Proceedings

of the Tomsk Technological Institute

of Emperor Nicholas II

Vol. 13. 1909. No. 1.

II.

Ya. I. Nikolin,

Historical Outline of the Development of Urban Sewerage.

Section I. The Ancient World.

1–62.

INTRODUCTION.

Every science, every art may be considered and expounded from various points of view. On the one hand, the scientific theories on which they are based may be investigated; on the other, their present state and the degree of development they have attained may be studied; finally, the subject of study may be their historical development, i.e., the process by which they have arrived at their present state.

Different views are possible as to the necessity, in the application to one or another circle of persons, of studying a science or an art from each of these points of view. But the usefulness in general of such a comprehensive study cannot be doubted, nor can there be any doubt of its necessity for obtaining a perfectly complete and clear conception of the subject.

From this point of view, the study of every science and every art in its historical development is, in my opinion, a necessary constituent part of higher specialized education.

Comparing the exposition of the present state of a science with the exposition of its historical development, and translating this comparison into the technical language familiar to us, one may say that one method of expounding a science is a horizontal section of the science, embracing the present; the other is a vertical section, passing through the entire process of development and disappearing into infinity. For completeness and clarity of conception of a science, both sections, both methods of consideration, are necessary.

Applying this conclusion to one of the branches of technical science, to the branch of urban sewerage, one cannot but recognize a historical outline of the development of sewerage as undoubtedly useful for engineers: as a supplement to the facts of the present state of the science, as a means of augmenting technical knowledge, and as a key to the development of a technical-historical perspective in this field of knowledge.

But, in addition, the history of the development of sewerage, as part of the history of Sanitary Engineering, may also be of interest from another point of view. The fact is that, when the development of Sanitary Engineering among a given people or in a given historical period is considered in connection with the general cultural development of that people or period, a strict, consistent, and quite instructive parallel emerges. From this point of view the history of Sanitary Engineering, including the history of sewerage, may be interesting and useful as a part, as one of the numerous facets of the history of culture. Thus it may be of considerable interest not only to the engineer, but also to the archaeologist, the historian, and, in general, to every inquisitive person.

Be that as it may, one cannot fail to recognize as interesting and useful a consecutive exposition of the facts of the historical development of urban sewerage.

Unfortunately, neither in Russian nor, apparently, in foreign literature is there a single work devoted specifically to this question. There is, of course, a certain amount of fragmentary material on the history of sewerage. But this material is so scattered, scanty, and sometimes contradictory that one has to compare a whole series of separate passages from works on sewerage and on other branches of science in order to reconstruct a more or less complete picture. The existing attempts at a more or less consecutive exposition of the history of sewerage in connection with the history of water supply, unfortunately, suffer from brevity and incompleteness with regard to the former branch; and in general such a combination is to the detriment of sewerage. The greatest amount of space is always devoted to the history of water supply (since the literature on this question is more extensive, more accessible, and perhaps somewhat more engaging at first glance), as a result of which the history of sewerage is assigned a secondary place, and it is completely hidden behind the mass of information on the other branch, without producing an integral impression.

Such a combined exposition, still applicable to more or less remote periods, is especially inconvenient with respect to the history of the most recent times. In this latter period the application of both water supply and sewerage has assumed such proportions that a parallel exposition of the facts from both branches of Sanitary Engineering is impossible without detriment to the coherence of the picture of the development of both the one and the other.

In view of these considerations, I, being chiefly concerned with questions of sewerage, have turned my attention to the existing gap in

Russian technical literature, and I should like, through consistent work, to help fill it. With this aim I have taken up, with deep interest, the gathering of literary information on the question of the history of the development of sewerage and the removal of wastes in cities.

When, in 1906, I began lecturing on the course in urban sewerage at the Civil-Engineering Department of the Tomsk Technological Institute, I chose as the subject of my public introductory lecture precisely a historical outline of the development of sewerage. In that lecture I presented, in brief extract, the material at my disposal, and had occasion to convince myself that the history of sewerage can arouse interest, and not only among specialists.

This circumstance gave me the thought, without abandoning the work of collecting materials for a fuller future treatment of the history of sewerage, to print the lecture I had delivered, with certain additions, in a technical periodical. The present article is the execution of that intention.

I venture to think that the “Historical Outline of the Development of Urban Sewerage” offered to readers, despite all the shortcomings that it may have as the first stage of my work, may nevertheless be of interest both to technical specialists and to persons merely curious about the process of the development of human culture in its various manifestations.

In view of my continuing work on this same question, I should like persons interested in the matter not to refuse me their comments and, in particular, communications concerning materials related to this subject.

In conclusion, I shall allow myself to explain in a few words the system of presentation adopted in the present historical outline.

First of all, it naturally divides in sequential order into sections corresponding to historical periods: the Ancient World, the Middle Ages, the Modern Era, and the nineteenth century. The sections are divided into parts, each of which is devoted to a separate cultured people or to a group of peoples closely related in culture. As for the content of the individual parts, the exposition is each time divided into two parts corresponding to the two elements that participated in parallel in the historical development of sewerage.

In speaking of the development of sewerage among one people or another, one must distinguish, on the one hand, development in the concrete sense of the word, i.e., the number and growth of applications of sewerage; on the other hand, development in the abstract sense, i.e., the level of the art,

expressed in the sewerage structures of the epoch; the breadth and depth of the knowledge that provides the foundation for this art; and finally, at the higher stages of development, the extent and merit of the literature reflecting the science and art of the epoch as applied to sewerage.

In the present article, I have tried, with regard to each period and nationality, to divide and note both aspects of the process of development. Thus, each part of the exposition relating to a separate epoch or nationality falls into two elements. One of them is devoted to information on the existence of sewerage structures in the epoch; the other, to the growth of the knowledge and art expressed in these structures.

MATERIALS:

Bechmann. Salubrité urbaine. Distribution d’eau.

Bechmann. Salubrité urbaine. Assainissement.

Burr. Ancient and modern Engineering.

Büsing. Die Städtereinigung.

Weil. Handbuch der Hygiene.

Wéry. Assainissement des villes.

Wood. Sanitary Engineering.

Hecker. Die grossen Volkskrankheiten des Mittelalters.

Hirsch. Handbuch der historisch-geographischen Pathologie.

Hueppe. Handbuch des Hygiene.

Dunckelberg. The technique of purifying the waste waters of industrial establishments.

Salomon. Die städtische Abwässerbeseitigung in Deutschland.

Lombardini. Guida allo studio dell’ idrologia fluviale e dell’ idraulica pratica.

Merckel. Die Ingenieurtechnik in Alterthum.

Mille. Sur le mode de l’assainissement des villes en Angleterre et en Ecosse.

Marchetti. Sull’aque di Roma.

Popov, M. A. Runoff abroad and in Russia.

Popov, M. A. The art of improving the sanitation of cities.

Ramée. Histoire générale de l’ Architecture.

Richter. Die Cloaca maxima in Rom. Antike Denkmäler herausg. von Kaiserl. Deutsch. Arch. Inst. Bd. I, Berl. 1889.

Timonov, V. E. Water supply and drains.

Proceedings of the Russian Water-Supply Congresses.

Finkelberg. Geschichtliche Entwickelung und Organisation der öffentlichen Gesundheitspflege in der Kulturstaaten.

Khlopin. Hygiene and sanitation from a historical point of view.

Ziller. Ueber die antiken Wasserleitungen Athens. Mitth. Arch. Inst. Athen. Bd. 1892—94.

Chizhov, N. K. Urban sewerage.

Choisy. Histoire de l’architecture.

Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary.

Erismann, F. F. Course of Hygiene.

I.

I have already said once that the history of sewerage is a part of the history of culture. And indeed, the history of sewerage begins simultaneously with the most ancient information about the cultural life of mankind that has come down to us. The very use of sewerage belongs to prehistoric antiquity. We do not know when the first sewerage structures were built. But we can ascertain the presence of such structures in most of the largest settlements of the ancient world. This shows that the importance of sanitary measures and sanitary-engineering works became known to ancient peoples very early.

Many of the sewerage structures of antiquity were distinguished by such dimensions and such perfection of execution that they aroused the just astonishment and pride of contemporaries and were mentioned by contemporary writers as wonders of the world. Some of these structures have survived, to a greater or lesser extent, to our time, outliving the destruction of monuments no less grandiose but not so useful. But most of them, of course, either have been destroyed or, perhaps more often, lie buried in the depths of the ruins of the vanished cities of antiquity.

Fortunately, in order to clarify the fate of sewerage in ancient times, besides the existence of those structures that have survived to our time, we have other sources, although very imperfect for the present purpose, yet still providing some material. Such sources are, first, the remains of the literature of ancient peoples that have come down to us, and second, the excavations of ancient cities begun in our time.

In the descriptions of the cities of antiquity that have come down to us, the existence of sewerage structures is not infrequently indicated. Such indications, unfortunately, are not as numerous as would be desirable, and moreover they are usually extremely brief and imprecise. This is very simply explained by the fact that this aspect of affairs attracted very little attention from writers. They spoke of it

only when the structures struck them by the grandeur of their dimensions or by the peculiarities of their execution. The smaller, more ordinary elements of sewerage, unfortunately, did not attract the attention of ancient authors, down to the Roman writers who were engineers by specialty. Therefore the details relating to the construction of sewerage systems very often remain unclear to us. To supplement the evidence in this respect, excavations of ancient cities help to some extent. But here, too, we encounter certain obstacles. First, sewerage structures, by their very nature, are found in the very depths of the excavations, beneath the soil of the ancient city, where they are rarely reached; secondly, these structures are never the object of excavations and do not always receive due attention. All this shows that the restoration of the setting of ancient sewerage systems is placed in very difficult and unfavorable conditions.

Be that as it may, we have data on the existence of sewerage systems in antiquity for almost all countries that were subjected to more or less detailed description by ancient writers or to modern archaeological investigation. Thus, for the peoples of Asia, we have such data with regard to Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Palestine, and India; for the peoples of Africa—with regard to Egypt and Carthage; finally, the most cultured peoples of ancient Europe, the Greeks and Romans, had, as will be indicated below, a whole series of very advanced sewerage installations.

At the same time it must be pointed out in passing that the character of sewerage in antiquity was somewhat different from that of our own time.

In the ancient world we find the presence of both municipal and domestic sewerage, although, as we shall see below, both the one and the other were not developed broadly enough, and were usually created independently of one another.

The peculiarities of the sanitary-engineering arrangements of the ancient world begin with the methods of domestic removal of wastes. The use of water for the purpose of carrying away impurities was, for the ancient world (with the exception, however, of India), completely unknown for a very long time, and even in the very late period, during the Roman Empire, appeared as a rare and exceptional phenomenon. Thus, domestic sewerage in the modern sense of the word, one may say, did not exist in the ancient world.

There is nothing surprising in this if one takes into account that among the ancient peoples there usually did not exist even those do—

…fixtures which among us are considered a necessity for every urban house. Among the cultured peoples of antiquity, the arrangement of privies was replaced by the collection of excrement in pots or vessels of similar form, made of clay or metal, which were placed in a more remote part of the house. These vessels were emptied, in the absence of sewerage, in cattle sheds and stables, and the refuse was periodically carted away together with manure; where sewerage existed and permission was granted to discharge impurities into it (if such permission was given; otherwise, according to Juvenal, even without permission), they were carried out by hand and poured into the sewer inlets. Special privies were unknown (likewise, except in India) for a very long period, and later were used only in exceptionally wealthy houses.

