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Rome's savagery was matched by its size. When the Colosseum was built, Rome was a city of a million people and growing. Not until London of the 19th century would a city approach this size again.
What I think you'd notice if a time traveler went back, would be the smell, the noise, the dirt, the crowdedness. I think there would be lots of beggars, lots of signs of sickness, disease, lots of small children, it would be rather like Calcutta or Rio, crowded modern town, very poor, with these monumental buildings in the center, expressing the wealth and power of the empire.
Traffic was terrible, Julius Caesar forbade wheel traffic during the day, so people could move around which meant that at night, all these carts started going on these stone streets, and it was so noisy that you couldn't sleep.
To manage the problems of organizing such a huge concentration of people, Romans invented the science of urban planning. They invented cement, built gigantic public storehouses and installed citywide sewage systems. But their greatest achievement was the water supply.
The aqueducts of Rome reach 60 and 70 miles into the hills to guarantee a continual flow of fresh water into the city. That flow of fresh water are (have)provided enough water, gallons per person per day, that was not equaled by the City of Rome until the 1950s.
Along with millions of gallons of water, Romans consumed a staggering 8,000 tons of grain weekly. Supertankers, each carrying 1,000 tons of grain, crisscrossed the Mediterranean. They were the largest ships built until the Atlantic steamers of the 19th century. The City of Rome was the heart of an empire that stretched from Scotland to Syria. Never has the Western World been better organized or more united. In the year 100 AD, you could travel from Egypt to France on paved roads with only one currency and one passport in your pocket.
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