Aqueducts and Urbanism in Post-Roman Hispania

Abstract

WATER AND CITIES IN THE ROMAN WORLDWhile aqueducts are the most easily recognisable elements of Roman water supply systems, they were not simply supplying drinking water, as it can be assumed from a modern perspective, nor were they the only ways in which cities and towns obtained water. The first water supply systemsThe dense habitation that characterises urban settlements has always made water supply a matter of concern for town dwellers -water is essential for life and, the more concentrated the population, the higher the stress on local hydric resources.Despite some badly founded claims that Sagunto had an aqueduct built by the Iberians before the Second Punic War (Civera Gómez 2004, and the existence of pre-Roman irrigation channels in Marroquíes Bajos and Martos (Sánchez López and Gozalbes Cravioto 2012), long distance urban water supplies arrived in the Peninsula with the Romans. Springs, wells, rainwater cisterns, and rivers were the only pre-aqueduct sources of water in towns; they continued to be so while aqueducts functioned, and after the aqueducts fell out of use. This is a common feature of all the urban or proto-urban settlements of pre-Roman Spain, as well as of the first Roman republican settlements.Springs are places where water flows naturally out of the ground, and Frontinus mentions them as one of the main sources of water in the city of Rome, especially because they were healthy and even curative (Aq., I.4). These springs also supplied the inhabitants of Rome after the aqueducts were cut during the Ostrogothic siege of 537 (Lib. Pont., LX.4.5).Intra-mural and peri-urban springs seem also to have been very common in Spanish towns, and even though there is little positive evidence for their use in Late Antiquity, it is very probable that they were used alongside aqueducts, and even more once these ceased to function.Wells (Hodge 1992, 50-3) are pits dug into the soil that reach the water table, and despite the procedures mentioned by Vitruvius (Arch., VIII.1.1-7) on how to find a good spot, it seems that well-digging was highly speculative. Because of their nature, in which water needs to be pulled out of the well, well-shafts need to be lined (with masonry, brickwork and even old barrels), lest they collapsed, and must have some sort of support to allow the

Assessing place‐based identities in the early Middle Ages: a proposal for post‐Roman Iberia

“…3), we have evidence for the construction of new public fountains in the fifth and sixth centuries. 33 In Valencia, Tarragona, and Barcelona episcopal complexes were built (perhaps not purely by chance) in the immediate vicinity of still-functioning fountains. 34 Water supply was an essential part of the understanding of the city, and preserving it was important at many different levels for urban communities.…”

“…71 Moreover, the maintenance of certain municipal and increasingly scarce structures, like aqueducts, may have been a similar source of civic pride. 72 There is also room to consider here coinminting as an example of urban self-presentation. Minting coins showed the economic vibrancy of a city.…”