The collection of filth and refuse in cesspools and rubbish pits also appears to have been entirely unknown to antiquity, and began to spread only in the Middle Ages. With regard to household refuse, the practice was to throw it into the cattle sheds and cart it away together with manure.

The collection and removal of solid street refuse by public means was practiced in the best period of the great cities, for example, Rome. There are known, among other things, instances of the use of incineration for the destruction of solid refuse.

Under such a system of sanitation, house sewerage in the cities of the ancient world could be used only in the sense of carrying off the waters of courtyard basins and fountains, directly or after domestic use (after passing through baths, kitchens, and often after watering gardens), into the nearest stream or thalweg, or into the municipal sewerage system. Such sewerage was ordinarily installed not in ordinary houses, but in palaces, public buildings, and the dwellings of wealthy people. Since such buildings, owing to the peculiarities of their purpose, the character of the social structure of the epoch, and the manner of construction, occupied much space and comprised a whole series of separate living quarters, courtyards, and gardens, sometimes reaching the dimensions of an entire part of a city, their sewerage can with difficulty be brought under the term “house sewerage,” and should rather be called estate or district sewerage. Such sewerage usually developed quite independently of the municipal sewerage system and probably represented the most frequently encountered type. At the very least, it could exist, and in fact did exist, in cities that had no street sewerage at all.

We see that the ancient world had its own type of household sewerage, although incomplete, yet corresponding to the peculiarities of the way of life of that time. Unfortunately, sewerage of this kind was applied only to buildings of special importance or to the dwellings of especially wealthy people; it served as a luxury for the chosen, and not as a pressing necessity for all. In this, however, there is nothing surprising, since the construction of sanitary-engineering works, with the technical means available to the ancients, required very great resources and was within the power only of the state or of persons possessing a large quantity of free or cheap labor.

The comparative rarity of the use of household sewerage was reflected, among other things, in urban sewerage in the sense that the latter, apparently, was never built in the ancient world for the purpose of receiving the waters of household sewers, but developed quite independently of them, under the influence only of the needs of improving streets or, in general, the territory of the city. If we do repeatedly encounter examples of the discharge of household waters into existing urban sewers, this amounts to no more than the incidental use of an already completed sewerage system by nearby estates.

The sewers of ancient cities were intended chiefly for the removal of surface atmospheric waters from the streets. Often, in part or even predominantly, other aims were also associated with this: the drainage of the city by lowering the level of groundwater, the passage of surplus river waters during floods, and so forth. In general it must be said that this was a type of sewerage which, in a more or less developed form, is still found today in small towns favorably situated for this purpose—a type that may be characterized by the term street sewerage.

Owing to the feature indicated above, ancient urban sewers were rarely built as they are now: rapidly, according to a definite plan, for a special purpose designated at the given moment. Ancient sewerage usually developed in a more or less spontaneous manner. Initially it consisted of a series of open ditches conveying atmospheric waters into an equally open natural watercourse or thalweg. Since, with the passage of time, on the one hand the thalweg was eroded, and on the other it became clogged and polluted, the thalweg was lined, covered over, and converted into a closed collector. Later, following its example, secondary ditches began to be covered over and new closed discharge ditches were built. In this way a closed combined sewerage system was obtained, used—

intended only for the discharge of atmospheric waters alone and, in part, of ground waters.

Since urban sewerage of this type was not intended for direct use by the population of the city for the purpose of discharging household waters, it naturally did not have a large number of small branches that would entitle it to be called a sewerage network, and in general it did not extend over the entire area of the city. Since, moreover, the cost of constructing such sewerage was very high, we encounter it in a sufficiently developed form only in former world capitals. Cities of lesser importance usually limited themselves to a small number of individual drains.

From the foregoing we see that, as applied to the cities of the ancient world, we may distinguish three types of sewerage: house sewerage, or more properly estate sewerage, intended for the discharge of household waters and existing independently of urban (street) sewerage; urban sewerage intended for the discharge of atmospheric waters and, sometimes incidentally, of ground and river waters; and urban sewerage built for the same purpose, but in the course of time also serving to receive the wastewater of adjoining estates.

As for, finally, the purification of wastewater, the absence of direct pollution of wastewater by impurities (as well as insufficient awareness of the harmfulness of wastewater) gave the inhabitants of ancient cities no reason to refrain from discharging these waters directly into rivers, without preliminary treatment. However, the rudiments of treatment and utilization of wastewater by the agronomic method are encountered by us repeatedly in applications to the sewerage of buildings and, in partial form, of cities.

In the introduction it was indicated that, in characterizing the state of sewerage in one epoch or another, one must bear in mind, in addition to the presence and growth of applications of sewerage, also the development of the art and knowledge expressed in sewerage applications. In this respect it is also necessary to note certain features of the ancient world in comparison with the present day.

With regard to the technical art of the ancient peoples, insofar as it was expressed in the construction of sewerage works, it must be said that in some cases it appears to have risen to a high degree of perfection. The presence of such art compels one to suppose—and literary sources confirm—that the builders of ancient sewerage works possessed a considerable store—

technical knowledge in the fields pertaining to the matter, i.e. in hydraulic engineering, in applied hydraulics, in the selection and processing of building materials, etc. On the other hand, the initiators of sanitary-technical structures, administrators, and administrative bodies undoubtedly possessed the corresponding concepts in the field of hygiene and sanitation. But the extensive knowledge of these honored figures of antiquity was of a purely empirical character. This knowledge, born, of course, of an enormous series of observations and practical experiments, had not yet led, to any more or less significant degree, to scientific generalizations and conclusions. There was art, there was knowledge, but there was as yet no theoretical science. It only began to take shape at the end of the epoch of which we are speaking. This applies especially, of course, to technical science.

As for technical literature, individual elements setting forth facts of a technical character are, of course, encountered incidentally in the works of ancient authors of many epochs. But, if one does not count suppositions about the existence of technical writings among Egyptian authors, technical literature proper, in the form of complete treatises on the art of building and sanitary technology, some of which have come down to us, goes back to the last centuries of the ancient world, when Rome produced two remarkable writer-engineers.

Having thus given a brief characterization of the general state of sewerage in the ancient world, we turn to an account of the information on its development among individual peoples. In doing so, guided approximately by the sequence of cultural development, we shall begin with the cultured peoples of the Ancient East, Africa and Asia, and then proceed to the peoples of Europe, the Greeks and the Romans.

II.

The history of the culture of ancient Egypt is usually divided into five periods: of these, three are periods of independent culture—the Memphite (from 5004 to 3064 B.C.), the Theban (from 3064 to 1110 B.C.), the Saite (from 1110 to 332 B.C.)—and two are periods of culture distinguished by sharply expressed foreign influence: the Greco-Egyptian period (from 332 to 30 B.C.) and the period of Roman rule (from 30 B.C. to the fall of the Roman Empire).

From the point of view of the development of sewerage in Egypt, it is sufficiently precise to divide it into two periods. To the first, corresponding to all three periods of independent culture, belong the ancient

sewerage of the cities of inner Egypt; to the second must be assigned the sewerage of Alexandria, created during the reign of the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Information on the sewerage of ancient Egyptian cities, unfortunately, is extremely scant. The sources for it are, first of all, references in the works of ancient writers, especially Herodotus, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and others. Further, some information is provided by Egyptian inscriptions and manuscripts discovered and deciphered in the last century. Finally, this material is supplemented by the results of excavations at the sites of ancient cities, carried out in that same last century by a number of European scholars: Mariette, Champollion, Lepsius, Dümichen, Flinders Petrie, and others. On the basis of this evidence one may say, first of all, that sewerage in Egypt was widely developed in general, but that it was predominantly agronomic sewerage, intended for irrigating fields with the waters of the Nile River, for retaining the waters of this river during floods, and for distributing them over the fields after the waters had subsided. As regards urban sewerage, its existence may be considered beyond doubt; but in doing so one must bear in mind, first, its comparatively limited distribution and size, and, second, certain peculiarities with respect to its role and the character of its construction.

With regard to the spread of urban sewerage, the opinion of some authors that many cities of Egypt were supplied with drains must be accepted with certain reservations. The number of cities of ancient Egypt concerning which we have more or less definite information is limited to the largest cities, the centers of administrative and religious life, and the number of such cities is very small. We may extend the existing information on the presence of drains in them to other cities only conjecturally, although with a high degree of probability (with respect to all kinds of sewerage in general). Moreover, under the name of drains, as applied to Egypt, one can by no means always understand what corresponds to this term at the present time, i.e., the type of street collector.

The point is that, as was indicated above, urban sewerage in the form of a system of street collectors was installed in antiquity almost exclusively for the runoff of rainwater from the streets. Meanwhile, the amount of rainfall in Egypt is extremely small, and, moreover, rainwater there always represented a certain value, which people tried to use by collecting it in reservoirs.

for household use. Thus, in Egyptian cities, generally speaking, there was no favorable ground for the development of a water-carriage street sewerage system; and if it was used, then only in rare and exceptional cases.

Thus, under the name of drains, as applied to the conditions of Egyptian life, one must understand chiefly other types of sewerage, namely: first, house sewerage, or, more accurately, estate sewerage; and secondly, a special type of urban sewerage, quite common precisely in Egypt by virtue of local conditions. Since the existence of sewerage of precisely this type in Egypt is firmly established, we shall begin with it.

The usual type of sewerage in Egyptian cities took shape in accordance with the conditions of time and place. The conditions of the life of the ancient world did not require the construction of sewerage for removing impurities from houses. The conditions of the climate did not require a significant and frequent removal of atmospheric waters from the streets. Meanwhile, the location of a large number of Egyptian cities on the Nile set before them another very serious problem in sewerage. The waters of the River Nile, as is known, are subject to periodic, very considerable rises, accompanied by large floods. Such floods, with respect to cities, assumed the character of inundations; and, in order to mitigate this inconvenience, it was necessary to take measures for regulating the passage of the waters by means of a system of discharge canals. On the other hand, Egypt, with a comparatively small quantity of atmospheric precipitation, is distinguished by a sharp unevenness in its distribution; and therefore a characteristic phenomenon for it is rare, brief, but abundant downpours. Such downpours also made useful a system of canals cutting across the city and capable of intercepting the waters of the showers in parts and carrying them off into the river channel without harm in the sense of washing away the soil within the inhabited quarters of the city.

The two circumstances indicated also determine the character of the usual sewerage of Egyptian cities. This sewerage consisted of a series of canals cutting through the city in different directions and connected with the River Nile both above and below the city, either directly or (secondary canals) by means of the main canals. These canals, by virtue of the necessity during floods of passing waters that overflowed the banks, were open. They were made by excavation in the ground, sometimes also with reinforcement of the banks. The existence of this kind of sewerage has been established with certainty with respect to the two capitals of Egypt, Memphis and Thebes. But the possibility and

even the necessity of its existence may be assumed with respect to other cities lying on the Nile.

