Ancient Rome wasn’t just a city of gleaming marble—it was also a city of mud, noise, and crowded tenements. In this episode, we explore the stark contrasts of urban life: grand monuments alongside slums, ingenious aqueducts and sewers battling poor sanitation, and the chaos of traffic and night-time noise. From insulae apartments to the Cloaca Maxima, discover how Rome’s brilliance and grime coexisted to create the most complex city of the ancient world.