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Aqueducts and their contents were protected by law and custom. The supply to public fountains took priority over the supply to public baths, and both took priority over supplies to wealthier, fee-paying private users. Some of the wealthiest citizens were given the right to a free supply, as a state honour. In cities and towns, clean run-off water from aqueducts supported high consumption industries such as [[fulling]] and [[dyeing]], and industries that employed water but consumed almost none, such as [[Watermill|mill]]ing. Used water and water surpluses fed ornamental and market gardens, and scoured the drains and public sewers. Unlicensed rural diversion of aqueduct water for agriculture was common during the growing season, but was seldom prosecuted as it helped keep food prices low; agriculture was the core of Rome's economy and wealth.<ref>Bannon, Cynthia. ''Gardens and Neighbors: Private Water Rights in Roman Italy''. University of Michigan Press, 2009, pp. 65–73</ref>
Rome's first aqueduct was built in 312 BC, and supplied a water fountain at the city's cattle market. By the 3rd century AD, the city had [[List of aqueducts in the city of Rome|eleven aqueducts]], sustaining a population of over a million in a water-extravagant economy; most of the water supplied the city's many public baths. Cities and towns throughout the Roman Empire emulated this model, and funded aqueducts as objects of public interest and civic pride, "an expensive yet necessary luxury to which all could, and did, aspire".<ref>Gargarin, M. and [[Elaine Fantham|Fantham, E.]] (editors). ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, Volume 1''. p. 145.</ref> Most Roman aqueducts proved reliable and durable; some were maintained into the [[early modern]] era, and a few are still partly in use. Methods of aqueduct surveying and construction are noted by [[Vitruvius]] in his work ''[[De architectura]]'' (1st century BC). The general [[Frontinus]] gives more detail in his [[De aquaeductu|official report]] on the problems, uses and abuses of Imperial Rome's public water supply. Notable examples of aqueduct architecture include the supporting piers of the [[Aqueduct of Segovia]], and the aqueduct-fed cisterns of [[Constantinople]].
==Background==
{{quote box
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By 145 BC, the city had again outgrown its combined supplies. An official commission found the aqueduct conduits decayed, their water depleted by leakage and illegal tapping. The praetor [[Quintus Marcius Rex (praetor 144 BC)|Quintus Marcius Rex]] restored them, and introduced a third, "more wholesome" supply, the [[Aqua Marcia]], Rome's longest aqueduct and high enough to supply the [[Capitoline Hill]]. As demand grew still further, more aqueducts were built, including the [[Aqua Tepula]] in 127 BC and the [[Aqua Julia]] in 33 BC.
Aqueduct building programmes in the city reached a peak in the Imperial Era; political credit and responsibility for provision of public water supplies passed from mutually competitive Republican political magnates to the emperors. Augustus' reign saw the building of the [[Aqua Virgo]], and the short [[Aqua Alsietina]]. The latter supplied [[Trastevere]] with large quantities of non-potable water for its gardens and was used to create an artificial lake for staged [[Naumachia|sea-fights]] to entertain the populace. [[Aqua Augusta (Rome)|Another short Augustan aqueduct]] supplemented the Aqua Marcia with water of "excellent quality".<ref name="Frontinus">The Aqua Alsietina was also known as "Aqua Augusta"; Frontinus distinguishes its "unwholesome" supply from the "sweet waters" of the Aqua Augusta that fed into the Aqua Marcia. On the one hand, he says the Naumachia's supply is "nowhere delivered for consumption by the people... [but the surplus is allowed] to the adjacent gardens and to private users for irrigation". On the other hand, "It is customary, however, in the district across the Tiber, in an emergency, whenever the bridges are undergoing repairs and the water supply is cut off from this side of the river, to draw from Alsietina to maintain the flow of the public fountains." Frontinus, ''The Aqueducts of Rome'' 1, 6–20.</ref> The emperor [[Caligula]] added or began two aqueducts completed by his successor [[Claudius]]; the 69 km (42.8 mile) [[Aqua Claudia]], which gave good quality water but failed on several occasions; and the [[Anio Novus]], highest of all Rome's aqueducts and one of the most reliable but prone to muddy, discoloured waters, particularly after rain, despite its use of settling tanks.<ref name="penelope.uchicago.edu">[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Frontinus/De_Aquis/
Most of Rome's aqueducts drew on various springs in the valley and highlands of the Anio, the modern river [[Aniene]], east of the Tiber. A complex system of aqueduct junctions, tributary feeds and distribution tanks supplied every part of the city.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.maquettes-historiques.net/P9.html|title=
