Latest / The Story of Italy: Rome, Renaissance, and the Birth of Modern Europe — Fexingo History / Augustus and the Fire Brigades: How Rome's First Emperor Tamed the Flames
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Roman engineering — aqueducts, roads, the census. But there's one urban service the Romans are famous for having, and it's actually one of the earliest examples of a public fire department in history. Luna: The fire brigades, right? I've heard of the Vigiles. Lucas: Exactly. The Vigiles Urbani — literally 'the watchmen of the city.' Augustus created them in 6 AD, but the story of how Rome handled fires before that is almost as interesting as the fires themselves. Lucas: Rome was a fire trap. Think about it: narrow winding streets, multi-story apartment buildings called insulae built with timber and wattle and daub, open cooking fires, oil lamps, and no centralized water supply in most tenements. Fires were constant. Luna: Like a medieval city but with more marble. Lucas: Exactly. The historian Tacitus says that fires were so common in Rome that people almost accepted them as a fact of life. But before Augustus, there was no organized firefighting. If your insula caught fire, you'd hope your neighbors would help you form a bucket brigade, or you'd just try to save what you could and get out. Lucas: There were private fire brigades, though. And the most infamous one belonged to a man we've mentioned before: Marcus Licinius Crassus. You know, the richest man in Rome, part of the First Triumvirate with Caesar and Pompey. Luna: Crassus had his own fire department? Lucas: He did. But it wasn't a public service. According to Plutarch, Crassus would show up at a burning building with his team of slaves. But instead of putting out the fire, he would offer to buy the burning property — and the neighboring ones — from the terrified owners at a rock-bottom price. Only after the deal was closed would his slaves start fighting the fire. He built a huge part of his fortune that way. Luna: That is horrifyingly shrewd. Lucas: It's pure Crassus. But it shows the problem: there was no public system. The first attempt to create one came from a man named Egnatius Rufus, who was a plebeian aedile around 21 BC. He organized his own private band of slaves to fight fires, and he became hugely popular with the common people. Lucas: Too popular, actually. The Senate started to worry that he was building a private army. And when he ran for consul, Augustus — who was consolidating power — saw him as a threat. Egnatius Rufus was executed for conspiracy. So that model of a popular fire-fighting politician was shut down hard. Luna: So Augustus learned from that. He centralized it. Lucas: Exactly. In 6 AD, after a devastating fire, Augustus created the Vigiles. He divided the city into fourteen regiones, each with a fire station — an excubitorium. The Vigiles were commanded by a praefectus vigilum, a knight-level official, and they were organized into seven cohorts of about 1,000 men each. So roughly 7,000 men on duty every night. Luna: That's a lot of manpower. Were they full-time? Lucas: They were. And they were recruited from freedmen — former slaves. So it was a way to give them a respectable career and a path to Roman citizenship for their children. The Vigiles were both firefighters and a night watch — they patrolled the streets looking for fires, crime, and anything suspicious. Lucas: Their equipment was basic but effective. They had buckets, ladders, axes, and something called a sipho — basically a hand-operated pump that could spray water. They also had blankets soaked in vinegar to smother flames. And they used ballistae — yes, catapults — to knock down burning buildings to create firebreaks. Luna: Wait, they used catapults to destroy buildings? Lucas: On purpose, yes. Because often the best way to stop a fire from spreading was to demolish the building it was about to reach. The Vigiles had the legal authority to do that. The emperor Tiberius later compensated owners for property demolished for firefighting purposes — which shows how common it was. Luna: So the state would pay you if they knocked down your house to save the city. Lucas: Exactly. And that brings us to the most famous fire in Roman history: the Great Fire of 64 AD under Nero. You probably know the story — Nero fiddled while Rome burned. But almost every part of that story is contested. Lucas: The fire started on July 18, 64 AD, in the Circus Maximus. It burned for six days, destroying ten of the fourteen regiones. Three were completely leveled. Tacitus, who is our best source, says that rumors spread that Nero had started the fire himself, because he