Passing to another type of sewerage—household, or estate, sewerage—we must say that our information on this question is very limited. This is explained by two reasons. On the one hand, the literature of the modern epoch, in general far from abundant and moreover occupied with questions of a higher order, did not turn its attention to the trifles of everyday life, however interesting that question may have seemed to it, and therefore cannot serve as a source of information on the given matter. On the other hand, the character of the Egyptians’ construction of their private houses from unbaked brick, which crumbled into dust in the course of the ages, deprives us of the possibility of reconstructing the details of many elements of the people’s private life. Nevertheless, on the basis of literary information concerning other elements of Egyptian life, and by analogy with the life of other peoples, it may be said that, on the question of household sewerage, as well as scavenging, those general features which we set forth in the preceding chapter may be applied to Egypt. It must be supposed that the installation of privies was not practiced, being replaced by those primitive methods of which it has been said that solid household refuse went out for removal together with manure. Thus, the share of household sewerage was left to the drainage of used waters from basins, as well as waters used in various rooms, kitchens, baths, and so forth.

The presence of household sewerage in royal palaces is confirmed, apart from general considerations, also by literary sources. Thus, for example, with the existence of such sewerage in palaces is connected the tradition, transmitted by Herodotus, of Queen Nitocris’s (Neith-ikert-ti, VI dynasty) vengeance upon the murderers of Pharaoh Merenra II: she drowned them during a feast in an underground hall of one of the palaces of the city of Thebes with water conducted there by means of a drainage canal. Such palace sewerage apparently consisted of a series of open and underground canals, which directed used household waters either into the nearest open water reservoirs, or into garden cisterns, whence they were used for watering plants. The ordinary presence at royal palaces of artificial basins and extensive gardens makes one think that the example of the arrangement of drainage canals in the Theban palace was the rule, not the exception.

As for the type of street storm-water sewerage, then, while admitting the possibility of its existence in separate parts of cities for the purpose of discharging rainwater, and, in any case, the possibility of its

...of implementation in the technical art of the Egyptians; it must be said, however, that we have no definite information in this direction.

To determine the time of origin either of the individual structures of Egyptian sewerage, or of the types themselves, does not appear possible. But, in any case, judging by the great antiquity of the above-mentioned cities and the periods of their flourishing, to which the development of structures of this kind must be assigned, it may be said with confidence that priority in the use of sewerage belongs precisely to the cities of Egypt.

All the information set forth above relates to the more ancient period of Egyptian history, the period of Egypt’s independent culture. But on Egyptian soil we have one more example of sewerage, belonging to a later period, the so-called Greco-Egyptian period—namely, the sewerage of the city of Alexandria. Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great and, with the accession of the Ptolemaic dynasty, became the capital of the country. After Egypt passed under the rule of Rome, Alexandria not only retained its importance as the chief city of Egypt, but for a long time was the foremost city, the industrial and cultural center of the entire eastern part of the Roman Empire, until this primacy passed to Byzantium. Both the kings of the Ptolemaic dynasty and the Roman governors spared no expense in adorning and improving the city, and in this respect Alexandria could rightly be considered a second Rome. Among the city’s other attractions there is known, among other things, a large sanitary-engineering structure—underground storage reservoirs of very great capacity. The information about Alexandria’s sewerage works is, unfortunately, very brief. It is known that already under the Ptolemies an enormous palace was built in the middle of the city, surrounded by gardens, parks, and artificial basins. The presence of these installations compels one to suppose the existence of sewerage of the domestic or estate type as applied, at least, to this royal palace. In reality the use of such sewerage must have been considerably broader. Furthermore, in the suburbs of Alexandria there existed several canals connecting Lake Mareotis with the Mediterranean Sea. These canals served chiefly the purposes of small navigation, but also for the discharge of storm waters from the adjacent districts of the city. The sources that have come down to us give no other information on the sewerage of Alexandria. The construction of these sewerage works belongs to the time of the first Ptolemies, i.e., to the third century B.C. As for the existence in Alexandria, in the era of Roman rule, of elements of street sewerage, one may...

only make assumptions, with a considerable degree, admittedly, of probability, taking into account the importance, wealth, and amenity of the city and the wide dissemination of sewerage on the model of the city of Rome in other Roman colonies.

III.

The sewerage of cities in the states of the Mesopotamian lowland, Assyria and Babylonia, which developed under conditions having much in common with Egypt, to a considerable extent resembles the sewerage of Egyptian cities. Unfortunately, here again it is necessary to point to the insufficiency of the information that has come down to us. The sources for elucidating the question of the use of sewerage in Assyria and Babylonia are, first, fragments of the writings of ancient authors—Herodotus, Strabo, Ctesias, Diodorus, the Bible, Berossus (a Babylonian priest who lived in the third century B.C. and wrote in Greek), Alexander Polyhistor, Josephus Flavius, and others; further, information drawn from cuneiform inscriptions; and finally, the results of excavations carried out in the nineteenth century at the sites of Babylon (the present name of the place is Birs-Nimrud—the Tower of Nimrod) and Nineveh (Kuyunjik), by Layard, Rassam, Fresnel, Oppert, and others. But the information obtained from these sources suffers from the same accidental character and incompleteness that we noted with respect to Egypt, and for the same reasons.

All the sources set forth above unanimously and repeatedly testify that the construction of canals for various purposes was practiced both in Assyria and in Babylonia on an extraordinarily broad scale. The building of such canals, one may say, did not cease throughout the flourishing period of both states, and their conquests supplied living material for this building, since the work was carried out chiefly by prisoners of war, who at each conquest were taken in enormous masses. An age-old monument of this sewerage-construction epoch remains the well-known hymn of the Jews, who also expended much labor and many lives on the hydraulic structures of Babylonia during their seventy-year captivity—a hymn beginning with the words: “By the rivers of Babylon.” These “rivers of Babylon” are nothing other than canals of various purposes, built by the hands of captive Jews: for irrigating fields, for draining marshes, for navigation, for regulating rivers (for example, the Euphrates near Babylon), and finally for the purposes of urban sewerage.

However, of the mass of hydraulic-engineering works carried out in Assyria and Babylonia, only a very small part, of course, falls to urban sewerage. History indicates that major works for the improvement of the cities of Assyria and Babylonia were undertaken several times on the personal initiative of the kings, and each time they were applied only to their chief capitals, Nineveh and Babylon. This gives grounds for thinking that the main mass of works on urban sewerage was confined to these two cities, and only in small part, perhaps, to other large centers. Meanwhile, as we shall now see, sewerage even, for example, in Babylon—regarding which we have a comparatively larger amount of information—served not all needs and not all districts of the city, and therefore could not represent a particularly conspicuous unit among the other hydraulic-engineering structures of the state.

We are better informed about the sewerage of Babylon than about the others, first, because the outstanding importance of this city gave occasion for repeated descriptions of its sights by ancient writers; secondly, because of successful excavations carried out by investigators of our own time, Layard, Rassam, and others. The time of construction of this sewerage can be established with some precision. Its construction belongs to the period when King Nabu-aplu-usur, in Greek transcription Nabopolassar (625–605 B.C.), having destroyed the dependence of the Babylonian kingdom on Assyria, directed his activity toward strengthening and improving his capital. The works for the improvement of Babylon were continued on an even larger scale by the son of Nabu-aplu-usur, Nabu-kudurri-usur II, the Nebuchadnezzar of the Greek authors (605–562 B.C.), a remarkable king-builder of the Ancient East, who, despite all his conquering successes, judging by the inscriptions that remain from him, preferred the peaceful designation of builder or, as he expressed it, “restorer” of temples and cities. The construction of the Babylonian sewerage belongs chiefly to the time of these two kings, although, perhaps, its beginning had been laid by the works of the Assyrian king Sargon (680–667 B.C.), who did much for the improvement both of Nineveh and of Babylon. In any case, the construction of the sewerage of Babylon may be assigned to the sixth or seventh century B.C.

The sewerage of Babylon existed under conditions of place and time closely reminiscent of Egypt. Therefore the types of sewerage that found application here have much in common with the sewerage of Egyptian cities. This applies both to house sewerage and to urban sewerage.

was of a character that can hardly be brought under the term domestic sewerage. In its application, for example, to the royal palace in Babylon, which, like the present palace of the Chinese emperors in Peking, occupied an entire part of the city, such sewerage could, in its dimensions and development, approach municipal sewerage. In smaller cases, however, this type of sewerage corresponds to the term estate sewerage.

The second type of sewerage, which found application in Babylon, also presents a close analogy with the sewerage of Egyptian cities, owing to the similarity of local conditions. As is already known, with the character of domestic night-soil removal common to the whole ancient world, there was no need in Babylon for street sewers to receive household wastewater. The comparatively small amount of atmospheric precipitation made it possible to dispense with any broad development of sewerage for street waters. On the other hand, the floods of the Euphrates River compelled measures to regulate the passage of high waters through the city, which was achieved by constructing a network of open canals, similar to the canals of Egyptian cities, connected with the river in their upper and lower parts. These canals also served to receive atmospheric waters from occasional downpours. But it must be said here that, in view of the enormous size of the city and the insufficiency or remoteness of other sources of water supply, these same canals in part served as sources from which water was drawn for household needs.

Layard, on the basis of excavations carried out by him, reports that in Babylon there existed beneath the streets large canals, into which side pipes from houses discharged. It must be supposed that these canals were originally intended for the discharge of rainwater, and later were connected with the estates of neighboring quarters, probably the wealthiest ones, and that into them flowed used waters that had passed from courtyard basins through kitchens, baths, and gardens. It is hard to think that the number of such canals was large. But in any case their presence proves the existence in Babylon of a type of sewerage closer to the modern one.

Another city of the Mesopotamian lowland for which there is some information about sewerage is Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian kingdom. Directing all efforts toward the adornment and improvement of their capital, the kings of Assyria carried out, among other things, major works for the construction in Nineveh of a series of canals crossing the city in various directions and connected with the Tigris River. These canals were intended to receive and carry away atmospheric waters into

periods of downpours, for conveying the floods of the river itself, and in normal times—for carrying river water for purposes of economic use. On the other hand, Nineveh contained a large number of luxurious palaces, public and private buildings, erected by the kings and those close to them. These buildings were constructed according to the same Chaldean type that had been used in Babylon: they were built on artificial elevations in the form of a series of terraces lying one upon another, covered with gardens, and were provided with the same extensive system of house and estate sewerage.

The works for the improvement of Nineveh belong to the brief period of Assyria’s highest flourishing, when it succeeded in subjecting Babylon itself to its rule. These works belong chiefly to two remarkable kings of Assyria, Sennacherib (704–680 B.C.) and his son Esarhaddon (680–667 B.C.), and therefore date to the seventh century B.C.

The heir to the power of Assyria and Babylonia, the Persian monarchy, in many respects borrowed the character of its culture from its historical predecessors. The Persian kings not only knew how to value the models of building activity of their Assyro-Babylonian predecessors, but also willingly followed their example in their own activity. An example of such continuity is provided by the works of Darius Hystaspes and Xerxes in the construction of their new capital, Persepolis. Of the structures of this city, remains have survived to the present day of a palace built by Darius Hystaspes (521–486 B.C.). These ruins were investigated by Coste, Flandin, and Dieulafoy. They are of interest to us because in them are found remains of house and estate sewerage of the very same type already mentioned by us more than once, evidently borrowed, like many details of the arrangement of the palace itself, from Assyro-Babylonia. Unfortunately, this structure is the only trace of the use of sewerage on Persian soil. The construction of this monument of ancient sewerage dates to the beginning of the fifth century B.C.