By the late 3rd century AD, the city was supplied with water by eleven state-funded aqueducts. Their combined conduit length is estimated between 780 and a little over 800 km, of which approximately {{convert|47|km|abbr=on}} were carried above ground level, on masonry supports. Most of Rome's water was carried by four of these: the Aqua Anio Vetus, the Aqua Marcia, the Aqua Claudia and the Aqua Anio Novus. Modern estimates of the city's supply, based on Frontinus' own calculations in the late 1st century, range from a high of 1,000,000 m<sup>3</sup> per day to a more conservative 520,000–635,000 m<sup>3</sup> per day, supplying an estimated population of 1,000,000.<ref>Brun, (1991) p. 99; Brun, (2013), pp. 306–307; population estimate, Carcopino, (1940), p. 18, cited in Brun, (1991).</ref>
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Hundreds of aqueducts were built throughout the Roman Empire. Many of them have since collapsed or been destroyed, but a number of intact portions remain. The [[Zaghouan Aqueduct]], {{convert|92.5|km|abbr=on}} in length, was built in the 2nd century AD to supply [[Carthage]] (in modern [[Tunisia]]). Surviving provincial aqueduct bridges include the [[Pont du Gard]] in France and the [[Aqueduct of Segovia]] in Spain. The longest single conduit, at over 240 km, is associated with the [[Valens Aqueduct]] of Constantinople.<ref>Mango (1995) p. 17</ref> "The known system is at least two and half times the length of the longest recorded Roman aqueducts at Carthage and Cologne, but perhaps more significantly it represents one of the most outstanding surveying achievements of any pre-industrial society".<ref>[http://www.shca.ed.ac.uk/projects/longwalls/Water/context.htm Jelena Bogdanovic, Crow, J., (team leader), ''Historical and Archaeological Context Constantinople and the longest Roman aqueduct''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180929143631/http://www.shca.ed.ac.uk/projects/longwalls/Water/context.htm |date=2018-09-29 }} Accessed August 28, 2016.</ref> Rivalling this in terms of length and possibly equaling or exceeding it in cost and complexity, is provincial Italy's [[Aqua Augusta (Naples)|Aqua Augusta]]. It supplied a great number of luxury coastal holiday-villas belonging to Rome's rich and powerful, several commercial fresh-water fisheries, market-gardens, vineyards and at least eight cities, including the major ports at [[Naples]] and [[Misenum]]; sea voyages by traders and Rome's Republican and Imperial navies required copious on-board supplies of fresh water.<ref>Da Feo, G., and Napoli, R. M. A., "Historical development of the Augustan Aqueduct in Southern Italy: twenty centuries of works from Serino to Naples", in: ''Water Science & Technology Water Supply'', March 2007, pp. 131–133</ref>
Aqueducts were built to supply Roman military bases in Britain. The sites of permanent fortresses show traces of fountains and piped water, which were probably supplied by aqueducts from the Claudian period on. Permanent auxiliary forts were supplied by aqueducts from the Flavian period, possibly co-incident with the regular demand for dependable water supplies by provincial military settlements equipped with bathhouses, once these were introduced.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=G. R. Stephens |title=Military Aqueducts in Roman Britain |journal=Archaeological Journal |date=1985 |volume=142 |issue=1 |pages=216–236|doi=10.1080/00665983.1985.11021062 }}</ref>
==Planning, surveying and management==
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The plans for any public or private aqueduct had to be submitted to scrutiny by civil authorities. Permission was granted only if the proposal respected the water rights of other citizens. Inevitably, there would have been rancorous and interminable court cases between neighbours or local governments over competing claims to limited water supplies but on the whole, Roman communities took care to allocate shared water resources according to need. Planners preferred to build public aqueducts on public land ''([[ager publicus]])'', and to follow the shortest, unopposed, most economical route from source to destination. State purchase of privately owned land, or re-routing of planned courses to circumvent resistant or tenanted occupation, could significantly add to the aqueduct's eventual length, and thus to its cost.<ref>Bannon, Cynthia, ''Gardens and Neighbors: Private Water Rights in Roman Italy''. University of Michigan Press, 2009, pp. 5–10, 73</ref><ref name="Taylor, Rabun 2000, pp. 54-60">Taylor, Rabun, M., "Public Needs and Private Pleasures" in: ''Water Distribution, the Tiber River and the Urban Development of Ancient Rome'', (Studia Archaeologica), L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2000, pp. 54–60</ref>
