Civil Municipium

As ancient cities grew the people turned to land beyond the walls: safety was traded for elbow-room. Undesirable businesses such as burial grounds, slaughterhouses and brickmaking were not particularly welcome within the city walls; animals and crops needed more space than the original boundaries allowed. The poor, of course, went to live alongside the more unsavoury businesses. 'Suburbia', then, was not quite the home of a burgeoning middle class, but a reaction to a lack of space. The growth of Rome meant that new perimeter walls had to be built. The Aurelian walls constructed in the 3rd century AD expanded the city well beyond the original 5th century BC Servian ones.