IV.

Concerning the development of sewerage in ancient India we have very scanty and brief information. Nevertheless, we cannot pass over this country in silence, in view of one extremely interesting circumstance. The fact is that India, as it turns out, is the ancient homeland of modern domestic water-carriage sanitation.

India had possessed, since ancient times, a large number of hydraulic and, in particular, sewerage structures. But sewerage was used here chiefly for agronomic purposes. In the construction of sewerage of this kind, as in general in the field of hydraulic engineering, the population of India attained considerable skill. However, we know of no cases at all of the use in ancient India of urban (street) sewerage proper, although the abundance of atmospheric precipitation in some parts of India made the presence of street sewerage desirable. It is quite possible that this is explained by the insufficiency of our information on this question, as indeed on many aspects of the ancient life of this country in general.

With regard to domestic sewerage in the cities of ancient India, we likewise know very little. But it is known, in any case, that in India there first came into use, firstly, separate latrine rooms and, secondly, the use of water for removing impurities from these rooms. Water was applied in the form of a constant stream, which passed through this separate room and could immediately carry away everything entering it.

This use of water later found imitation in Europe. The first analogous devices appeared in Rome and its colonies, in the period of the Empire. Then the same method, probably forgotten with the fall of the Roman Empire, was brought anew by the Arabs into Spain, where the remains of devices of this kind have been preserved in the ruins of palaces and structures left from the dominion of the Moors. It is very likely that the first attempts to apply methods of this kind in modern Europe were based on information obtained about similar installations in Spain.

The use in ancient India of water for domestic night-soil removal is indisputable proof of the existence in that country of domestic sewerage. We cannot form a definite idea of the prevalence of this kind of sewerage or of the perfection of its methods of construction. But judging by the fact that ancient India was famed for the extraordinary luxury in the arrangement of royal palaces, and that these palaces occupied large areas and included a great number of residential buildings, service buildings, and gardens, one must think that there were examples of extensive and well-arranged domestic—or, more correctly, estate—sewerage systems.

V.

Of considerable interest from the standpoint of hygiene and sanitary engineering is the country and life of the ancient Hebrews. The high level of culture of this people was expressed, among other things, in a profound attention to questions of personal and public hygiene, in a correct understanding of its tasks, and in the comparatively broad and skillful application of sanitary measures.

Direct evidence of the Hebrews’ serious attention to sanitary questions and of their knowledge in this field is found in the lofty literary monument of their culture—the Bible. Here we find the most ancient sanitary code in the form of the Book of Leviticus, and partly also in other parts of the Pentateuch of Moses. This code, which of course developed gradually together with the culture of the people, is associated with the journey of the Hebrews in the Arabian desert. Thus, the written formulation of this code dates approximately to 1490 B.C. Among analogous religious-legislative prescriptions of a sanitary character encountered among ancient peoples, the sanitary code of the Hebrews is the most complete and coherent. As is known, the fulfillment of its prescriptions was always very strict, and to this circumstance the Jewish people owe, to a significant degree, their physical endurance.

In this code, among prescriptions of an everyday character that are not devoid of interest from the standpoint of hygiene (concerning the kinds of meat permitted for consumption, etc.), there is a series of instructions of a purely sanitary and sanitary-police character. Such are the instructions concerning the harm of using water from marshes, the prescriptions on protecting the soil from contamination by filth and on the removal of human excreta, on the choice of a site for the construction of dwellings, the rules for examining and isolating the sick, and others.

Especially detailed in the Pentateuch are the rules for combating contagious diseases, chiefly leprosy. Here are indicated also the persons obliged to oversee the execution both of preventive measures against contagion and, in general, of the sanitary prescriptions of the law. In accordance with the meaning of the state organization of the Hebrews, founded on a theocratic principle, the duties of sanitary supervision were assigned to the priests, who thus combined in themselves the rank of priest, diagnostician-physician, and sanitary official. In their person we find among the Hebrews not only the beginning, but also a fairly broad development, of sanitary police.

From the data set out above we see that the matter of practical hygiene and sanitation received deep attention among the Jews. The general spirit with which Jewish sanitary legislation is imbued is well expressed in the words, repeated more than once in the Bible: “that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth.” The creators of the state order of the Jewish people valued the health and longevity of the individual members of the nation, regarding each of them as a unit of the “chosen people.” Hence, in the sphere of sanitary measures, there was great attention to questions of individual prophylaxis; hence also the striving to attain the goal of ensuring the sanitary well-being of the nation more by sanitary measures of an individual, domestic character than by improving the external amenities of urban settlements. This aspect of Jewish life and sanitary legislation deserves attention and sharply distinguishes the Jewish epoch of public hygiene from the Greek and Roman periods.

Such a direction of sanitary activity, of course, could not foster among the Jews the development of sanitary-engineering construction. And indeed, we find no indication whatsoever of the existence in the cities of ancient Palestine of sewerage structures, apart from the sewerage of the Jerusalem Temple. This, of course, does not yet prove the complete absence in that country of partial applications of sewerage, but it gives grounds, also in view of the climatic conditions of the country, to conclude that there existed here no more or less significant and noteworthy urban or even district sewer systems, apart from the above-mentioned example of the sewerage of the Jerusalem Temple and, perhaps, the palace. Fortunately for us, the sewerage just mentioned—perhaps the only one in Palestine—left traces of itself both in the literature and, in part, on the site, considerably greater than all those mentioned by us above; and we can later give more definite information concerning it.

First, however, let us say a few words concerning the character of urban refuse removal among the Jews. It must be said that the methods of this refuse removal had, generally speaking, the same primitive forms in which it appeared among most peoples of the ancient world and which we have mentioned. But in the present case we may point to two features which we do not encounter elsewhere, and on which it is worth pausing.

The first of these features is the use of methods of disinfection. Indeed, among the other prophylactic measures recommended by Jewish sanitation, we often encounter

pouring or sprinkling people and dwellings with an infusion of water with fragrant herbs, known by the apparently collective name “hyssop.” Regardless of the degree to which this means was suitable for disinfection, such a measure was undoubtedly the first germ of disinfection.

Another distinctive feature of the methods of scavenging in Jewish settlements is the removal and destruction of solid refuse, both street and household refuse, by means of fire. In the description of Jerusalem there is a passage that gives grounds for assuming the existence of a sanitary-technical institution, unique of its kind for the ancient world—namely, a primitive destructor. It appears that in the vicinity of Jerusalem, in the Valley of Hinnom, there was a dumping place to which solid refuse from the whole city was brought daily. Here this refuse was burned in a fire, which was supposedly maintained continuously (the latter is scarcely probable). On the same fire were burned the corpses of criminals brought from the place of execution. This eternal fire bore the name Gehenna (Gehenna, hell-fire), a name well known from the New Testament. This very fire, which served for the periodic destruction of refuse and corpses, in whatever form this was carried out, is nothing other than the prototype of modern, considerably more complex devices directed toward the same end, known, on the one hand, as refuse-incinerating furnaces or destructors, and, on the other, as crematoria for burning corpses.

Turning now to the question of the development of sewerage among the Jews, it must be said that we have no information about the existence among them of sewerage in private houses. Nor do we have more or less precise information about the spread of sewerage to entire urban settlements. On the basis of the peculiarities of the everyday life of the ancient Jews, and by analogy with the everyday life of other peoples close to them, one may think that neither domestic nor municipal sewerage in the modern sense of the word developed among the Jews, and that the applications of sewerage were limited to the most important public buildings. Thus, we know with certainty of the sewerage of the Jerusalem Temple, to the description of which we shall now proceed. There are grounds for assuming that similar sewerage was also applied in Jerusalem to the royal palace.

Information about the sewerage of the Jerusalem Temple, as well as about its arrangement in general, we obtain, on the one hand, from literary sources—the Bible, the Talmud, and the works of the Christian writer Eusebius Pamphilus (263–340 A.D.), the father of church history, a native of

of Palestine; on the other hand—on the basis of excavations carried out in our time by Pierotti and others. The Temple of Jerusalem was built by King Solomon in 1014–1007 B.C. on Mount Moriah, where the mosque Es-Sakhra now stands. It should be noted, incidentally, that it was built with the aid of foreign craftsmen invited from Phoenicia, under the direction of the chief architect Hiram-Abiff. Solomon’s Temple stood until 586, when it was completely destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Later, when the Persian kings allowed the Jews to return to their homeland, the Temple of Jerusalem was restored by Zerubbabel on the former site and in its former appearance, though not in its former grandeur. Finally, Herod, 20 years before the birth of Christ, rebuilt it fundamentally, leaving, however, the plan and general forms unchanged. But in its new form it existed for a little more than 70 years, that is, until the destruction of Jerusalem by Emperor Titus (in 53 A.D.). The construction of the sewerage system of the Temple of Jerusalem is attributed by literary sources to the time of Solomon. This opinion may be considered entirely probable, in view of the undoubted necessity for such sewerage, at least in its inner parts, for the performance of sacrifices, and also in view of the fact that the same king constructed still more considerable structures, analogous in design, for the city’s water supply.

The above-mentioned sources establish beyond doubt that a system of combined sewerage was applied to the Temple of Jerusalem, and moreover with the utilization of wastewater. The details of this system are insufficiently illuminated in historical descriptions, but with respect to its principal parts there is neither doubt nor contradiction. According to the Mishnah, beneath the altar of the Temple there was arranged something like a cesspit, from which semi-liquid impurities and residues were removed into the Kidron Valley; and gardeners paid so well for the right to fertilize their gardens with such residues that, with the money obtained from this, it was possible to purchase sacrifices for religious rites. The liquid substances flowing down from this cesspit ran into the Pool of Siloam and from there were used for irrigating the royal gardens. The Christian writer of the third century, Eusebius Pamphilus, himself a native of Palestine, speaking of the water supply of ancient Jerusalem and of the Temple, attests that the aqueduct waters, surplus and spent, were led away into the city and used for irrigation. According to Witte, excavations carried out in the nineteenth century by Pierotti and other scholars clarified the layout of the water-supply and sewerage networks of the ancient Temple. The remains they discovered of water-supply and wastewater conduits

The canals not only confirmed the reports of the Talmud concerning their existence but, as a living remnant of the structure, made it possible to shed light on the question of the location of the temple on the plan. Judging by these discoveries, the Jerusalem Temple was connected with a complete water-supply system, part of whose channels, cut in the rock, has survived to our time in its former form. The temple’s water supply was arranged so as to carry away the blood and other remains from animal sacrifices and the operations connected with them, and also to wash the entire court. The wastewater obtained from the washing was to have a runoff into a well located not far from the temple. There is reason to think that this very well has now been converted into a basin and bears the name of the Fountain of the Mother of God. The above-mentioned settling well was connected by an underground canal with another well or basin, which also exists to the present day and bears the name, according to tradition, of the Pool of Siloam. Both the drainage canals and the basins were cut in the rock. Thanks to this circumstance, parts of the water supply and sewerage of the Jerusalem Temple have remained undamaged to the present time, despite the destruction of the monumental buildings that once stood above them. Only in places are they blocked by a mass of stones that accidentally fell into the network from the ruins of collapsed buildings.