On rural land, a protective "clear corridor" was marked out with boundary slabs (''[[cippi]]'') usually 15 feet each side of the channel, reducing to 5 feet each side for lead pipes and in built-up areas. The conduits, their foundations and superstructures, were property of the State or emperor. The corridors were public land, with public rights of way and clear access to the conduits for maintenance. Within the corridors, potential sources of damage to the conduits were forbidden, including new roadways that crossed over the conduit, new buildings, ploughing or planting, and living trees, unless entirely contained by a building. The harvesting of hay and grass for fodder was permitted.<ref name="Frontinus, Book 2, 128">https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Frontinus
After ''ager publicus'', minor, local roads and boundaries between adjacent private properties offered the least costly routes, though not always the most straightforward. Sometimes the State would purchase the whole of a property, mark out the intended course of the aqueduct, and resell the unused land to help mitigate the cost.<ref name="Frontinus, Book 2, 128"/> [[Roman funerary practices#Graves, tombs, and cemeteries|Graves and cemeteries, temples, shrines]] and other sacred places had to be respected; they were protected by law, and [[Roman funerary practices#Rural villas and estates|villa and farm cemeteries]] were often deliberately sited very close to public roadways and boundaries. Despite careful enquiries by planners, problems regarding shared ownership or uncertain legal status might emerge only during the physical construction. While surveyors could claim ancient right to use land once public, now private, for the good of the State, the land's current possessors could take out a legal counterclaim for compensation based on their long usage, productivity and improvements. They could also join forces with their neighbours to present a united legal front in seeking higher rates of compensation. Aqueduct planning "traversed a legal landscape at least as daunting as the physical one".<ref>Taylor, Rabun, M., "Public Needs and Private Pleasures" in: ''Water Distribution, the Tiber River and the Urban Development of Ancient Rome'', (Studia Archaeologica), L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2000, pp. 53–60</ref>
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Greek and Roman physicians were well aware of the association between stagnant or tainted waters and water-borne diseases, and held rainwater to be water's purest and healthiest form, followed by springs. Rome's public baths, ostensibly one of Rome's greatest contributions to the health of its inhabitants, were also instrumental in the spread of waterborne diseases. In his ''[[De Medicina]]'', the encyclopaedist [[Aulus Cornelius Celsus|Celsus]] warned that public bathing could induce [[gangrene]] in unhealed wounds.<ref>[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Celsus/2*.html Celsus ''De Medicina'', 2, 28.(Loeb)]</ref> Frontinus preferred a high rate of overflow in the aqueduct system because it led to greater cleanliness in the water supply, the sewers, and those who used them.
The [[Lead poisoning|adverse health effects of lead]] on those who mined and processed it were also well known. Ceramic pipes, unlike lead, left no taint in the water they carried, and were therefore preferred over lead for drinking water. In some parts of the Roman world, particularly in relatively isolated communities with localised water systems and limited availability of other, more costly materials, wooden pipes were commonly used; [[Pliny the elder|Pliny]] recommends water-pipes of [[pine]] and [[alder]] as particularly durable, when kept wet and buried. Examples revealed through archaeology include pipes of alder, clamped at their joints with oak, at [[Vindolanda]] fort<ref>[https://www.vindolanda.com/waterpipes Vindolanda Trust website] (accessed September 10, 2022)</ref> and pipes of alder in Germany.<!--Do not change to "Germania" without source confirmation--><ref>Deming, David, "The Aqueducts and Water Supply of Ancient Rome", ''The Groundwater Association'', Online version, Volume 58, issue 1, January/February 2020, 30 October 2019
===Conduits and gradients===
