll be able to travel again, you'll visit Rome, than make sure you spend an afternoon in Trastevere: there, 8 meters below street level, you can visit the excubitorium of the VII Cohors, located in the h o m o n y m o u s s t r e e t : t h e building became an excu- bitorium in the 2nd century AD. Outside of the capital, but not too far at all, you could visit another excubito- rium in Ostia Antica: the building, constructed around 9 0 A D a n d c o m p l e t e d i n l a t e r y e a r s b y E m p e r o r Adrian, comprised two floors and had a central portico, around which all rooms were collected. Rome engulfed by flames: where are the vigies? (Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution. Author: Hubert Robert/Wikicommons. License: Public Domain) Vigiles, the Emperor's own fire brigade LIFE PEOPLE PLACES HERITAGE

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