Minimum aqueduct dimensions were determined not by the water flow, but by the need for human access and maintenance. Hundreds of slaves were employed on a regular basis to maintain and refurbish the aqueducts Walker and Dart , 9. The expense of the workers as well as the cost of the materials was paid by the Emperor, but this was offset by revenues derived by selling water rights Frontinus , In the Republican period, aediles and censors seem to have been given the responsibility for constructing and maintaining the aqueducts and sewers.
Presumably this action was only taken in the cases of people who were stealing water from the aqueducts. Theft of water by diversion was common and flagrant Frontinus , Theft could occur through unauthorized hookups in the city, or by diversions in the countryside.
Legal water lines from the aqueducts to private properties could be obtained only by a grant from the Emperor. Presumably this favor was dispensed to curry political favor with powerful or wealthy individuals. The right to draw water directly from the public supply expired with the death of the grant holder. The inevitable accumulation of sinter had a benefit: it made the use of lead pipes fistulae practical and safe. Yet the Romans made wide use of lead pipes. Lead was relatively inexpensive, malleable, flexible, and strong.
If the water was hard, the interior of any lead pipe was soon insulated from contact with the water flowing through it by a layer of mineral deposits.
To the extent that Romans may have accumulated excessive amounts of lead in their bodies, it is unlikely that the source was lead water pipes Bruun , Pipes made of terracotta, stone, and wood were also used in Roman aqueducts and water supply. Wood was undoubtedly less durable than lead, but was often employed in smaller, isolated systems in the outer areas of the Roman Empire such as Germany Hodge , All water flow was by gravity. If the gradient of the topography was not uniform, dips and hummocks had to be overcome by bridges, viaducts, tunnels, or siphons.
Perhaps the most famous example of an aqueduct bridge is the Pont du Gard Figure 2 , an elegant structure that is a remarkable testament to the Roman ability to construct physical monuments that can withstand the ravages of time. The Roman aqueduct at Lyon includes a siphon consisting of nine lead pipes laid side by side extending over a combined length of The typical Roman lead pipe was about 0. In general, the Romans used lead pipes everywhere in their hydraulic engineering in vast quantities Hodge , The Silvae of Statius c.
AD 45 to 96 mentions a siphon pipe laid underneath the Anio River that supplied a villa owned by the patrician Manilius Vospiscus , Upon arriving at Rome, aqueduct water typically flowed into a castellum , or settling tank Rogers , From there, it was distributed through pipes Wilson , Flow through the pipes was controlled by the diameter of an ajutage or calix , a bronze nozzle that connected lead pipes to a castellum Hodge , to Frontinus records that there were 25 standardized sizes of ajutages Frontinus , Flow could be stopped or started with bronze stopcocks Wilson , The Roman unit of area was the quinaria.
One quinaria was a pipe 2. Frontinus reports water discharges in units of quinaria , This is dimensionally incorrect, as water flow must have units of length cubed per unit time, and a quinaria has dimensions of length squared. The Romans had no means of measuring or metering flow velocities Hodge , It seems that the Romans were not so much concerned with absolute volumetric discharges as relative discharges.
A pipe with twice the area would carry twice the amount of water in a given time if the head gradients and other factors were equal. Frontinus calculated the total discharge of all the aqueducts in Rome to be 14, quinaria , The enormous flux of water entering Rome daily implies the existence of a corresponding system of drains and sewers to channel waste water and overflow to the Tiber. Indeed, the chief sewer in Rome, the Cloaca Maxima , preceded construction of the first aqueduct by several hundred years Figure 3.
The Romans did not invent the sewer. But the Romans developed and improved earlier methods and enlarged the scale of such systems De Feo et al. Outlet of the Cloaca Maxima sewer in Rome as it appeared in Painting by Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg to , public domain. Rarely has a sewer been the subject of literary adoration. The work was difficult. So for several hundred years the sewer was simply an open canal crossed by bridges Hopkins , 9.