On the basis of these data, the sewerage of the Jerusalem Temple appears in the following form. It consisted of a network of drainage canals located beneath the buildings and courts of the temple, of a settling well and a collecting basin situated at different elevations, and of collectors that carried wastewater to the settling well and from the latter to the Siloam collecting basin. The blood of sacrificial animals and the wastewater from the buildings and courts of the temple entered, through the drainage canals and the first collector, into the settling well. Here they were freed from solid residues, while the liquid portions flowed farther, through the second collector, into the Siloam basin. The substances that accumulated in the settling well were bought by the gardeners of the Kidron Valley for fertilizing their gardens. The liquid wastewater, however, was conducted from the Siloam basin for irrigating the royal gardens. Incidentally, Busing assumes that this wastewater from the Pool of Siloam entered the River Kidron, whence it was already conducted for irrigation of the gardens, and that the very name of this river (“black, dirty water”) derives from its pollution by these wastewaters. The supposition that part of the wastewater from the Siloam basin entered the River Kidron appears, judging from the topography of the locality, quite plau—

probable. The interpretation of the name, however, can hardly be considered sufficiently well founded, since the name “Black Water” is very often used among many peoples to denote mountain rivers in general, which become very muddy during floods (for example, Kara-su among the Turks and Tatars, Shavi-tskhali among the Georgians, Saa-don among the Ossetians).

In addition to the Jerusalem temple, Solomon built for himself, not far from it and in connection with it, a magnificent palace, on the construction of which the same Phoenician architect Hiram-Abiff worked. Like Central Asian buildings of this kind, this palace consisted of many blocks and halls, connected with one another by courtyards and surrounded by luxurious gardens. The similarity of this palace to the royal palaces of other peoples of the Ancient East, its connection with the temple, which was provided with a sewerage system, and, in particular, the need for drains to remove waste waters from fountains and service rooms, given the presence of a water-supply system with an abundant inflow of water—all this compels us to suppose that this palace too had a sewerage system similar to that of the temple and perhaps connected with it. But, unfortunately, we do not have sufficient information to establish this fact.

There is also an indication, belonging to the above-mentioned Eusebius Pamphilus, which casts some light on the question of the sewerage of the city of Jerusalem itself. Eusebius says that the whole city was supplied with water in such abundance that the surplus water flowing beyond the city was used for irrigation. This mention is too brief to draw from it a definite conclusion regarding the existence in Jerusalem of a municipal sewer network, as some authors do. But it does, perhaps, give the right to regard as probable the existence of separate canals for diverting surplus and waste waters from urban reservoirs beyond the city for purposes of irrigation.

In concluding the description of the sewerage of Jerusalem, we consider it important to emphasize one feature of this sewerage—the proper utilization both of wastewater and of the sediments from it for irrigating gardens and fertilizing fields. This circumstance enables us to say that the most perfect method of rendering wastes harmless and utilizing them, the agronomic method, in a fully rational form historically goes back, at any rate, to the time of the construction of the Jerusalem temple.

From all that precedes we see that, although the sewerage of inhabited places in ancient Palestine did not receive broad development—

...but, on the other hand, the only sewerage system in this country reliably known to us—the sewerage system of the Jerusalem Temple—presents a remarkable example of the proper arrangement both for the discharge of wastewater and for its utilization. This model of ancient sewerage justly attracts the attention of modern engineers. “From the description of the operations for removing the impurities of ancient Jerusalem we learn,” says Latham, president of the Society of Engineers in London, “that the impurities were collected in reservoirs; the thick matter was extracted from them and sold, while the liquid matter was used for irrigation under conditions which in our time represent the very best system.” If to this we add the fact of the existence of the destructor—Gehenna, of which, evidently, Latham was unaware—then it may be said that in Jerusalem we find, it is true, not on a large scale, but nevertheless in a fairly perfected form, the development of the most important methods for the removal, neutralization, and utilization of urban wastewater and refuse. The existence of such devices does honor both to the hygienic knowledge of the Jews and to their attention to the matter of sanitation and sanitary engineering.

VI.

Having finished the exposition of the facts characterizing the development of sewerage structures in the countries of the Ancient East, we shall now touch, in the briefest outline, on the development of knowledge and art that bear upon the matter of sewerage. The development of special knowledge must, directly or indirectly, have had the most important influence on the development of sewerage: on the one hand, by arousing the idea of adopting sanitary-technical measures, and on the other, by providing the methods and means for carrying them out. Therefore, an indication of the character of the development of this knowledge is extremely important.

Among the special branches of knowledge whose level was reflected in the development of sewerage, the most important place belongs to three elements. The first element consists of hygienic knowledge, with the growth of which the people’s views changed on all questions relating to the field of sanitation, and incentives were created for the adoption of all kinds of sanitary, including sanitary-technical, measures. It must be said, of course, that the influence of hygiene on the development of sanitary engineering is expressed in a fully explicit and conscious form only in modern times; in much earlier epochs, the connection between them exists in an implicit form, as a strict parallelism in the development of both elements. A closer, direct influence on the development of sewerage is exerted, on the one hand, by knowledge

hydraulic; on the other, knowledge relating to constructional hydraulic engineering.

Turning first of all to the question of the development of hygiene in the countries of the Ancient East, we may say that concern for public health had already occupied legislators in remote antiquity. The realization that health is a public good, subject to the protection of society and the state, appeared before each member, out of a developed instinct of self-preservation, had learned to value health for himself personally. Moreover, owing to conditions of life in populated places that were unfavorable from a hygienic point of view, and owing to the imprudence of individual persons, conditions of life harmful to health are easily created, against which individuals are not able to struggle. This is why, from ancient times, the coercive power of the state came to the aid of individuals for the protection of public health. Measures of authority directed toward the attainment of this goal were expressed not only in enactments of an administrative character, but often also took the form of rules of religious ritual. Among almost all peoples we find religious prescriptions and rules directed specifically toward the protection of public health. Such are the prescriptions of all ancient religions concerning bodily cleanliness, ablutions, bathing in sacred waters, and so forth. The intervention of the religious element in sanitary regulation is explained, on the one hand, by the theocratic character of the epoch, and, on the other, by the desire of legislators to secure strict observance of sanitary rules. This circumstance also emphasizes the importance which the figures of antiquity attached to provisions of a sanitary character, and their attention to questions of hygiene. Legislative enactments and religious prescriptions of antiquity relating to sanitary matters give us material for judging the level of hygienic knowledge of the epoch, at least with respect to certain countries of the Ancient East.

Egypt must be regarded as the birthplace of hygienic, as well as medical, knowledge. It is known that the priests of Egypt diligently occupied themselves with questions of medicine and hygiene. They attached very great importance to medical knowledge, which was reflected, among other things, in the traditions of the Egyptians. According to these traditions, the original source of medical knowledge is the deity Imhotep, and the first physicians who received this knowledge from the deity were the first kings of Egypt. The Egyptian priests apparently achieved considerable success in the study of the medical sciences. Unfortunately, no documentary data have reached us concerning the essence of their knowledge; moreover, in their own time they kept their knowledge in pro—

side of mysteries. But we know that the Egyptian physicians for many centuries enjoyed authority, and not only in their own country but throughout the entire cultural world of that time. It is known that among them there were celebrities who were invited to other states, to Assyria, to Babylon, and later to Rome. It was from these Egyptian priests that Moses, the Jewish lawgiver, their worthy pupil and an unquestionable expert in hygiene, borrowed part, perhaps even the majority, of his sanitary measures, which served the Jewish people for many centuries. Thus the Jewish people owe to them the completeness of their sanitary legislation. There is also reason to think that Hippocrates, the father of Greek medicine, was a pupil of the Egyptian priests.

Information on the development of hygienic knowledge among other peoples of the Ancient East is very brief. One must judge them chiefly by the nature of the religious and everyday prescriptions and rules contained in the sacred books of various peoples. These prescriptions lead one to think that the fundamental principles of hygiene were well known to the ancient peoples, that the legislators of these peoples valued these principles as they deserved and tried to introduce them into life, willingly covering them with their own and divine authority. Thus, in the sacred books of the Persians there are prescriptions concerning the maintenance of cleanliness of the body and dwelling, analogous to the same prescriptions of the Bible. With regard to keeping water and soil clean, however, the Persians went further than other peoples. The pollution of water by any impurities whatever was considered by them the gravest sin, and in protecting the soil from pollution the Persians even went to extremes. According to their laws, in order to avoid desecration of the earth, the burial of human corpses was forbidden, and they, as is known, were cast out in remote and desert places to be eaten by wild animals.—The Indian Vedas also contain instructions concerning the cleanliness of the body, clothing, and dwelling. Indian medicine, in the same epoch, also knew of the influence of water on health. In addition to instructions on protecting water sources from pollution, it ascribed healing properties to clean water in general and recommended both its internal use and bathing as a form of medicine against diseases.

But there is no doubt that, of all the peoples whose sanitary information is known to us, the Jews went the farthest along this path. It must be said, of course, that their hygienic knowledge was to a considerable degree borrowed from the Egyptians. In any case, the Jews possess, as we have already mentioned, the most ancient and, moreover,

the most complete and orderly code of sanitary prescriptions in the form of the Book of Leviticus, dating to the fifteenth century before the birth of Christ. All the sanitary rules that occur in fragmentary form in the religious books of other peoples are found here in a coherent system encompassing all the details of the people’s everyday life. The rationality of most of these rules has been proved by the many centuries of experience of the remarkable vitality of the Jewish people. In this same code we find rules for combating infectious diseases, instructions concerning disinfection, and experience in the organization of a sanitary police. In a word, this sanitary code and its strict application among the entire mass of the people prove that hygienic knowledge among the ancient Jews stood at a sufficient level, enjoyed deep attention among them, and at the same time had broad practical dissemination.

Now let us turn to the question of the development of technical knowledge, which found expression in the sewerage works of the epoch and was necessary for the erection of these works. The existence of monuments of sanitary-technical architecture, preserved from the peoples of the Ancient East, undoubtedly testifies to a considerable store of knowledge in the corresponding fields, i.e., in hydraulics and hydraulic engineering.

There can be no doubt, of course, that this knowledge progressed, gradually developing in completeness and expanding the range of its application, with transmission from generation to generation and from people to people. However, the small number of monuments that have come down to us, their belonging to different peoples and periods, and the fragmentary character of the information deprive us of the possibility of tracing this progress in any more or less coherent form. We can only say that the process of the development of knowledge, both in breadth and in depth, proceeded very slowly. The territorial spread of knowledge was hindered by the isolation of individual peoples, which did not permit a sufficiently conscious and regular exchange of technical thought and experience. This same national isolation also had a harmful effect on the development of technical knowledge in depth, on the growth of scientific generalizations, by preventing fruitful cooperation between technicians and scholars belonging to different nations, and international continuity of scientific work. In addition, there existed a number of other causes that slowed the development, in the ancient world, of knowledge in general and of technical knowledge in particular. Owing to these causes, and also to the comparative youth of technology and technical knowledge among the peoples of the Ancient East, this knowledge existed exclusively in empi-

...in empirical form, in the shape of data from practical experience. Generalizations of these data and their reduction to scientific theories we do not yet find, as indeed in other branches of knowledge. In this epoch, theoretical science applicable to technology is only just being born—in the form of the foundations of mathematics developed by Chaldean and partly Egyptian scholars. On the other hand, the quantity of technical knowledge of an empirical character gradually increased, and its sum among certain peoples reached a considerable magnitude. This knowledge made it possible to carry out—though sometimes in an extremely cumbersome and uneconomical form—a whole series of major technical works of various kinds, including sanitary-engineering works.

