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Of the origin and early history of the famous writer on Aqueducts, Sextus Julius FRONTINUS, we know nothing. He was a soldier, governor, and eminent official under the Flavian Caesars, and under Nerva and Trajan. We first hear of him as Prætor of the city under Vespasian, A.D. 70; and four years later he was probably Consul. He distinguished himself as Governor of Britain by his conquest of the Silures of Wales. By Nerva he was appointed to the high office of Commissioner of the Water Supply of Rome, 97 A.D., and also to the great dignity of Augur, wherein he was succeeded by the younger Pliny. He died apparently about 106 A.D.
Frontinus wrote four books of anecdotes on the art of war; but his principal work is in two books on the Aqueducts of Rome, written about 100 A.D. This is an elaborate and exact treatise on the Roman system of aqueducts--a form of civic organization which they carried to a very high degree of perfection. Strabo, full as he is of Greek prejudices, tells us that the aqueduct was a form of engineering which the Greeks neglected, but which was introduced and carried to perfection by the Romans; and the younger Pliny declares that there was nothing more wonderful in the world than the Claudian Aqueduct, completed under the Emperor Claudius, in 50 A.D. The Greeks, with their moderate cities, mountainous country, and simple municipal organization, found their water supply in wells and natural springs; and even the great cities, such as Alexandria and Syracuse, were supplied by fountains or by canals bringing water from neighboring rivers. The aqueduct proper is a canal, carried at a high level, and on a gently inclined plane, from a pure supply at a great distance. This is a purely Roman invention, of great antiquity, and of universal application throughout the Roman Empire. It was once imagined that the Romans were ignorant of the art of carrying water by pipes over varying levels. But it is certain that they knew and used this expedient in its proper place. For the enormous volume of water required for the Roman standard of sanitary needs, the aqueduct was indispensable to bring over great distances what was practically a flowing river.
When Frontinus wrote, A.D. 100, nine aqueducts, carried to Rome a supply equal to that of a river 30 feet broad by 6 deep, flowing at the rate of about two miles per hour. Ultimately Rome had fourteen aqueducts. The oldest of all was the Aqua Appia, built by the famous Censor, Appius Claudius, B.C. 313, more than 400 years before the time of Frontinus. Some of these aqueducts were 40 and even 60 miles in length, and were stupendous constructions. Frontinus says, with just pride, that these vast works of public necessity far surpassed the useless pyramids of Egypt and the famous but vainglorious monuments of Greece. Great pains were taken by the Romans with the preservation of their aqueducts; the chief controller was an official of high rank and proved administrative capacity. A body of 460 slaves were employed as workmen on the constant task of repair.
It is a fact of profound significance that the Romans were the only people of antiquity who carried to the highest point this indispensable institution of civic life--the free supply of the purest spring water in unlimited and inexhaustible quantity.
Purchase books on Frontinus
| This biography is
reprinted from The New Calendar of Great Men. Ed. Frederic
Harrison. London: Macmillan and Co., 1920. |
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