Most people in ancient Rome lived in insulae , apartment houses, rather than domus , private homes. Even Senators often rented rooms in apartment buildings Scobie , The poet Martial c. If a facility lacked a well or cistern, occupants had to draw their water from the closest public fountain. Although connecting to the public sewers was not illegal, there were technical problems.
Gas traps were unknown in Roman plumbing, and connection to a sewer would have exposed residential occupants to offensive odors and the risk of explosions from hydrogen sulfide and methane Scobie , Public toilets were commonly located near markets or baths and almost always connected to the city water system and sewers. Waste water from a bath or overflow from a fountain would have been ideal for flushing a public toilet Jansen and Van Vaerenbergh Like the baths, toilets could be ornate.
But very few private dwellings were connected to the public sewers Carcopino , 40; Scobie , At Pompeii, human waste was usually disposed of by dumping it in cesspits, simple holes in the ground located in rooms about a meter square Scobie , No latrines were flushed by water. When the cesspit reached a certain degree of fullness, the contents were evidently sold to manure merchants stercorarii who in turn peddled feces as agricultural fertilizer Wilson There is little evidence for the existence of private latrines at Rome.
The implication is that most people must have used the public facilities Scobie , Chamber pots were probably also used, and may have been emptied into the streets. The Romans were surely ignorant of the germ theory of disease, but knew empirically that water in the public baths was capable of inducing infection. In De Medicina , the physician Celsus c. Frontinus attributed greater health and cleanliness in Rome to increased aqueduct flow , Overflow was both deliberate and necessary.
Although the aqueduct system supplied ancient Rome with abundant fresh and flowing water, sanitary conditions in ancient Rome were nevertheless severely lacking by modern standards.
Ancient Romans evidently lacked a full comprehension of the dangers inherent in handling human waste. Contact with fecal matter placed residents at high risk for a variety of infectious and deadly diseases, as well as parasitic infection Scobie , Romans were subject to infection by whipworms, roundworms, the organism that causes dysentery, as well as fleas, head lice, body lice, pubic lice, and bed bugs Mitchell , The modern concept of hygiene dates from the middle nineteenth century Jansen From Roman times, sanitary conditions and life expectancy did not improve significantly until after the Industrial Revolution and the publication of Edwin Chadwick's to Sanitary Report in According to Procopius c.
By the early seventh century, only the Aqua Virgo was functioning with any reliability. Throughout the Middle Ages, Popes fought a losing battle to maintain and repair the aqueducts. The implication is that by this time, only four aqueducts continued to function. By the eleventh and twelfth centuries, references to functioning aqueducts had all but disappeared. By late medieval time, the only aqueduct functioning in Rome was the Aqua Virgo Rinne , But the process of restoration and revival began in earnest in the late sixteenth century Long The aqueduct terminated in the predecessor of the Trevi Fountain.
The Trevi Fountain Figure 4 was completed in , and it stands today as perhaps the most famous and beautiful fountain in the world Rinne , Trevi Fountain in Rome. Photo in by Livioandronico Although today we tend to associate the aqueducts of ancient Rome with the Roman prowess in civil engineering and monumental construction, the fact that most aqueducts drew their water from springs is a testament to the importance of groundwater in sustaining human civilization.
Groundwater remains a vital human resource today. As of , the US Geological Survey estimated that million people in the United States daily withdrew billion liters of groundwater for public and domestic water supply, irrigation, watering of livestock, aquaculture, mining, industrial purposes, and thermoelectric power Dieter et al. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Ground Water. Published online Nov David Deming. Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer.
David Deming, Email: ude. Corresponding author. Received Oct 21; Accepted Oct Groundwater published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. The Eighth Wonder of the World One of the earliest examples of the exploitation of groundwater to sustain human civilization is the aqueduct system of ancient Rome.
Predecessors The Romans were not the first to construct an aqueduct. The Aqueducts Water was important in Roman culture. Open in a separate window. Get help. Register your account. Forget Password. Friday, 12 November Italy's news in English.