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Vitruvius describes the construction of siphons and the problems of blockage, blow-outs and venting at their lowest levels, where the pressures were greatest. Nonetheless, siphons were versatile and effective if well-built and well-maintained. A horizontal section of high-pressure siphon tubing in the [[Aqueduct of the Gier]] was ramped up on bridgework to clear a navigable river, using nine lead pipes in parallel, cased in concrete.<ref>The sense of ''venter'' as "belly" is apparent in Vitruvius 8.6: "if there be long valleys, and when it [the water] arrives at the bottom, let it be carried level by means of a low substruction as great a distance as possible; this is the part called the ''venter'', by the Greeks ''koilia''; when it arrives at the opposite acclivity, the water therein being but slightly swelled on account of the length of the venter, it may be directed upwards... Over the venter long stand pipes should be placed, by means of which, the violence of the air may escape. Thus, those who have to conduct water through leaden pipes, may by these rules, excellently regulate its descent, its circuit, the venter, and the compression of the air."[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius/8*.html Vitruvius, 8.6.5-6, trans Gwilt]</ref><ref>Mays, L., (Editor), ''Ancient Water Technologies'', Springer, 2010. p. 120.[https://books.google.com/books?id=AEzOzSZEAToC&dq=%22venter+bridge%22+Roman&pg=PA120]</ref> Modern [[hydraulics|hydraulic engineers]] use similar techniques to enable [[Sewerage|sewers]] and water pipes to cross depressions. At Romano-Gallic Arles, a minor branch of the main aqueduct supplied a local suburb via a lead siphon whose "belly" was laid across a riverbed, eliminating any need for supporting bridgework.<ref>Taylor, R. M., ''Public Needs and Private Pleasures: Water Distribution, the Tiber River and the Urban Development of Ancient Rome'', (Studia Archaeologica), L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2000, p. 31</ref>
Some aqueducts running through hilly regions employed a combination of arcades, plain conduits buried at ground level, and tunnels large enough to contain the conduit, its builders and maintenance workers. The builders of Campana's ''Aqua Augusta'' changed the water's orientation from an existing northerly watershed to a southerly watershed, establishing the new gradient using a 6 km tunnel, several shorter tunnels, and arcades, one of which was supported more or less at sea level by foundations on the sea bed at Misenum. ''En route'', it supplied several cities and many villas, using branch lines.
{{Clear}}
===Inspection and maintenance===
[[File:F 57 Aqueduc Jouy aux Arches Bassin collecteur.JPG|right|thumb|Catchment basin of the aqueduct of [[Metz]] in France. The single arched cover protects two channels; either one could be closed off, allowing repair while the other continued to provide at least partial supply.]]
Roman aqueducts required a comprehensive system of regular maintenance. On the standard, buried conduits, inspection and access points were provided at regular intervals, so that suspected blockages or leaks could be investigated with minimal disruption of the supply. Water lost through multiple, slight leaks in buried conduit walls could be hard to detect except by its fresh taste, unlike that of the natural groundwater.<ref>[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Frontinus/De_Aquis/Rodgers/2**.html#2.65 Frontinus, Book 2
Working patrols would have cleared algal fouling, repaired accidental breaches or accessible shoddy workmanship, cleared the conduits of gravel and other loose debris, and removed accretions of [[calcium carbonate]] (also known as [[travertine]]) in systems fed by [[hard water]] sources; modern research has found that quite apart from the narrowing of apertures, even slight roughening of the aqueduct's ideally smooth-mortared interior surface by travertine deposits could significantly reduce the water's velocity, and thus its rate of flow, by up to 1/4.<ref>Keenan-Jones, (2015) pp. 1–8</ref> Accretions within siphons could drastically reduce flow rates through their already narrow diameters, though some had sealed openings that might have been used as [[Drain rods|rodding eyes]], possibly using a pull-through device. In Rome, where a hard-water supply was the norm, mains pipework was shallowly buried beneath road kerbs, for ease of access; the accumulation of calcium carbonate in these pipes would have necessitated their frequent replacement.<ref>Taylor, R., M., ''Public Needs and Private Pleasures: Water Distribution, the Tiber River and the Urban Development of Ancient Rome'' (Studia Archaeologica), L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2000, pp. 30–33, for calcined accretions and replacement of pipework.</ref>
Full closure of any aqueduct for servicing would have been a rare event, kept as brief as possible, with repair shut-downs preferably made when water demand was lowest, during the winter months.<ref>Hodge, A. Trevor, ''Roman Aqueducts and Water Supply'', Duckworth Archaeology, 2002; debris and gravel, pp. 24−30, 275: calcium carbonate, pp. 2, 17, 98: apertures in pipes as possible rodding eyes, p. 38.</ref> The piped water supply could be selectively reduced or shut off at the ''castella'' when small or local repairs were needed, but substantial maintenance and repairs to the aqueduct conduit itself required the complete diversion of water at any point upstream, including the spring-head itself. Frontinus describes the use of temporary leaden conduits to carry the water past damaged stretches while repairs were made, with minimal loss of supply.<ref>[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Frontinus/De_Aquis/Rodgers/2**.html#2.124 Frontinus, 2:124
