17. Ghost Town Rome
Pope John XII’s tenth-century Rome was a semi-deserted ghost town. The city’s population of about 20,000 to 30,000 was a huge decline from its Roman Empire peak of about a million to a million and a half inhabitants. It was still encircled by the remnants of the Aurelian Walls, which had been built in the 270s AD to secure a city housing many more people than it did in John XII’s days. Within that vastness, the relatively few tenth-century Romans were like a few peas rattling inside a huge pot.
Most inhabitants were concentrated along the Tiber, because the aqueducts that had supplied the city in its heyday had been cut. Thus, the only sources of water were wells or the river. All other parts of the city, especially Rome’s iconic seven hills, were green areas occupied by farmers. The famous Forum Romanum, where the giants of Roman history had once rubbed shoulders, was now called Campo Vaccino (“Cow’s Field”). The Capitoline Hill, which had once housed the grand temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, was now Monte Caprino (“Goats Mount”).