Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a first-century-CE Greek historian, made the following remark in his book Roman Antiquities: ‘The extraordinary greatness of the Roman Empire manifests itself above all in three things: the aqueducts, the paved roads, and the construction of drains.’ These may seem very mundane aspects to eulogize, but had it not been for the infrastructure provided by aqueducts, bath complexes and sewers, many of Rome's achievements, among them the provision of health care, would not have been possible. The necessary infrastructure was made possible by the amazing level of architectural and technological knowledge of Roman engineers and their expertise in implementing the building plans.

Aqueducts

Aqueducts are, arguably, one of the most distinctive features of Roman civilization. In his famous book, The decline and fall of the Roman Empire, the eighteenth-century historian Edward Gibbon described aqueducts as ‘the noblest monuments of Roman genius and power’. Not only were they a symbol for everything Rome represented, they were also ‘conducive to the health […] of the meanest citizen’. This was already emphasized in the first century CE by the Roman Water Commissioner, Frontinus, when he compared the vital Roman aqueduct network with the ‘useless pyramids and the good-for-nothing tourist attractions of the Greeks’.

However, before proceeding to discuss these technological masterpieces, the bubble must be pricked to deflate some of the glory of the aqueducts. Archaeological excavations in North Africa during the past few decades have brought to light the fact that not many cities had aqueducts, yet thrived on water from traditional sources, such as wells, cisterns, reservoirs, rainwater tanks, and also from water drawn from the quanat, a characteristically Middle Eastern way of supplying water. Furthermore, little of the aqueduct water reached the ordinary citizen for domestic purposes: pipes from the aqueduct served only a restricted section of the urban centre, since water was mainly used for luxury consumption in prestige projects such as public baths, ornate fountains and the houses of the rich. Aqueducts, contrary to the quanat, were not necessary precursors to town development, but were mostly built belatedly after the city had already been established, as an indication of civic pride and an urbane Roman lifestyle (aqueduct building was ruinously expensive).