The [[Aqua Claudia]], most ambitious of the City of Rome's aqueducts, suffered at least two serious partial collapses over two centuries, one of them very soon after construction, and both probably due to a combination of shoddy workmanship, underinvestment, Imperial negligence, collateral damage through illicit outlets, natural ground tremors and damage by overwhelming seasonal floods originating upstream. Inscriptions claim that it was largely out of commission, and awaiting repair, for nine years prior to a restoration by [[Vespasian]] and another, later, by his son [[Titus]]. To many modern scholars, the delay seems implausibly long. It might well have been thought politic to stress the personal generosity of the new [[Flavian dynasty]], father and son, and exaggerate the negligence of their disgraced imperial predecessor, [[Nero]], whose rebuilding priorities after Rome's Great Fire were thought models of self-indulgent ambition.<ref>Coarelli, ''Rome and its environs'', 2007, p. 448</ref><ref>Dembskey, E. J., "The Aqua Claudia Interruption", ''Acta Classica'', 52 (2009), pp. 73–82, Published By: Classical Association of South Africa, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/24592485 Jstor, accessed 20 March 2021, subscription required]</ref><ref>Taylor, Rabun, M., "From Nero to Trajan" [chapter 6 in: ''Public Needs and Private Pleasures: Water Distribution, the Tiber River, and the Urban Development of Ancient Rome''], (Studia Archaeologica), L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2000, pp. 202–204</ref>
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===Distribution===
Aqueduct mains could be directly tapped, but they more usually fed into public distribution terminals, known as ''castellum aquae'' ("water castles"), which acted as settling tanks and cisterns and supplied various branches and spurs, via lead or ceramic pipes. These pipes were made in 25 different standardised diameters and were fitted with bronze stopcocks. The flow from each pipe (''calix'') could be fully or partly opened, or shut down, and its supply diverted if necessary to any other part of the system in which water-demand was, for the time being, outstripping supply. The free supply of water to public basins and drinking fountains was officially prioritised over the supply to the public baths, where a very small fee was charged to every bather, on behalf of the Roman people. The supply to basins and baths was in turn prioritised over the requirements of fee-paying private users.<ref>Prioritised public supply and private fees in [[Vitruvius]] ''de Architectura'', VIII, 6,
[[File:Robinet d'arrêt à boisseau romain en bronze.jpg|thumb|left|Roman stopcock, bronze. Uncertain date]]
[[Frontinus]] thought dishonest private users and corrupt state employees were responsible for most of the losses and outright thefts of water in Rome, and the worst damage to the aqueducts. His ''[[De aquaeductu]]'' can be read as a useful technical manual, a display of persuasive literary skills, and a warning to users and his own staff that if they stole water, they would be found out, because he had all the relevant, expert calculations to hand. He claimed to know not only how much was stolen, but how it was done.<ref name="Keenan-Jones, 2015 pp. 1-4">Keenan-Jones, (2015) pp. 1–4</ref> Tampering and fraud were indeed commonplace; methods included the fitting of unlicensed or additional outlets, some of them many miles outside the city, and the illegal widening of lead pipes. Any of this might involve the bribery or connivance of unscrupulous aqueduct officials or workers. Archaeological evidence confirms that some users drew an illegal supply but not the likely quantity involved, nor the likely combined effect on supply to the city as a whole. The measurement of allowances was basically flawed; officially approved lead pipes carried [[lead pipe inscription|inscriptions]] with information on the pipe's manufacturer, its fitter, and probably on its subscriber and their entitlement; but water allowance was measured in [[quinaria]] (cross-sectional area of the pipe) at the point of supply and no formula or physical device was employed to account for variations in velocity, rate of flow or actual usage.<ref>Hodge, A. Trevor, ''Roman Aqueducts and Water Supply'', Duckworth Archaeology, 2002, pp. 291−298, 305−311, and footnotes.</ref><ref>Only a single, damaged and probably corrupted MS copy of Frontinus' work has survived. Frontinus may have overemphasised the likely role of theft to shift attention from his own poor grasp of the problems involved in estimations of flow measurement and water loss. See Keenan-Jones, (2015), pp. 2–3</ref><ref>H B Evans, ''Water Distribution in Ancient Rome: The Evidence of Frontinus'', University of Michigan Press, 1997, pp. 41–43, 72.</ref> Brun, 1991, used lead pipe stamps to calculate a plausible water distribution as a percentage of the whole; 17% went to the emperor (including his gifts, grants and awards); 38% went to private individuals; and 45% went to the public at large, including public baths and fountains.<ref>Bruun, 1991, p. 63, pp. 100–103. Assuming a likely population of 600,000, Brunn also calculated that the system could provide ordinary Romans (those having no piped domestic supply) 67 litres of water daily ''per capita'', via drinking-water spouts.</ref>
