Page 55 - Urban water supply handbook

URBAN WATER INFRASTRUCTURE: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

1.54 HISTORY, PLANNING, OUTSOURCING

1.4.2 The Castellum Divisorium

The following quote from Vitruvius’s
treatise on architecture as translated by
Morgan (1914) describes how the aque-
duct castellum worked (as presented in
Evans, 1994):

When it (the water) has reached the
city, build a reservoir with a distribu-
tion tank in three compartments con-
nected with the reservoir to receive
the water, and let the reservoir have
three pipes, one for each of the con-
necting tanks, so that when the water
runs over from the tanks at the ends, it
may run into the one between them.
From this central tank, pipes will be
laid to all the basins and fountains;
from the second tank, to baths, so that
they yield an annual income to the
state; and from the third, to private
FIGURE 1.42 Downspout tile made of terra- houses, so that water for public use
cotta pipe draining to a cistern under a house will not run short; for people will be
in Pompeii. (Photo by Larry W. Mays and unable to divert it if they have only
copyright by Larry W. Mays) their own supplies from headquarters.
This is the reason why I have made
these divisions, and in order that indi-
viduals who take water into their houses may by their taxes help to maintain the con-
ducting of the water by the contractors.

This quote from Vitruvius’s treatise indicates that three pipes conveyed the
water, the first to pools (basins) and fountains (lacus et salientes), the second to
the public baths (balneae), and the third to private houses (privatae domus) for
revenue to maintain the aqueducts. Even though this has been repeated in the lit-
erature on Roman hydraulics and accepted as a canonical arrangement by many
scholars (see Hodge, 1992, and Evans, 1994, for references), it has been suggested
that Vitruvius’s treatise is somewhat in conflict with the actual practice in the
Roman world.
Frontinus’s treatise, De aquaeductu urbis Romae, written 100 years after
Vitruvius’s treatise, does not agree with Vitruvius’s writings. Frontinus recorded
247 castella in Rome suggesting that the geographic distribution by regions was
the arrangement used for the distribution systems. Unfortunately little remains
of these castella in Rome. The castellum divisorium was a relatively small tank
usually located at the edge of a city. Two of the most interesting castellums that
remain today are those at Pompeii in Italy and at Nîmes in France.

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