This paper explores the human side of Roman construction: the legal status, origins, working conditions, and social lives of laborers and organizers. Drawing on evidence from Rome, Ostia, and Mons Claudianus, it addresses collegium membership, social mobility, and occupational risks.

This paper examines the human side of the Roman building industry in an attempt to understand more about the lives of those individuals whose myriad actions resulted in the built environment of the Roman world. It concentrates mainly on those engaged directly in manual labour or in organising it, both during the construction process on site or in the production and transport of building materials, focusing primarily on Rome and Ostia but also making use of material from elsewhere in the empire, especially the granite quarries at Mons Claudianus in eastern Egypt. It examines the legal and social status of those involved, their origins, their involvement in the collegium of the fabri tignuarii, their relations outside of work, the possibility of social mobility, the conditions of labour, and the question of hazards and risks both physical and in terms of liability when things go wrong.