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In the Republican era, aqueducts were planned, built and managed under authority of the [[Roman censor|censor]]s, or if no censor was in office, the [[aedile]]s. In the Imperial era, lifetime responsibility for water supplies passed to the emperors. Rome had no permanent central body to manage the aqueducts until Augustus created the office of water commissioner (''[[Curator Aquarum|curator aquarum]]''); this was a high status, high-profile Imperial appointment. In 97 AD, Frontinus, who had already had a distinguished career as consul, general and provincial governor, served both as consul and as ''curator aquarum'', under the emperor [[Nerva]].<ref>Hodge, A. Trevor, ''Roman Aqueducts and Water Supply'', Duckworth Archaeology, 2002, pp. 16–17: Frontinus served again as consul in 100</ref>
Particular sections of Campania's very long, complex, costly and politically sensitive ''Aqua Augusta'', constructed in the early days of the Augustan [[principate]] were supervised by wealthy, influential, local ''curatores''. They were drawn from local elites by the local electorate, or by Augustus himself. The entire network relied on just two mountain springs, shared with a river that supported freshwater fish, providing a free food source for all classes. The ''Augusta'' supplied eight or nine municipalities or cities and an unknown number of farms and villas, including bathhouses, via branch lines and sub-branch lines; its extremities were the naval port of [[Misenum]] and the merchant port of [[Puteoli]]. Its delivery is unlikely to have been wholly reliable, adequate or free from dispute. Competition would have been inevitable.
Under the emperor [[Claudius]], the City of Rome's contingent of imperial ''aquarii'' (aqueduct workers) comprised a ''familia aquarum'' of 460, both slave and free, funded through a combination of Imperial largesse and the water fees paid by private subscribers. The ''familia aquarum'' comprised "overseers, reservoir‐keepers, line‐walkers, pavers, plasterers, and other workmen"<ref>Frontinus, 83, quoted in Denning, David, "The Aqueducts and Water Supply of Ancient Rome", Ground Water, Wiley-Blackwell online open, 2020
==Uses==
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Rome's first aqueduct (312 BC) discharged at very low pressure and at a more-or-less constant rate in the city's main [[Forum Boarium|trading centre and cattle-market]], probably into a low-level, cascaded series of troughs or basins; the upper for household use, the lower for watering the livestock traded there. Most Romans would have filled buckets and storage jars at the basins and carried the water to their apartments; the better-off would have sent slaves to perform the same task. The outlet's elevation was too low to offer any city household or building a direct supply; the overflow drained into Rome's main sewer, and from there into the Tiber. Most inhabitants still relied on well water and rainwater. At this time, Rome had no [[Roman bath|public baths]]. The first was probably built in the next century, based on precursors in neighbouring [[Campania]]; a limited number of private baths and small, street-corner public baths would have had a private water supply, but once aqueduct water was brought to the city's higher elevations, large and well-appointed public baths and fountains were built throughout the city. Public baths and fountains became distinctive features of Roman civilization, and the baths, in particular, became important social centres.<ref>For the earliest likely development of Roman public bathing, see Fagan, Garrett T., ''Bathing in Public in the Roman World'', University of Michigan Press, 1999, pp. 42−44. [https://books.google.com/books?id=R6tz_TzSVkAC&q=Campania&pg=PA44 google books preview]</ref><ref>Hodge, A. Trevor, ''Roman Aqueducts and Water Supply'', Duckworth Archaeology, 2002, pp. 3, 5, 49.</ref>