Let us begin with hydraulic knowledge, which has direct expression in sanitary-engineering structures and constitutes their most important foundation. Judging by the abundance of hydraulic-engineering structures in general and by the methods of their execution, practical knowledge in this field among all the peoples of the Ancient East reached a considerable level. However, like much else, this knowledge was not at all subjected to theoretical generalization and development. Independently of any theories and calculations, by a purely empirical path, there appeared among them a number of applications and inventions which were later destined to play a major role in the development both of applied hydraulics and of sanitary engineering.

On the basis of the wide distribution among the peoples of the Ancient East of systems of canals—drainage and irrigation canals—it may be said with certainty that they were well acquainted with the significance of gradients. It may also be thought that, in constructing their canalizations, they must have used primitive methods of leveling, similar at least to the method mentioned by A. Rudinsky in his course on irrigation with respect to the present-day natives of Turkestan (“an experienced native in this matter lies face down on the ground and looks at the tips of the toes of his boots, determining accordingly the direction of the fall of the terrain”). The use of irrigation must, moreover, have required the ability to measure the quantities of flowing water, by passing it through a calibrated opening corresponding to some natural measure (as now: “bash”—the size of a human head—among the Tatars and Persians; “zorba”—a shovel among the Georgians).

In addition to the application of hydraulic knowledge to the needs of practical life, the development of this knowledge in the countries of the Ancient East found expression even in the form of scientific experiment. There is historical evidence that Egyptian priests knew how...

to perform certain striking experiments with liquids, which they readily demonstrated in their temples as “miracles.” These experiments, of course, required serious study of the properties of liquids.

The practical knowledge of the Ancient East in the field of hydraulics was also expressed in the application of this knowledge to the construction of hydraulic devices for raising water, which were often used, among other things, as auxiliary parts in sanitary-engineering structures. In this respect, on the basis of the testimony of ancient writers, inscriptions, and bas-reliefs, we can point to the following examples. The Egyptians invented various types of water-lifting machines, which served to raise water from the Nile on both its banks, for the irrigation of fields and for supplying cities with water. The design of these machines has been reconstructed thanks to the images and hieroglyphic inscriptions that have come down to us. Among them are devices operated by the force of water, constructed on the model of water-lifting wheels, or “tympana,” still existing in the East in our own time. Strabo gives an example of an entire water-lifting station, which consisted of a series of such machines and raised water for the water supply of a fortress lying on the Nile. On the banks of the Euphrates, as on the banks of the Nile, scoop machines were very widespread, raising water for watering fields. For this purpose, in Mesopotamia, the same water-lifting wheels were used, but still more often devices constructed on the model of the noria were employed; and it is here precisely that the origin of this device must be sought. For raising water, besides hydraulic devices, there were also used devices operated by the power of men and animals, such as the aforementioned noria, levers, pulleys, and gates.

Another branch of technical knowledge that has a direct bearing on sewerage structures and finds its expression in them is the field of hydraulic engineering construction. The existence among the peoples of the Ancient East of a large number of hydraulic-engineering structures, their wide distribution, and their considerable, sometimes even grandiose, dimensions indicate beyond doubt that the builders of these structures—and in particular the builders of ancient sewerage systems—possessed a great store of experience and knowledge in the field of hydraulic engineering. Indeed, the sewerage structures of the epoch testify that the peoples of the Ancient East were well acquainted with methods of carrying out not only earthworks and rock works, but even tunnel works (drainage galleries in Jerusalem and in other places), as well as the execution of brick and stone masonry, and also of masonry often used for sewerage—

of sewerage structures, of brick with stone facing, and they carried out these works successfully under difficult conditions not infrequently encountered in hydraulic-engineering structures. They knew the properties of natural building materials and how to work them; they knew how to prepare artificial building materials (brick, more often unburnt, sometimes adobe); they knew how to combine artificial material with natural material, depending on the requirements of structural strength. The peoples of the Ancient East were familiar with the use of binding materials in construction; for this purpose they used clay, more rarely lime, and, to achieve the watertightness of certain parts of structures, asphalt resin. In the sewerage structures of the Ancient East we also find a fairly wide use of pipes, testifying to a considerable degree of skill in their manufacture. These pipes occur in two kinds: stone pipes, made by drilling stone blocks and shaping their outer surfaces for mutual joining (in Assyria, Babylonia, and Judea), and earthenware pipes (in Egypt). Finally, in carrying out building works and, in particular, hydraulic-engineering works, the builders of the Ancient East possessed auxiliary devices—for example, for moving weights—quite sufficient for the performance of very serious tasks. For this purpose they made highly successful use of the simplest transmission mechanisms, levers, simple and differential pulleys, capstans, and various combinations of them, often very ingenious.

Thus we see that, in technology as in hygiene, the peoples of the Ancient East possessed an extensive range of knowledge, which was reflected in the sewerage structures belonging to them and ensured success in the execution of major examples of structures of this kind.

VII.

One of the most remarkable and valuable features of the culture of the ancient Greeks is its attention to the health and beauty of the human body. This feature was reflected in many aspects of both the private and public life of the Greeks and, in any case, brought questions of hygiene and sanitation to their proper place. It also, in connection with the character of the political life of the Greek city-states, made the maintenance of the health and strength of citizens an object of concern for society and the state.

The idea that the health of citizens is a public asset, and that concern for it must rest with the state, not only was generally recognized among the Greeks, but was also put into practice; therefore, of course, it proceeded from the fundamental interests of the state. The constant class struggle within the Greek tribes, the fierce external wars for political independence and for the right of hegemony, with which the whole ancient history of the Greeks is filled, produced among them a military form of state administration. Together with this, among Greek legislators there developed the view of each individual person as a member and servant of the state, as a means and an instrument by which the state idea is realized.

Such a view of man was expressed, among other things, in measures directed toward the preservation of public health. These measures, in general, pursued the aim of making every Greek a warrior, a defender of the fatherland, and of developing in him physical strength, courage, and endurance. The best-known example of such an attitude toward the task of maintaining the physical vigor of the nation is the Spartan upbringing. In other states of Greece this matter did not attain so severe a degree of rigorism, but, in any case, the maintenance of the population’s physical strength was one of the tasks of the state. In some of them, more developed aesthetically than stern Sparta, this task found another support in serious attention to health as an element of bodily beauty.

In any case, the thought of the importance of health and of the means of maintaining it was always deeply understood and congenial to the ancient Greeks. However, it must immediately be said that the means of putting this thought into practice were somewhat one-sided. Such means were, as is known, the wide use of various gymnastic exercises, games, competitions, and so forth. But, while taking care of developing the strength of citizens by means of individual exercises and training, the Greeks paid comparatively less attention to the general hygienic conditions of domestic and urban life. This may perhaps be explained also by the fact that the favorable climate spared the population from excessive misfortunes and concerns in this direction.

The sources of information on the condition of sewerage and waste removal in ancient Greece are, first of all, individual passages in the works of ancient writers concerning the everyday life of their contemporaries. It must be said, however, that the passages illuminating the question that interests us are very few. An important supplement to them is provided by the results of excavations carried out on the mainland of Greece and on the islands of the Archipelago in the past century by a number of archaeologists,

Schliemann, Ross, Fuchs, Gorceix, and others. But even these excavations provide material that is also insufficiently extensive. All this indirectly confirms that the Greeks, less than some other peoples, distinguished themselves by sewerage works, especially large ones. But the presence among them of sanitary and sanitary-engineering measures is beyond doubt. On the contrary, while not finding among the Greeks the remains of grandiose structures, we nevertheless come upon reports that indicate a certain development among them of hygienic knowledge and habits, and the existence of sanitary measures and sanitary-engineering devices.

Before speaking about the development of sewerage among the ancient Greeks, let us dwell in a few words on the information we have concerning the methods of domestic sanitation that they employed. Definite information on this question that we can use is scanty. This depends, as in other cases, on the one hand on the paucity of literary reports, and on the other on the character of the private buildings of that epoch, which have left few traces down to our time because of the frailty of the building materials used for them.

We have no definite information about the ways in which household refuse was dealt with in that epoch. There is every reason to think that they were the same as among other peoples of the ancient world, and in particular of the Ancient East, from which Hellas borrowed many details of its way of life. There is evidence that, in addition to the use of portable vessels for removing impurities, the Greeks sometimes arranged privies in their houses.

But the existence among the ancient Greeks of house sewerage (for the removal of household waters and the waters of basins and fountains) may be regarded as quite reliable, as the result of the widespread use of water for hygienic needs. In fact, numerous indications have been preserved that the Greeks attached very great importance to the morality of bodily cleanliness and paid attention to the cleanliness of the soil. In the latter respect, mention should be made of the inscription on the Delphic temple, which read as follows: “It is forbidden to produce impurities on this sacred ground.” To maintain the cleanliness and health of the body, the Greeks made extensive use of water. The tendency toward the abundant use of water in dwellings and gardens is one of the many borrowings they made from the civilizations of the more ancient peoples of Asia Minor and Egypt. Information about the use of baths goes back to the time of the Pelasgians. Thus in Tiryns a bathroom has been preserved and discovered, exactly corresponding to the descriptions found—

appearing in Homer. Tradition ascribes to one of the heroes of Greek mythology, Hercules, the first use of warm baths. Baths and bathing establishments were used in Greece from very remote antiquity, although at first they were objects of luxury for particular individuals and only later acquired the significance of quite accessible, sometimes even public, institutions (such, for example, were the bathing establishments attached to buildings for gymnastic exercises, the so-called “gymnasia”). Finally, among the very widespread arrangements in private and public buildings among the Greeks were skillfully executed fountains, cascades, and waterfalls for refreshing the air.

The extensive use of water for public and private consumption naturally led to the development of structures for supplying cities with water. And indeed, we may establish the presence, in the cities of Greece and her colonies, of a large number of water conduits. At least, remains of water-supply structures have survived to our time in a whole series of more or less important cities. In this respect, among the cities of Greece itself may be noted Mycenae, Athens, Megara, Thebes, Pharsalus, Olympia, Corinth, and others; and among the cities situated on islands and in colonies: Amasia, Samos, Smyrna, Ephesus, Patara, Methymna, Pergamum, Syracuse, Agrigentum, Cyrene, Antioch.

The abundant consumption of water for the needs of houses and gardens inevitably required the use of devices for carrying off this water, i.e., domestic sewerage. And indeed, we have definite indications that such sewerage existed among the ancient Greeks and was widely used. References to it go back to times of profound antiquity. Thus, in the Odyssey it is said that in the gardens of Alcinous there existed a double network of canals, of which one brought water in, the other carried it away.

