The Genius Engineering of Roman Aqueducts

We have a tendency to think about the Roman Empire as hav­ing fall­en round 476 AD, however had issues gone a lit­tle dif­fer­ent­ly, it might have come to its finish a lot ear­li­er — earlier than it tech­ni­cal­ly started, in truth. Within the yr 44 BC, as an illustration, the assas­si­na­tion of Julius Cae­sar and the civ­il wars rag­ing throughout its ter­ri­to­ries made it appear as if the founder­ing Roman Repub­lic was about to go down and take Roman civ­i­liza­tion with it. It fell to 1 man to make sure that civ­i­liza­tion’s con­ti­nu­ity: “His title was Octa­vian, and he was Caesar’s undertake­ed son,” says sci­ence reporter Automobile­olyn Beans in the brand new Cod­ed Cham­bers video above. “At first, nobody anticipate­ed a lot from him,” however when he took con­trol, he set about rebuild­ing the empire “metropolis by metropolis” earlier than it had offi­cial­ly been declared one.

This ambi­tious undertaking of restora­tion neces­si­tat­ed an equal­ly ambi­tious shoring up of infra­struc­ture, no sin­gle examination­ple of which extra clear­ly rep­re­sents Roman engi­neer­ing prowess than the empire’s aque­ducts.

Utilizing as an examination­ple the sys­tem that fed town of Nemausus, or mod­ern-day Nîmes, Beans explains all that went into their con­struc­tion over nice lengths of chal­leng­ing ter­rain — no stage of which, in fact, ben­e­match­ed from mod­ern con­struc­tion tech­niques — with the assistance of Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Austin clas­si­cal archae­ol­o­gy professional­fes­sor Rabun Tay­lor. Probably the most primary activity for Rome’s engi­neers was to discourage­mine the prop­er slope of the aque­duc­t’s chan­nels: too steep, and the circulate­ing water might trigger dam­age; too flat, and it might cease earlier than attain­ing its des­ti­na­tion.

Sur­vey­ing the prospec­tive aque­duc­t’s route concerned such historical instruments because the diop­tra (used to estab­lish direc­tion and dis­tance over lengthy stretch­es of land), the gro­ma (for straight traces and proper angles between verify­factors), and the choro­bates (to verify if a sur­face was lev­el). Then con­struc­tion might start on a internet­work of underneath­floor tun­nels known as cuni­culi. The place dig­ging them proved unfea­si­ble, up went arcades, a few of which — just like the Pont du Gard in south­ern France, seen within the video — nonetheless stand in the present day. They achieve this thanks largely to their lime­stone bricks hav­ing been organized into arch­es, whose geom­e­attempt directs ten­sion in a approach that enables the stone to sup­port itself, with no mason­ry required. When water started run­ning by means of an aque­duct and into town, it could then be dis­trib­uted to the gar­dens, foun­tains, ther­mae, and else­the place — by means of con­duit pipes that hap­pened to be product of lead, however then, even essentially the most bril­liant Roman engi­neers might­n’t fore­see each prob­lem.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Did Roman Aque­ducts Work?: The Most Impres­sive Obtain­ment of Historical Rome’s Infra­struc­ture, Defined

The Superior Tech­nol­o­gy of Historical Rome: Auto­mat­ic Doorways, Water Clocks, Vend­ing Machines & Extra

Constructed to Final: How Historical Roman Bridges Can Nonetheless With­stand the Weight of Mod­ern Automobiles & Vans

The Amaz­ing Engi­neer­ing of Roman Baths

The Mys­tery Closing­ly Solved: Why Has Roman Con­crete Been So Sturdy?

Primarily based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His tasks embrace the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the guide The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll by means of Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social internet­work for­mer­ly often known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.