The majority of urban Romans lived in multi-storeyed blocks of flats (''[[Insula (building)|insulae]]''). Some blocks offered water services, but only to tenants on the more expensive, lower floors; the other tenants would have drawn their water ''gratis'' from public fountains. During the Imperial era, lead production (mostly for pipes) became an Imperial monopoly, and the granting of rights to draw water for private use from state-funded aqueducts was made an imperial privilege.<ref>Taylor, R., M., ''Public Needs and Private Pleasures: Water Distribution, the Tiber River and the Urban Development of Ancient Rome'', (Studia Archaeologica), L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2000, pp. 85–86</ref> The provision of free, potable water to the general public became one among many gifts to the people of Rome from their emperor, paid for by him or by the state. In 33 BC, [[Marcus Agrippa]] built or subsidised 170 public bath-houses during his [[aedile]]ship.<ref>Fagan, ''Bathing in Public'', 1999, pp. 42−44. The number given by Pliny might not have referred to individual bath-houses, but to a donation of 170 baths to commoners, involving any number of bath-houses.</ref> In Frontinus's time (c. 40–103 AD), around 10% of Rome's aqueduct water was used to supply 591 public fountains,<ref name="Keenan-Jones, 2015 pp. 1-4"/> among which were 39 lavishly decorative fountains that Frontinus calls ''[[Munera (ancient Rome)|munera]]''.<ref>The relevant MS and print versions of Frontinus (1.3 and 1.78) are uncertain in meaning. See Aicher, Peter J., "Terminal Display Fountains ("Mostre") and the Aqueducts of Ancient Rome", ''Phoenix'', 47 (Winter, 1993), pp. 339–352, Classical Association of Canada, https://doi.org/10.2307/1088729 Stable URL https://www.jstor.https://doi.org/10.2307/1088729 (registration required
===Farming===
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[[File:Illustration from Views in the Ottoman Dominions by Luigi Mayer, digitally enhanced by rawpixel-com 6.jpg|thumb|Aqueduct arcade near Belgrade in [[Ottoman Serbia]], painted by [[Luigi Mayer]]]]
Farmland without a reliable summer water-source was virtually worthless. During the growing season,
A licensed right to use aqueduct water on farmland could lead to increased productivity, a cash income through the sale of surplus foodstuffs, and an increase in the value of the land itself. In the countryside, permissions to draw aqueduct water for irrigation were particularly hard to get; the exercise and abuse of such rights were subject to various known legal disputes and judgements, and at least one political campaign; in 184 BC [[Cato the Elder|Cato]] tried to block all unlawful rural outlets, especially those owned by the landed elite. This may be connected to Cato's diatribe as [[Roman censor|censor]] against the ex-consul [[Lucius Furius Purpureo]]: "Look how much he bought the land for, where he is channeling the water!"<ref>Bannon, Cynthia, ''Fresh Water in Roman Law: Rights and Policy'', Cambridge University Press, p. 219: 18 August 2017
Some landholders avoided such restrictions and entanglements by buying water access rights to distant springs, not necessarily on their own land. A few, of high wealth and status, built their own aqueducts to transport such water from source to field or villa; Mumius Niger Valerius Vegetus bought the rights to a spring and its water from his neighbour, and access rights to a corridor of intervening land, then built an aqueduct of just under 10 kilometres, connecting the springhead to his own villa.<ref>Bannon, ''Gardens and Neighbors'', 2009, p. 73</ref>
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[[File:Dolaucothimap2.jpg|thumb|300px|Map of the gold mine at [[Dolaucothi]], showing its aqueducts]]
[[File:Canal romano de Llamas.jpg|right|thumb|Rock-cut aqueduct feeding water to the mining site at [[Las Médulas]]]]
Some aqueducts supplied water to industrial sites, usually via an open channel cut into the ground, clay-lined or wood-shuttered to reduce water loss. Most such [[leat]]s were designed to operate at the steep gradients that could deliver the high water volumes needed in mining operations. Water was used in [[hydraulic mining]] to strip the overburden and expose the ore by [[hushing]], to fracture and wash away metal-bearing rock already heated and weakened by [[fire-setting]], and to power water-wheel driven [[Trip hammer#Greco-Roman world|stamps and trip-hammers]] that crushed ore for processing. Evidence of such leats and machines has been found at [[Dolaucothi]] in south-west [[Wales]].<ref>[[Andrew Wilson (classical archaeologist)|Wilson, Andrew]] (2002): "Machines, Power and the Ancient Economy", ''[[The Journal of Roman Studies]]'', Vol. 92, pp. 1–32 (21f.),
Mining sites, such as Dolaucothi and [[Las Medulas]] in north-west [[Spain]], show multiple aqueducts that fed water from local rivers to the mine head. The channels may have deteriorated rapidly, or become redundant as the nearby ore was exhausted. Las Medulas shows at least seven such leats, and Dolaucothi at least five. At Dolaucothi, the miners used holding reservoirs, as well as hushing tanks and sluice gates to control flow, and drop chutes were used for the diversion of water supplies. The remaining traces (see [[palimpsest]]) of such channels allows the mining sequence to be inferred.
