The Ten Books on Architecture
cave with running water which makes people who drink of it abstemious.
At this spring, there is an epigram in Greek verses inscribed on stone
to the effect that the water is unsuitable for bathing, and also
injurious to vines, because it was at this spring that Melampus cleansed
the daughters of Proetus of their madness by sacrificial rites, and
restored those maidens to their former sound state of mind. The
inscription runs as written below:
Swain, if by noontide thirst thou art opprest
When with thy flocks to Cleitor's bounds thou'st hied,
Take from this fount a draught, and grant a rest
To all thy goats the water nymphs beside.
But bathe not in't when full of drunken cheer,
Lest the mere vapour may bring thee to bane;
Shun my vine-hating spring--Melampus here
From madness once washed Proetus' daughters sane,
And all th' offscouring here did hide, when they
From Argos came to rugged Arcady.
22. In the island of Zea is a spring of which those who thoughtlessly
drink lose their understanding, and an epigram is cut there to the
effect that a draught from the spring is delightful, but that he who
drinks will become dull as a stone. These are the verses:
This stone sweet streams of cooling drink doth drip,
But stone his wits become who doth it sip.
23. At Susa, the capital of the Persian kingdom, there is a little
spring, those who drink of which lose their teeth. An epigram is written
there, the significance of which is to this effect, that the water is
excellent for bathing, but that taken as drink, it knocks out the teeth
by the roots. The verses of this epigram are, in Greek, as follows:
Stranger, you see the waters of a spring
In which 'tis safe for men their hands to lave;
But if the weedy basin entering
You drink of its unpalatable wave,
Your grinders tumble out that self-same day
From jaws that orphaned sockets will display.
24. There are also in some places springs which have the peculiarity of
giving fine singing voices to the natives, as at Tarsus in Magnesia and
in other countries of that kind. Then there is Zama, an African city,
which King Juba fortified by enclosing it with a double wall, and he
established his royal residence there. Twenty miles from it is the
walled town of Ismuc, the lands belonging to which are marked off by a
marvellous kind of boundary. For although Africa was the mother and
nurse of wild animals, particularly serpents, yet not one is ever born
in the lands of that town, and if ever one is imported and put there, it
dies at once; and not only this, but if soil is taken from this spot to
another place, the same is true there. It is said that this kind of soil
is also found in the Balearic Islands. The above mentioned soil has a
still more wonderful property, of which I have learned in the following
way.
25. Caius Julius, Masinissa's son, who owned all the lands about that
town, served with Caesar the father. He was once my guest. Hence, in our
daily intercourse, we naturally talked of literary subjects. During a
conversation between us on the efficacy of water and its qualities, he
stated that there were springs in that country of a kind which caused
people born there to have fine singing voices, and that consequently
they always sent abroad and bought handsome lads and ripe girls, and
mated them, so that their progeny might have not only fine voices but
also beautiful forms.
26. This great variety in different things is a distribution due to
nature, for even the human body, which consists in part of the earthy,
contains many kinds of juices, such as blood, milk, sweat, urine, and
tears. If all this variation of flavours is found in a small portion of
the earthy, we should not be surprised to find in the great earth itself
countless varieties of juices, through the veins of which the water
runs, and becomes saturated with them before reaching the outlets of
springs. In this way, different varieties of springs of peculiar kinds
are produced, on account of diversity of situation, characteristics of
country, and dissimilar properties of soils.
27. Some of these things I have seen for myself, others I have found
written in Greek books, the authorities for these writings being
Theophrastus, Timaeus, Posidonius, Hegesias, Herodotus, Aristides, and
Metrodorus. These men with much attention and endless pains showed by
their writings that the peculiarities of sites, the properties of
waters, and the characteristics of countries are conditioned by the
inclination of the heaven. Following their investigations, I have set
down in this book what I thought sufficient about different kinds of
water, to make it easier, by means of these directions, for people to
pick out springs from which they can conduct the water in aqueducts for
the use of cities and towns.
28. For it is obvious that nothing in the world is so necessary for use
as water, seeing that any living creature can, if deprived of grain or
fruit or meat or fish, or any one of them, support life by using other
foodstuffs; but without water no animal nor any proper food can be
produced, kept in good condition, or prepared. Consequently we must
take great care and pains in searching for springs and selecting them,
keeping in view the health of mankind.
CHAPTER IV
TESTS OF GOOD WATER
1. Springs should be tested and proved in advance in the following ways.
If they run free and open, inspect and observe the physique of the
people who dwell in the vicinity before beginning to conduct the water,
and if their frames are strong, their complexions fresh, legs sound, and
eyes clear, the springs deserve complete approval. If it is a spring
just dug out, its water is excellent if it can be sprinkled into a
Corinthian vase or into any other sort made of good bronze without
leaving a spot on it. Again, if such water is boiled in a bronze
cauldron, afterwards left for a time, and then poured off without sand
or mud being found at the bottom of the cauldron, that water also will
have proved its excellence.
