IN A POEM WRITTEN IN EPISTOLARY FORM TO HIS FRIEND FLORUS, Horace launches a litany of excuses for why he is a lousy correspondent. Among his reasons is the difficulty of life in Rome and the strain exacted by its streets:

For our investigation of street life, at least two things are fascinating about Horace's portrait of urban life. First, the skeptical voice he embeds in his poem sees Roman streets in much the same way that plenty of scholarship on Roman cities has: they are relatively empty; they primarily offer a means of movement; and, when they are broad, few impediments or distractions will be present. Second, Horace's response confirms what we know intuitively even as we look at relatively desolate streets on archaeological sites – namely, that there was much and many that got in the way.

But who and what were present, and what pursuits they engaged in, can contrast markedly with what we normally experience in cities of the modern West. There is, of course, construction equipment – a timeless complaint, it seems – but also beasts of burden, people carrying materials, funerals lumbering along and aloud, and even loose animals. The scene depicts very little “normal” traffic: people like the poet trying to get from place to place.