Page 19 - Urban water supply handbook

URBAN WATER INFRASTRUCTURE: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

1.18 HISTORY, PLANNING, OUTSOURCING

Syracuse. The karst areas of the Italian peninsula and Sicily are what interested
the Greek colonists during the archaic period. An excellent example of this was
the founding of Syracuse (on Sicily) as a colony of Corinth in 734 B.C. Among the
many things that transferred from the Corinthian culture, such as language, reli-
gion, government, and farming, was the water management. As Crouch (1993)
points out, “the transfer of knowledge about managing water was facilitated by the
similarity of geology and climate between the two sites.” During the eighth to first
century B.C., the knowledge of locating and collecting water was coupled with the
increasing knowledge of transporting both fresh and used water.
Figure 1.14 illustrates the water elements of Syracuse during the Greek times, and
Fig. 1.15 shows the later water elements during the Roman times along with further

FIGURE 1.14 Map of Syracuse during the Greek times showing the water elements. (Crouch,
1993)

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