Roman Urban Planning

But you can see from the relatively crooked and narrow streets of the city of Rome as they look from above today. You can see that the city grew in a fairly ad hoc way, as I mentioned. It wasn't planned all at once. It just grew over time, beginning in the eighth century B.C.. Now this is interesting because what we know about the Romans is that when they were left to their own devices, and they could build the city from scratch, they didn't let it grow in an ad hoc way. They structure it in a, in a very careful, very methodical way. It was basically based on military strategy, military planning. The Romans, they couldn't have conquered the world without obviously having a masterful military enterprise and everywhere they went on their various campaigns, their various military campaigns. They would build, build camps and those camps were always laid out in a very geometric plan along a grid, usually square or rectangular. So, when we begin to see the Romans building their ideal Roman city, then we turn to that so-called castrum or military camp design. Rome's streets reflect an organic growth pattern, evolving since the eighth century B.C., rather than through meticulous planning. In contrast, Roman military camps were designed geometrically, emphasizing strategic organization. When establishing cities, Romans implemented this structured approach of military layouts, showcasing their methodical planning in contrast with the city's ad hoc development.