ROMAN WAREHOUSES.

ROMAN WAREHOUSES. One of the things that the dig at Portus has turned up is “the remains of a large Roman warehouse.” The reference reminded me of a recent interview on NPR with Evan D.G. Frazier and Andrew Rimas, the authors of EMPIRES OF FOOD—an interview which led me to buy the book. They said that Roman warehouses were as important an engineering accomplishment as Roman roads or Roman bridges. The Roman Empire relied on grain from the periphery. Grain imported from Africa constituted one third of the needs of Rome. Winter storms closed the Mediterranean shipping lanes for four months of the year so that grain had to be stored for considerable periods. On the radio, the authors discussed the problems that the Roman warehouses had to solve. The grain exerted a lot of lateral pressure. Humidity has to be less than 15% to keep grain from spoiling. Grain has to be kept below 60 degrees Fahrenheit to deter bugs. The Romans devised a standardized model for warehouses in the same way that Roman army camps and Roman roads were standardized. They had walls a yard thick with raised floors for circulation of air. One storehouse was about ten times as large as the Colosseum.