Page 28 - Urban water supply handbook

URBAN WATER INFRASTRUCTURE: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

URBAN WATER INFRASTRUCTURE 1.27

was delivered through pipes (fistulae) made of either tile or lead. These pipes were
connected to the castellum by a fitting or nozzle (calix). These pipes were usually
placed below the ground level along major streets. See Garbrecht (1982), Evans
(1994), Robbins (1946), and Van Deman (1934) for additional reading on the water
supply of the City of Rome and of other locations in the Roman Empire.
To properly discuss Roman water supply we must at least be aware of the trea-
tises of Vitruvius (De Architectura) (Morgan, 1914) and Sextus Julius Frontinus
(De aqueaductu urbis Romae) (translation 1973). Vitruvius (84 B.C.) and Frontinus
(A.D. 40–103) did not contribute to the scientific development of hydraulics; how-
ever, the treatises that they authored do give us insight to the planning, construc-
tion, operation, and management of Roman hydraulic structures. The Greeks gave
us the great achievements in science, and the Romans gave us the great achieve-
ments in the improvement of technology.

1.3.1 Vitruvius and Frontinus
Vitruvius discussed the various elements of water supply in his book VIII, which
also is an interesting source for information on springs, the uses and quality of
water, and some of the techniques involved. In chapters 5 and 6 of book VIII,
Vitruvius addressed the quality of water is some of his passages.
Chapter 5:

20. Some springs appear to be mixed with wine; as that in Paphlagonia, which,
when taken, inebriate as wine.
21. In Arcadia, at the well-known city of Clitorium, is a cave flowing with water, of
which those who drink become abstemious.
22. There is also in the island of Chios, a fountain, of which those who imprudently
drink become foolish.
23. At Susa, the capital of Persia, there is a fountain, at which those who drink lose
their teeth.
24. The quality of the water, in some places, is such that it gives the people of the
country an excellent voice for singing, as at Tarsus, Magnesia, and other countries.
Chapter 6:

1. Water is conducted in three ways, either in streams by means of channels built
to convey it, in leaden pipes or in earthen tubes, according to the following
rules.…
10. Water conducted through earthen pipes is more wholesome than that through
lead; indeed that conveyed in lead must be injurious, because from it white lead
is obtained, and this is said to be injurious to the human system.
Frontinus was a retired army officer who, in A.D. 97 took over as director of the
Rome Metropolitan Waterworks. He declared the Roman aqueducts as the real mark
of civilized living. Rome was declared as the first civilization to set a proper priority
on decent sanitation and abundant drinking water. Actually drinking water was a by-
product of the aqueducts with the real purpose being to supply baths (Hauck, 1988).

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