How to Survive in Ancient Rome

How to Survive in Ancient Rome imagines the reader arriving in the capital in AD 95 and needing to establish an ordinary life under Domitian. The guide explains where different social groups could live, how food and water were obtained, what clothing signalled about status and how streets, apartment blocks, baths, taverns and public entertainments shaped the daily experience of the city. Practical advice is used to introduce the institutions and material conditions of Roman society.

Further chapters cover work, money, marriage, religion, travel, healthcare, crime, law and the hazards of fire, disease and public disorder. The humorous time-travel format does not conceal the inequalities on which the city depended: citizenship, gender, enslavement and wealth determine almost every available choice. By fixing the visit to a specific imperial year, the book turns broad social history into a coherent portrait of Rome near the end of the Flavian dynasty.