THE SMALL INSULE 

Not only lived in insulae, built almost all during the Empire, but most of the people lived in houses with two or more rarely three floors, allocating the ground floor generally, as in the insulae, to conduct one or more commercial activities , and others to homes of one or two families. Naturally, the more the area was central, the more the insulae were high because the most expensive land. The Palatine, the most luxurious district, had five-story buildings.