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==Decline in use==
[[File:Eifelwasserleitung05.jpg|right|thumb|210px|A portion of the [[Eifel Aqueduct]], Germany, built in 80 AD. Its channel is narrowed by an accretion of [[calcium carbonate]], accumulated through lack of maintenance.]] During the [[fall of the Western Roman Empire]], some aqueducts were deliberately cut by enemies. In 537, during the [[
▲During the [[fall of the Western Roman Empire]], some aqueducts were deliberately cut by enemies. In 537, the [[Ostrogoths]] [[Siege of Rome (537–538)|laid siege to Rome]], and cut the aqueduct supply to the city, including the aqueduct-driven [[grist-mill]]s of the [[Janiculum]]. [[Belisarius]], defender of the city, had mills stationed on the Tiber instead, and blocked the conduits to prevent their use by the Ostrogoths as ways through the city defences. In time, some of the city's damaged aqueducts were partly restored, but the city's population was much reduced and impoverished. Most of the aqueducts gradually decayed for want of maintenance, creating swamps and marshes at their broken junctions. By the late medieval period, only the Aqua Virgo still gave a reliable supply to supplement Rome's general dependence on wells and rainwater cisterns.<ref>Deming, David, "Decay and Renaissance Revival": in ''The Aqueducts and Water Supply of Ancient Rome,'' The Groundwater Association, Online version, Volume 58, issue 1, January/February 2020, 30 October 2019 https://doi.org/10.1111/gwat.12958 (accessed April 26, 2021)</ref>
In the provinces, most aqueducts fell into disuse because of deteriorating Roman infrastructure and lack of maintenance, such as the Eifel aqueduct (''pictured right'').<!-- please retain this connection between text and pic --> Observations made by the Spaniard [[Pedro Tafur]], who visited Rome in 1436, reveal misunderstandings of the very nature of the Roman aqueducts:
{{blockquote|Through the middle of the city runs a river, which the Romans brought there with great labour and set in their midst, and this is the Tiber. They made a new bed for the river, so it is said, of lead, and channels at one and the other end of the city for its entrances and exits, both for watering horses and for other services convenient to the people, and anyone entering it at any other spot would be drowned.<ref>Pedro Tafur, ''Travels and Adventures (1435–1439)'', trans. Malcolm Letts, Harper & brothers, 1926. [http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/tafur.html#ch3 link to washington.edu]</ref>}}
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*Keenan-Jones, Duncan; Motta, Davide; Garcia, Marcelo H; Fouke, Bruce, W. "Travertine-based estimates of the amount of water supplied by ancient Rome's Anio Novus aqueduct", ''Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports'', Science Direct, Volume 3, September 2015, pp. 1–10 (accessed online January 30, 2021)
*Leveau, P. (1991). "Research on Roman Aqueducts in the Past Ten Years" in T. Hodge (ed.): ''Future Currents in Aqueduct Studies''. Leeds, UK, pp. 149–162.
*Lewis, P. R.; G. D. B. Jones (1970). "Roman gold-mining in north-west Spain". ''Journal of Roman Studies'' 60 :
*Lewis, P. R.; G. D. B. Jones (1969). "The Dolaucothi gold mines, I: the surface evidence". ''The Antiquaries Journal'', '''49''', no. 2:
*Mango, C. (1995). "The Water Supply of Constantinople". In C. Mango, G. Dagron, et al. (eds) ''Constantinople and its Hinterland.'' pp. 9–18. Aldershot.
*Martínez Jiménez, J. (2019). ''Aqueducts and Urbanism in post-Roman Hispania''. Gorgias Press.
*Matthews, Kenneth D. (1970). "[https://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/PDFs/13-1/Matthews.pdf Roman Aqueducts, Technical Aspects of their Construction]", in: ''Expedition'', Fall 1970 ([https://www.penn.museum/ www.penn.museum]), pp. 2–16
*[[John Henry Parker (writer)|Parker, J. H.]] (1876), ''[https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73752 The archæology of Rome, Part 8: The aqueducts]'' (1876). Oxford: James Parker and Co.
*Taylor, Rabun, M., "Public Needs and Private Pleasures", in: ''Water Distribution, the Tiber River and the Urban Development of Ancient Rome'', (Studia Archaeologica), L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2000.
*Taylor, Rabun, M., (2002), "[http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/waters/Journal2TaylorNew.pdf#page=16 Tiber River bridges and the development of the ancient city of Rome]", in ''The Waters of Rome'', 2, published online by virginia edu2,
*Tucci, Pier Luigi (2006). "Ideology and technology in Rome’s water supply: castella, the toponym AQVEDVCTIVM, and supply to the Palatine and Caelian hill". ''Journal of Roman Archaeology'' 19 :
==External links==
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[[Category:Roman aqueducts| ]]
[[Category:Ancient Roman architecture|Aqueduct]]
[[Category:Water]]
[[Category:History of construction]]
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