Wanted in Rome. All Images of the day Video of the day. Classifieds categories. Main sections. See top classifieds categories. See all top Yellow Pages categories. See all news categories. See top What's on categories. Where to live in Rome. Home News Rome's ancient aqueducts. Altars of water: exploring the aqueducts of ancient Rome. Must-see museums in Rome This was the aqueduct that the barbarians sought to damage if not destroy.
Must see Italian movies Bread and circuses are one sine qua non whereby the empire might rise or fall; water is another. How to visit Galleria Borghese in Rome T he Aqua Alsietina built around 2 BC and sometimes called the Aqua Augusta, but not to be confused with the aqueduct of the same name in Naples — named after the Latin for Lake Martignano, which supplied the basin for spectacular naval battles naumachiae in Trastevere.
Aqua Claudia Next up, in the grandest sense of the preposition, is Aqua Claudia 38 AD , started under Caligula and finished under Claudius about 14 years later. Aqua Appia BC 2. Anio Vetus BC 3. Aqua Marcia BC 4. Aqua Tepula BC 5. Aqua Julia 33 BC 6. Aqua Virgo 19 BC 7. Aqua Alsietina 2 BC 8. Aqua Claudia 52 AD 9. Anio Novo 52 AD Aqua Traiana AD The Wanted Network. Rome areas all Rome areas Choose Latest news.
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This created the need for added structural support and reinforced arches. Settling was also an issue because of the mixed geological conditions surrounding Rome. A volcanic area with hardened lava flows and sedimentary rock created from volcanic ash is filled in with alluvial deposits from an ancient sea bed and the flood plains of the ever changing flow of the Tiber River.
The rock created a solid foundation in which to build large heavy structures but the alluvial deposits created soft areas of settling soil that were notorious for creating structural problems.
Abutments were added for lateral support and supporting arches for increased loads from additional aqueducts. Figure 15 below shows an abutment added to the Aqua Claudia and Anio Novio arches. It appears to have become spindly from settlement and the abutment supplies adequate lateral support to prevent sway and the inevitable topping over if unaltered.
Figure 16 has abutments, but the columns themselves have been altered to carry additional loads and a reinforcing arch has been added too.
This suggests that besides settling issues, the added load from the Anio Novus above the Claudia exceeded the structural capacity of the of the original arch and columns requiring added structural support. Repairs and renovations like this were common and can be seen in many of the remaining arches that can still be seen today. The information collected throughout this page was part of an exploration seminar hosted by the University of Washington, Engineering Rome.
A group of 17 students from varying science and engineering disciplines came to Rome for three weeks to study Roman engineering. I gathered information regarding the ancient aqueducts throughout the trip and have compiled my finding on this page. What you have not yet read is what you cannot find in a text book or journal article. Leaving the subway behind and walking through an urban neighborhood of cracked sidewalks, clothes flapping on clotheslines, and children playing ball in the streets, you come to a park.
A vast open space of picnic benches, trails, olive trees, and abandoned animal corrals under a cloudy sky with broken up arches climbing the scenery in the back ground, see figure As you approach the arches, there size becomes clear. Towering meters above your head, the complexity of their construction becomes clear. These structures are amazing. As you follow the path to the left, the arches become more connected and appear to gently slope downward.
You can touch the stone, feel the different textures between hard travertine, soft tufa, and even see areas of replaced blocks, see figure I noticed these red tufa blocks at the base of several columns in no particular order or section.
They appear to be either a replacement using a convenient material at the time of repair or just another material that was thrown in the mix during the original construction. Manufactured bricks from the medieval period can be seen in the abutments and reinforced arches in various spots.
These abutments have no pattern; some columns look like they originally had abutments or some sort of attachment to the side. Others have nothing, either because they are worn away or were never there. Walking through Aqueduct Park, you are allowed to interact and even climb on and into the aqueducts. You can feel the summer heat radiating through the stone. See the overgrown bushes trying to take over, and really get a feel for how much maintenance these structures required just from the elements, before the water is even considered.
