Nicomedia Council Hall
About
A violent fire tore through Nicomedia around 112 CE, gutting private houses and reaching the city's Gerusia hall even though a street separated it from where the blaze started. Pliny blamed the damage on a total lack of firefighting equipment and asked Trajan to authorize a 150-man brigade of tradesmen. Trajan refused, worried any organized group in Bithynia would turn into a political faction. Whether the hall was ever rebuilt went unrecorded before Trajan died, so it is marked destroyed here.
What happened here
The doors stand open during a session, so the crowd outside can hear. Inside, the order of speaking is the order of rank, and a man's whole career is measured by how early his name is called. Members sit on tiered benches facing each other rather than a chair, which makes the room argumentative by design. Business is read out by a clerk: letters from governors, embassies waiting in the corridor, requests for temple money, permission for a town to build. Voting is done with the feet, one side of the room against the other. Nothing said inside leaves formally, and everything said inside is repeated by evening. In a provincial town the local council does the same work in a smaller room, and cares about it just as much.
In ancient writing
- Pliny the Younger, Epistulae 10.33
Reports a fire at Nicomedia that destroyed many houses and the Gerusia's hall, and requests permission to form a 150-man firefighting guild.
- Trajan, Epistulae (replies) 10.34
Refuses the guild, fearing any association in Bithynia would become a political faction.
Sources
Nearby
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