2. And if green vegetables cook quickly when put into a vessel of such
water and set over a fire, it will be a proof that the water is good and
wholesome. Likewise if the water in the spring is itself limpid and
clear, if there is no growth of moss or reeds where it spreads and
flows, and if its bed is not polluted by filth of any sort but has a
clean appearance, these signs indicate that the water is light and
wholesome in the highest degree.
CHAPTER V
LEVELLING AND LEVELLING INSTRUMENTS
1. I shall now treat of the ways in which water should be conducted to
dwellings and cities. First comes the method of taking the level.
Levelling is done either with dioptrae, or with water levels, or with
the chorobates, but it is done with greater accuracy by means of the
chorobates, because dioptrae and levels are deceptive. The chorobates is
a straightedge about twenty feet long. At the extremities it has legs,
made exactly alike and jointed on perpendicularly to the extremities of
the straightedge, and also crosspieces, fastened by tenons, connecting
the straightedge and the legs. These crosspieces have vertical lines
drawn upon them, and there are plumblines hanging from the straightedge
over each of the lines. When the straightedge is in position, and the
plumblines strike both the lines alike and at the same time, they show
that the instrument stands level.
2. But if the wind interposes, and constant motion prevents any definite
indication by the lines, then have a groove on the upper side, five feet
long, one digit wide, and a digit and a half deep, and pour water into
it. If the water comes up uniformly to the rims of the groove, it will
be known that the instrument is level. When the level is thus found by
means of the chorobates, the amount of fall will also be known.
3. Perhaps some reader of the works of Archimedes will say that there
can be no true levelling by means of water, because he holds that water
has not a level surface, but is of a spherical form, having its centre
at the centre of the earth. Still, whether water is plane or spherical,
it necessarily follows that when the straightedge is level, it will
support the water evenly at its extremities on the right and left, but
that if it slopes down at one end, the water at the higher end will not
reach the rim of the groove in the straightedge. For though the water,
wherever poured in, must have a swelling and curvature in the centre,
yet the extremities on the right and left must be on a level with each
other. A picture of the chorobates will be found drawn at the end of the
book. If there is to be a considerable fall, the conducting of the water
will be comparatively easy. But if the course is broken by depressions,
we must have recourse to substructures.
CHAPTER VI
AQUEDUCTS, WELLS, AND CISTERNS
1. There are three methods of conducting water, in channels through
masonry conduits, or in lead pipes, or in pipes of baked clay. If in
conduits, let the masonry be as solid as possible, and let the bed of
the channel have a gradient of not less than a quarter of an inch for
every hundred feet, and let the masonry structure be arched over, so
that the sun may not strike the water at all. When it has reached the
city, build a reservoir with a distribution tank in three compartments
connected with the reservoir to receive the water, and let the reservoir
have three pipes, one for each of the connecting tanks, so that when the
water runs over from the tanks at the ends, it may run into the one
between them.
2. From this central tank, pipes will be laid to all the basins and
fountains; from the second tank, to baths, so that they may yield an
annual income to the state; and from the third, to private houses, so
that water for public use will not run short; for people will be unable
to divert it if they have only their own supplies from headquarters.
This is the reason why I have made these divisions, and also in order
that individuals who take water into their houses may by their taxes
help to maintain the conducting of the water by the contractors.
3. If, however, there are hills between the city and the source of
supply, subterranean channels must be dug, and brought to a level at the
gradient mentioned above. If the bed is of tufa or other stone, let the
channel be cut in it; but if it is of earth or sand, there must be
vaulted masonry walls for the channel, and the water should thus be
conducted, with shafts built at every two hundred and forty feet.
4. But if the water is to be conducted in lead pipes, first build a
reservoir at the source; then, let the pipes have an interior area
corresponding to the amount of water, and lay these pipes from this
reservoir to the reservoir which is inside the city walls. The pipes
should be cast in lengths of at least ten feet. If they are hundreds,
they should weigh 1200 pounds each length; if eighties, 960 pounds; if
fifties, 600 pounds; forties, 480 pounds; thirties, 360 pounds;
twenties, 240 pounds; fifteens, 180 pounds; tens, 120 pounds; eights,
100 pounds; fives, 60 pounds. The pipes get the names of their sizes
from the width of the plates, taken in digits, before they are rolled
into tubes. Thus, when a pipe is made from a plate fifty digits in
width, it will be called a "fifty," and so on with the rest.
5. The conducting of the water through lead pipes is to be managed as
follows. If there is a regular fall from the source to the city, without
any intervening hills that are high enough to interrupt it, but with
depressions in it, then we must build substructures to bring it up to
the level as in the case of channels and conduits. If the distance round