Lives Below the Forum ebook

Rome was sustained far beyond its monuments. In apartments, workshops, baths, streets, and markets, residents organized work, care, worship, and survival within a sharply unequal city. This history follows ordinary rhythms alongside the laws and institutions that shaped them. It considers enslaved people, migrants, craftspeople, children, patrons, and households without treating daily life as a single Roman experience. The result is a vivid account of how status and proximity governed life below the Forum.