Our group had a chance to explore the remains of the Aqua Claudia again in the cliffs beneath a monastery. This was a breath taking experience. Climbing down first through medieval cisterns, then exploring the bottom of wells still full of human remains disposed of during the plague, and finally down the cliffs overlooking an aqua green river passing rooms and chapels from the medieval times when monks lived in these carved spaces; graffiti can be seen carved into the soft walls dating back to at least the early 19th century from earlier explorers like ourselves.
Down further, along steep stairs that are soft with moist debris and mud, we finally make our way to a tunnel, the Aqua Marcia is right there for us to smell, touch, and even taste. The waterproofing cement on the walls are cool, despite the warm humid weather outside, and surprisingly smooth with a ceramic like feel when you touch them. The air is cool and moist. The ceiling meets this cement a quarter of the way down the walls, above is the soft sedimentary rock that has been chipped away exposes fossils from ancient times when the rock was a muddy floor to an ancient sea or lake.
Towards the floor, the sinter can still be seen, a remnant of the abandoned water left behind when these ducts were abandoned. It adds texture and color to darkened cement, with its rounded grooves and ridges leaving a yellowish green color along the floor. The floor is covered in fine sediment and rocks that have been knocked down from the surrounding walls and blown in with the weather. In places it is thick with dust, so thick you can taste it as you walk through it and it clings to the humid air.
The smell of moisture and animals linger as you pass through the winding tunnels into the dark. Light breaks through here and there, reminding you of the access tunnels required for maintenance and repairs and allowing the breath taking sights of the cliff side to become visible. Through one tunnel opening rewe came across two mountain goats, which we were made even more aware of when we passed further down the tunnel. The powdery sediment along the floor was replaced with thick layers goat excrement and the tunnel smelled strongly of goat urine and was getting stronger with each step.
Turning back to explore the remaining direction, we were surprised by a toad, hiding among the rocks deep within the tunnel. We came across a gap were the aqueduct had washed away and guided each other across the small ravine with a rope and some strong roots. We saw crosses painted along the walls in white paint and came across a diversion well, figure Bats flew through the tunnel brushing against us as they flew. They darted down the well making a spectacle of the hollow pit leading down into the mountain towards the Aqua Marcia below.
Grooves from the sluice gates could be seen were they slid large plate to prevent or allow the water to use the well.
Further down the tunnel, debris made it impossible to pass without shovels so we turned back. Our group explored underground mines as well, showing us the deep caverns under the hills of Rome.
These mines are inconspicuously dug throughout the city and have served the citizens throughout the ages, even as bomb shelters. The pools in these mines are beautiful and the water is pure enough to drink because it is filtered by the porous volcanic rock. The walls are scared with tool marks from excavation and nooks can be seen cut into the wall for ancient lanterns to light the workers way.
It is an amazing place to contemplate the labor required to remove stone for construction projects such as the aqueducts. We toured Roman houses uncovered near the Trevi Fountain, were castellums had been uncovered and how they distributed water out to surrounding rooms and buildings.
To see the same concrete mortar bulging along the seams of the floor in these tanks to waterproof the edges as was used in the aqueducts themselves was fascinating. The castellums used a much thicker caulking like technique, figure 3, than the thin shells in the aqueducts but for the same purpose. All of these experiences enhanced the understanding and applicability of the engineering concepts presented on this page.
I hope this section adds context to the scientific concepts explained previously and would like to thank our gracious host, the UW Rome Center, our wonderful guides from Roma Sotterranea, and our professor Dr.
Steve Muench. Aicher, P. Guide to the aqueducts of ancient rome. Anderson, M. Roman baths. Retrieved from hurri. Retrieved from dictionary. Hodge, A. McNoldy, B. Flow properties of horizontal rectangular channel hydraulic jumps. Muench, S. Rectors and Visitors of the University of Virginia.
Rome reborn. Retrieved from archive1. Republican rome and the republican forum. Roberson, J. Hydraulic Engineering. Roman aqueducts.
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