We have no definite information concerning the methods of removing solid household and street refuse in ancient Greece. On the other hand, we do have indications of the wide use among the Greeks of two other measures aimed at the sanitation of populated places. I am speaking of disinfection and cremation.

Cremation, i.e., the burning of human corpses, which has developed in the present day into a certain technical art constituting one of the branches of sanitary engineering, takes its origin from those primitive processes that we find precisely in Greece. Here the cremation of human corpses was the general rule. Human bodies, with an especially solemn ceremony, were burned on pyres, and the ashes were collected in urns and buried in the ground beneath—

with a tombstone bearing an appropriate inscription. This method, quite perfect from the sanitary point of view, was, of course, extremely simple from the technical point of view. But even in this form it appears more rational than the method of burying human corpses in the earth that later replaced it (borrowed from the Jews). Here it is also necessary to mention the method of sanitation of dwellings that was used in Greece for the purpose of combating contagious diseases and that may be regarded as the prototype of our disinfection. Among the Jews, as we have seen, in this respect the method of isolation, quarantine, was widely used, determined, to be sure, by the character of the diseases with which they had to contend. They had methods resembling disinfection, for example, washing with water mixed with the ashes of sacrificial animals, sprinkling with hyssop, but these measures were used more rarely. Among the Greeks, the method of isolation was apparently little used; on the other hand, we see a more rational use of disinfection. At moments of epidemic diseases, and also in individual cases of illness, the Greeks widely employed fumigation with fragrant and undoubtedly disinfecting substances, namely sulfur and aromatic compounds.

Turning now to the question of the development among the ancient Greeks of sewerage proper, we must first of all recall the preceding indications of the existence among them of house or estate sewerage. This sewerage served to remove only domestic wastewaters from household premises, kitchens, baths, basins, fountains, etc.; moreover, these waters, usually, before being discharged from the estate, were used for watering gardens. Thus we see that this type of sewerage corresponds completely to the type of estate sewerage of which we spoke in its application to the Ancient East.

In addition to this, in ancient Greece there also existed urban street sewerage. This is proved directly by the remains of sewerage structures discovered in our time in Athens, Olympia, Acragas (ancient Agrigentum), and Samos. It must be thought that the structures of these cities were not the only cases of the use of sewerage. In favor of this is the wide use in all more or less significant cities of Greece of water for public needs, for urban basins, fountains, bathing establishments at the “gymnasia,” gardens, and so forth. Sewerage in these cities was also necessary and was indeed used for conveying atmospheric waters from the streets out of the city, or at least into the main canals—

Historical Outline of the Development of Urban Sewerage

the areas. The character of urban sewerage in Ancient Greece is clarified on the basis of the surviving remains of sewerage structures in the above-mentioned cities.

In Athens there apparently operated a flushing system of sewerage, with the utilization of wastewater by means of irrigating fields. Wastewater from the streets and estates, by means of pipes and small canals, was collected into the main collector (probably not the only one) and was carried by it beyond the city. Parts of this ancient main collector have been preserved to the present day. Judging by the surviving parts, it was a canal of semicircular section, with an opening of up to 2 meters, made of stone. The main collector conveyed the wastewater beyond the city to an extensive covered reservoir, from which several underground canals and pipes proceeded. Everything leads one to think that we are dealing with a collecting and settling reservoir and with distribution canals to sections of irrigation fields. This is further confirmed by the fact that traces of sluices are found in the distribution canals, which made it possible to regulate the discharge of wastewater in a given direction. The surviving parts of the distribution canals consist of stone or brick canals, as well as earthenware pipes. The latter are especially interesting. One of the branches consists of earthenware pipes 0.67 meter in diameter. The pipes are composed of two half-cylinders, joined to one another by grooves and, in addition, by six lead clamps. Of the urban sewerage network of Athens, a small number of parts has been preserved. Among other things, in these parts traces have been found of devices for the artificial flushing of canals. The above-mentioned remains of the sewerage of Athens make it possible to form an approximate picture of this sewerage. It apparently represented a more or less complete and perfected system, which does honor to the building art of the ancient Greeks. Unfortunately, it is impossible to establish to exactly what time the construction of this sewerage belongs. Without this datum it is impossible to say with certainty whether it constitutes an independent work of the epoch of Greece’s independent life or, perhaps, a product of the era of Roman rule and, consequently, an imitation of the sewerage of Rome.

The sewerage of the city of Olympia had a character similar to that of the sewerage of Athens. The urban street watercourses converged into a common collector. The city canals had a semicircular profile and were made of stone masonry. The main collector was made partly of stone, partly of brick. This collector carried off...

wastewater into an extensive closed reservoir, which continued in the form of another drainage canal. This reservoir evidently served as a settling basin. The wastewater, freed in it from the larger and heavier suspended particles, then flowed out for the irrigation of fields, while the sediments were periodically removed from the basin and, probably, were also used as fertilizer.

In the city of Samos, on the island of the same name, remains of ancient sewerage have also been found in the form of galleries cut into the rock. These galleries formed part of a sewerage system that ran underground through the whole city, toward the harbor. The dimensions of the main collectors of this sewerage system were so considerable that, according to Herodotus, the tyrant Maeander once escaped through one of them from the Samian acropolis. This account of Herodotus confirms for us the antiquity of the sewerage system of the city of Samos and leads one to think that ancient Greece possessed significant sewerage installations, which developed independently or, perhaps, were borrowed from the East, long before the establishment of Roman rule. We have already pointed out that in some Greek cities (Athens, Olympia) a system was used for utilizing wastewater for agronomic purposes. This circumstance should be emphasized once again, as a very important feature characterizing the entirely conscious attitude of Greek sanitary engineers toward the useful elements contained in wastewater and in the refuse of urban life.

VIII.

Turning now to the development in ancient Greece of knowledge and art expressed in the creation of sanitary-technical structures, we, as before, dwell, on the one hand, on the growth of hygienic knowledge, and on the other—on the development of applied hydraulics and hydraulic engineering.

Hygienic knowledge, like many other elements of the applied sciences, was borrowed by the ancient Greeks from the East, from Egypt and Mesopotamia, directly or through the mediation of Asia Minor. We have seen that in the field of hygiene they had a serious source in the knowledge of Egyptian scholars. It remained only for them to develop further the scope of hygienic knowledge, to transform it into scientific form, and to introduce it into the life of the people. The Greeks were able to set out on the right path and to achieve major successes upon it, both in the development of hygienic knowledge and, what is still more important, in its broad and fruitful application in life. Indeed, the hygienic knowledge of the ancient Greeks attained considerable fullness

and heights, took on scientific and literary form and were reflected in the everyday life of the people, in particular in their sanitary institutions and sanitary-engineering structures.

Hygiene, as a science, was born in ancient Greece. It has a common father with medicine—Hippocrates. The well-known treatise of Hippocrates on air, water, and so forth is considered the first scientific treatise on hygiene. It contains a systematic study of external conditions—air, water, climate—from the point of view of their influence on human health. It is very likely that a significant part of the information set forth in this treatise was borrowed by the author from the Egyptians and from his predecessors unknown to us. But in any case, to him belongs the systematization and generalization of this information. And the completeness and perfection of the work in this respect are evidenced by the fact that the plan of Hippocrates’ work embraces all the departments included in the field of hygiene, and a considerable part of his propositions remain unshaken to this day. This sufficiently illuminates for us the brilliant figure of the first hygienist and the high level of hygienic knowledge belonging to his epoch. Questions of hygiene also attracted the attention of later writers. Among others, the well-known philosophers Plato and Aristotle dealt with questions of hygiene and with great conviction developed the “theory of environment” of Hippocrates. Plato wrote, moreover, on the practical implementation in life of the rules of hygiene, on the necessity of arranging bathing places, places for gymnastic games, and on strengthening the composition of the sanitary administration.

An even more serious fact for characterizing the development of hygienic knowledge in ancient Greece is the circumstance that this knowledge spread among the population, penetrated deeply into the details of the people’s way of life. Proof of this is furnished by certain features of the life order of the ancient Greeks. Thus, in the sphere of the private life of the people, we see a correct view of the health and strength of the human body and the systematic, rational implementation of this view in practice, in the form of the universal development of bodily training. In public life we find a constant readiness, by measures of the state, to promote the preservation and development of the physical health of the population. Hence the establishment, at state expense and for general use, of a number of institutions—on the one hand, for all kinds of physical exercises, and on the other, for the abundant use of water. Further, in ancient Greece, from a very early epoch, the work of sanitary-police supervision was organized. In all cities we find a properly functioning institution of sanitary guardians, with

...by inspectors subordinate to him, for supervision of the sale of food supplies, the construction of houses, the sanitary condition of streets and squares, and so forth. Finally, ancient Greece provides a sufficient example of properly arranged sanitary-engineering structures, water conduits, sewers, as well as the application of wastewater purification, disinfection, and cremation. Thus, in ancient Greece we find not only a fairly high level of hygienic knowledge, already joined into a system and reduced to theoretical propositions, but also the practical dissemination of this knowledge, its serious influence on popular life—something that may be wished for in any epoch and for any people.

The arrangement of the urban sewerage systems of ancient Greece, mentioned above, and of sanitary-engineering structures in general, could have taken place only with a considerable development of technical knowledge. And indeed, the Greeks, being themselves aborigines of Asia Minor and in general never losing contact with the peoples of the East, borrowed from there the entire store of technical experience possessed by those peoples. Later, thanks to their rare talent, they succeeded to a significant degree in developing this heritage in the field of technical knowledge. This applies to all branches of technology in general, and in particular to the branches of hydraulics and hydraulic engineering, which have the closest relation to sanitary-engineering structures.

In the field of hydraulic knowledge the ancient Greeks took several independent steps in comparison with their cultural predecessors. In this respect they adopted the entire store of knowledge possessed by the peoples of the Ancient East. But already at a very early epoch, judging by Herodotus, they had discovered experimentally the principle of suction, which was applied to the construction of pumps, as well as of siphons. Aristotle attempted to explain the action of suction, putting forward the well-known hypothesis that “nature abhors a vacuum,” which endured in science until Galileo. The Greeks also established the possibility of conveying water in pipes under pressure. The knowledge of the Greeks in the field of hydraulics, until the very latest period, bore—as in its time in the East—a purely empirical character. But among Greek scholars there had already arisen a striving to determine the essence of liquids and their properties, though for a long time this assumed a metaphysical form. In the later period of Greek culture we already find investigators interested in certain features of the motion of liquids and placing this work on real ground, on the path of experiment. The work of these scholars brought great practical benefit, serving for the invention...

and improvement of the simplest hydraulic machines (pumps, water wheels). But, from the point of view of science, they led only to the creation of certain curious experimental apparatuses and yielded no theoretical conclusions or generalizations. Nevertheless, the very fact of taking the path of experiment was a major step forward. Only at the very end of the period of Greece’s independent culture does the first attempt at theory in the field of hydraulics appear, concerning the floating of bodies and belonging to Archimedes.