wanted to clear land for his Domus Aurea — his Golden House, which we covered in episode 86. Luna: So did he actually start it? Lucas: Historians are divided. The idea that Nero sang from a tower while the city burned is almost certainly a myth — he was at his villa in Antium when the fire started, and he returned to Rome to organize relief. He opened his palaces to the homeless and lowered the price of grain. But he also used the devastation to build his palatial Golden House, which fed the suspicion. Lucas: What we do know is that after the fire, Nero implemented new building regulations. He required wider streets, lower building heights, and more use of stone and concrete. He also banned common party walls — buildings had to have their own walls. In a way, he created Rome's first building code. Luna: So the Great Fire led to better urban planning. Lucas: In some ways, yes. But he also needed a scapegoat — and that's where we get the first mention of Christians in a Roman source. Tacitus says Nero blamed the Christians for the fire and had them executed in horrific ways. That's the origin of the persecution of Christians under Nero. Luna: Right, the human torches in his gardens. That's in Tacitus. Lucas: Yes. So the Vigiles were on the scene during the Great Fire — but they were overwhelmed. After that, their role became even more institutionalized. By the second century, inscriptions show that each cohort had a dedicated station, and we even have a surviving duty roster from a station in Ostia, listing the names of the Vigiles on watch. Lucas: One of the most fascinating documents we have is a bronze tablet from the town of Puteoli — modern Pozzuoli, near Naples — which contains a fire law from the first century AD. It's basically a municipal fire code. It says that if a fire breaks out, the magistrate can order the demolition of buildings without compensation, and anyone who refuses to help fight the fire can be fined or whipped. Luna: So it was a civic duty, like jury service. Lucas: Exactly. And it shows that even in smaller Roman towns, firefighting was taken seriously. The law also prohibits storing hay or straw near buildings, and it sets rules for where you could light a fire. It's surprisingly detailed. Luna: It sounds like the origin of modern fire codes. Lucas: It really does. And the Vigiles themselves continued to operate through the empire. They were still around in the fourth century AD. But after the fall of the Western Empire, organized firefighting disappeared from Europe for over a thousand years. London didn't have a paid fire brigade until after the Great Fire of 1666 — and even then, it was private insurance companies, not the state. Luna: So Rome had public firefighting more than a millennium before anyone else. That's remarkable. Lucas: It is. And it's a reminder that the Romans faced many of the same problems we do — and sometimes came up with surprisingly modern solutions. I mean, think about it: a city of a million people, with wooden buildings and open flames, and they managed to keep it from burning to the ground on a regular basis. That took organization, money, and a lot of dedicated men. Lucas: And speaking of keeping things running — this kind of deep dive into Roman life is what we love doing on this show. And it's only possible because of listeners who support us. If you've been enjoying these conversations about aqueducts and fires and the census, and you'd like to help us keep the podcast ad-free and independent, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's a simple way to chip in if the show has taught you something new. Luna: Absolutely. And it does, every time. Lucas: So, back to the fires. One more detail I love: the Vigiles didn't just fight fires. They also acted as a night police force. They carried short swords and staffs, and they could arrest criminals. So they were like a combination of fire department and night patrol. In a way, they were the first urban police force, too. Luna: So if you were a Roman, you might see a Vigilis with a bucket in one hand and a sword in the other. Lucas: Exactly. And they were stationed all over the city. We've found the remains of one of their stations near the Baths of Caracalla. It had a large courtyard, a dormitory, and a shrine to the gods — especially to the genius of the emperor. The Vigiles were a military unit, but they were also a civic institution. Lucas: And their legacy? Well, the word 'vigil' in English comes from them. And the idea that a city should have a dedicated, publicly funded fire department — that's a Roman idea that we still live with today. Luna: I'll never look at a fire hydrant the same way again.