Living Worlds
A Roman street about 100 CE: apartment blocks above shops, a fountain fed by an aqueduct, people of many origins in tunics, donkeys and porters.

100–700 CE · Rome, about 100 CE

The Greek and Roman World

Every street speaks more than one language.

The law of The Greek and Roman World

Every street speaks more than one language.

Rome, about 100 CE, stands for the whole Greek and Roman age. Around a million people (estimates vary widely) live here, many from elsewhere in the empire. They speak Latin and Greek, drink water carried in by nine aqueducts, and live above the shops.

A Greek-born doctor mixing a remedy at the counter of his small shop in Rome.

A life in The Greek and Roman World · composite, based on the record

A doctor, thirty-five

He was born in Ephesus and treats patients in Greek from a rented shop. Half his neighbours were born somewhere else too.

Meanwhile, in the same age

Classical worlds

A rooftop in Pataliputra at dusk where a young astronomer and students mark the rising stars, the Ganges below.

Place Value

Pataliputra, 499 CE

The plastered market plaza of Tikal with painted temple platforms, women selling maize drink and woven cloth.

The Plaza

Tikal, about 700 CE

A double-hulled voyaging canoe with pandanus sails on the open Pacific at dusk.

Which world will you live in?

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