Roman Efficiency: A Water Supply
- In this letter Pliny is writing to the Emperor Trajan about the Sinopians lack of water. He tells Trajan that 16 miles away you can see a good and abundant water supply(videtur...ab sexto decimo miliario...)
- Pliny investigated the stability of the land, with his own money, and saw that it was soft enough to build an aqueduct, which was his initial plan to get water to Sinope.(...locus suspectus et mollis)
- Trajan replies by acknowledging the fact that Pliny checked the stability of the land(explora diligenter...quem suspectum habes)
- He also replies by agreeing that the Sinopians need a water supply(perducenda sit in coloniam Sinopensem)
- However Trajan says that the Sinopians should help in the construction of the aqueduct(modo ea viribus suis assequi potest...) so that they could have a healthy water supply.
Background Research:
- The first aqueduct called the Aqua Appia was built in 312 BC
- Aqueducts are stone channels that were built to solve sewage problems by carrying clean water to towns
- They had to be carefully constructed at different slopes in order to make sure the water wasn't coming into the town too fast
- Most Roman water system ran below the ground
Colleen, you misunderstood the land being soft. Pliny was mistrustful of soft land and for good reason. If you are going to build such a large structure, you'll want to make sure that the land can sustain it. He suspected that this land might be too soft. Trajan tells him to explore the land diligently.
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