The absence of theoretical elucidation of observations in the field of hydraulics did not prevent the broad application of these observations to the needs of life. We shall dwell on those of them that have application to sanitary-engineering structures and served as types for further development. The Greeks knew the significance of gradients and their rough determination by means of the simplest instruments with a plumb line. They were familiar with water-lifting machines constructed with the use of levers and blocks, and also in the form of wheels, scoops, and noriae. The Greeks themselves discovered the principle of suction and applied it to the construction of a new type of water-lifting machine, the pump. The Greeks used various types of pumps in different epochs. In the writings of Herodotus is found the most ancient of all known descriptions of a force pump, consisting of a pipe with valves, in which a solid piston moves. In a later epoch a suction pump began to be used, with a hollow piston fitted with valves. Most Greek ships were equipped with this pump for pumping water out of the hold. Finally, the Roman writer-engineer Vitruvius attributes to the Greek Ctesibius, a pupil of Hero, the invention of the double-acting force pump, which, according to the period of the inventor’s life, appeared 150 years before Christ. It apparently consisted of two cylinders and an air reservoir, like our fire pumps. The pump was wooden, and the pistons were most often made of leather. The invention of the air chamber for pumps also dates to the second century before Christ and belongs to Hero of Alexandria. Among the smaller inventions of the Greeks one should note the replacement in pipelines of gate valves by taps, which they made of wood or metal.

In the art of hydraulic engineering the Greeks also attained a considerable degree of perfection. This is shown both by the number of sanitary-engineering structures they built and by the remains of their works that have survived to our time. These structures undoubtedly prove that the Greeks knew how to carry out the construction

canals under all possible local conditions. In soft soils they constructed them of natural or artificial materials (brick), or of earthenware pipes, while in rocky soils they carried them out in the form of tunnels, with the walls lined with masonry or without it. They were excellently acquainted with the working of natural stone materials of all kinds and with the manufacture of artificial material—brick, which they knew how to fire, although they sometimes also used unfired brick. They knew the properties of binding mortars, and in this they used chiefly lime.

The Greeks displayed a special art, for their time, in the construction of pipelines. The wide use of pipes made of various materials constitutes a distinctive feature of Greek sanitary-engineering works and does honor to the skill of the ancient engineers. The reason for the development of this side of the matter was the Greeks’ desire to conduct water underground, to protect it from heating, pollution, and, chiefly, to conceal it from the enemy, which is quite understandable in connection with the troubled life of the Greek cities. Pipelines made it plainly possible to accomplish such a task with great convenience. The pipes were laid in trenches dug in the ground, and sometimes, in the case of rocky soil, in galleries cut into the rock.

The materials used for making pipes were stone, clay, lead, and, perhaps, bronze; the latter supposition has not yet been confirmed by excavations. Stone pipes were obtained by drilling or hollowing out a cylindrical channel in long pieces of stone; they were joined by rebates formed by thinning the walls, the seams being smeared with lime mortar. Earthenware pipes were made in the form of cylinders (sometimes of two half-cylinders) or quadrangular prisms, without an external socket. Rebates, made in the thickness of the wall of the cylindrical or quadrangular body of the pipe, likewise served for joining them. Usually Greek earthenware pipes satisfy the requirement of having the same internal diameter throughout the length of the section, and in this respect compare favorably with Roman pipes. But their walls do not meet the modern requirement of constancy of thickness and strength, since at the joint the wall thickness is reduced, in order to form the rebates, to half the normal thickness. The ratio of the wall thickness of earthenware pipes to their diameter in Greek pipes is usually quite uniform, and in this respect they are also better than Roman ones. The Greeks paid serious attention to the careful sealing of the joints between the individual pipe sections. For this purpose

...for this purpose lime mortar was chiefly used. The Greeks’ lead pipes were made of sheet lead, obtained by rolling or forging and soldered along the seam.

The early use of pipes for conveying water acquainted the Greeks with their important property—the possibility of conducting water under pressure. Thanks to this discovery, they did not stop at the installation of donkers and siphons in their mains. For this purpose they used stone or earthenware pipes, the seams being filled with lead.

It remains to add that, in carrying out their works, the Greeks made use, as auxiliary devices, of simple lifting mechanisms, levers, blocks, pulley tackle, winches, and combinations of these.

From all that has been said above, we thus see that the ancient Greeks were equipped with a fairly complete and perfected store of technical art, experience, and devices, which ensured their success in constructing large and often difficult sanitary-engineering works.

IX.

Turning to the question of the development of sewerage works on the Apennine Peninsula, we must first of all honor with a good word the memory of one ancient, almost prehistoric people, which disappeared from the face of the earth, leaving extremely few written documents about its existence, and which would easily and completely have been forgotten if several remarkable monuments of architecture did not speak for it. This people is the Etruscans.

There are peoples in history who give little occasion for writers to speak of themselves, but for whom, louder than charters and chronicles, speaks the undoubted construction genius inherent in them and distinguishing them. To such peoples, for example, to a certain degree, belong the Aztecs of South America. To such peoples also belong these predecessors of the Romans and of Roman culture, their undoubted teachers in the field of construction—these little-known, but undoubtedly talented, Etruscans.

The first sewerage works on the territory of the Romans belong precisely to the Etruscans. Remains of water drains built by them have been found in the ruins of their cities at Marz and Marzabotto. It was they, apparently, who also built the first water drains of the city of Rome, the predecessors of that sewerage system of which we shall speak further on.

These drainage channels had as their purpose the draining of the locality and the protection of the city from rain floods. They followed the natural watercourses of the locality, i.e., the beds of ravines and streams. At first these were open ditches, which were later covered over as urban life developed. In some part they may have been used in the construction and extension of later drains, built already by the Romans.

Etruscan architecture, as is known, was borrowed by the Romans and served as the fundamental element from which, under the influence—at a later period—of Greek models and masters, Roman art developed. Thus the Romans, in the very earliest period, had in the person of their northern neighbors, the Etruscans, remarkable predecessors and teachers in architecture; and, having entered through the mediation of southern Italy into relations with the Greeks likewise fairly early, only from the latter did they receive another source of influence in this field. We have seen that both the Etruscans, insofar as their culture is known to us, and the Greeks were not devoid of a stock of sanitary knowledge and had revealed considerable experience and skill in the construction of sanitary-engineering structures. It is therefore not surprising that the Romans, already at a very early period, created several serious examples of sanitary-engineering architecture, and throughout their entire history did very much in this field. Indeed, to them belongs a whole series of structures for the water supply and sewerage of cities not only in Italy, but also in all countries that formed part of the Roman Empire. They also employed more perfected methods of cleansing dwellings and streets. Before beginning an account of the development of urban sewerage among the Romans, we must say a few words about this latter question.

Information on the development of sewerage and the cleansing of cities among the Romans we obtain on the basis of individual passages in the works of Roman writers, among whom, incidentally, there are two engineers by profession, namely Marcus Vitruvius Pollio and Sextus Julius Frontinus; then on the basis of the remains of sewerage structures that have survived to our time in Italy and in other countries that formed part of the ancient Roman Empire; and from descriptions of them by modern authors; and finally, on the basis of excavations carried out in various cities, including the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii.

We have no information about the methods of cleansing the houses and streets of Roman cities in the ancient period of Roman history, before the first century B.C. It must be thought that originally it had the same prin—

primitive forms, as among all ancient peoples, and then, as urban amenities and domestic comfort grew, with the penetration in the second–first centuries of Greek influence, it gradually improved, until it reached that degree of development in which we see it under the emperors. During this period the improvement of Roman settlements made, as we shall now see, quite noticeable advances.

Even before the imperial period the Romans began to adopt, in better houses, the arrangement of privies, while at first continuing to use portable vessels for the removal of impurities. Small rooms for this purpose were usually placed behind the kitchen. The abundant supply of water to Rome and other cities in the best epoch of Roman culture gave impetus to serious improvement in the arrangement of latrines. In this epoch, water began to be used for the removal of impurities and for flushing latrines, in the form of a constantly flowing stream. Examples of such arrangements have come down to us and have been found during excavations at Pompeii and Pozzuoli. These primitive water-closets of the ancient world were arranged in such a way that a stream of water, often having passed through the kitchen, was directed along a gutter past a properly arranged seat; then it passed under the seat and, finally, flowed outside the house into the drain of the estate sewerage. It must be said that the Romans of this epoch paid due attention to the convenience of rooms of this kind, and in the houses of wealthy people they did not stop short of finishing them with marble and artistic decorations.

We have just mentioned that the cities of the Romans in the imperial epoch were abundantly supplied with water. Indeed, from the writings of S. J. Frontinus and other Roman authors we learn, for example, that the city of Rome in the age of Trajan had ten aqueducts, which delivered up to 1,000,000 cubic meters of water per day, an average of 2,700 liters per head of population. Of course, such an immensely abundant water supply was unique of its kind. But it is known, in any case, that very many large cities, both in Italy itself and in the Roman provinces, were supplied with aqueducts that provided large quantities of water. One of the characteristic features of ancient Roman water supply was that the overwhelming majority of private persons could obtain water only from public reservoirs and used it in comparatively small quantities; water was conveyed directly only into buildings of public importance or into the houses of persons of outstanding social position, and in these buildings it was consumed in enormous quantities. This

...this circumstance was determined either by the special purpose of certain buildings (in baths, bathing establishments, circuses, etc.), or by the extensive size and abundance of plantings or decorative hydraulic-engineering installations (in palaces and the dwellings of the nobility). In any case, in the palaces, public buildings, and some private houses of the Romans we find a widely developed system of domestic or estate water supply, with a very considerable consumption of water. It is understandable that in those same buildings there also had to exist a properly developed and arranged system of domestic sewerage. It carried away the waste waters from basins, fountains, domestic premises, kitchens, latrines, and directed them into the municipal sewerage system, where such existed, or into the nearest thalwegs and watercourses. Sometimes these waste waters were collected in garden cisterns and, after preliminary release, were used for irrigating plantings. Remains of sewerage systems of this kind have survived to our time in Rome and in many other places. In many towns of lesser importance, the remains of sewerage from the Roman period consist precisely of separate sewerage structures belonging to palaces and palace estates. In any event, we see that among the Romans a properly arranged domestic or estate sewerage system was a fairly ordinary phenomenon.

With regard to the sanitation of Roman cities, it must also be noted that public latrines existed. Institutions of this kind appeared in Rome in the time of the emperors and existed in considerable numbers. There is evidence, for example, that under Emperor Diocletian there were 144 of them. It is entirely possible and probable that they existed in this epoch in other cities as well, although this has not been documented. One can only guess at the arrangement of such institutions. But as regards their operation it is known that they were under the supervision of special persons, “foracarii,” who charged a fee for their use.

Some reports also give grounds for believing that in Rome, in the best period of its culture, the public method of removing domestic solid refuse was practiced. For this purpose the refuse was collected in vessels which were regularly emptied in the mornings on the street in front of the houses, whence it was then likewise removed regularly. It is well known, finally, that with regard to human corpses the Romans, at a comparatively early period, borrowed from the Greeks and widely applied the method of cremation.

Having confined ourselves to the information presented concerning the other elements of the sanitation of Roman cities, we shall turn to the question...

of the existence among the Romans of urban sewerage. Here it is necessary first of all, of course, to touch upon the sewerage of the city of Rome itself.

The construction of underground sewerage in Rome was begun, according to tradition, under King Tarquinius Priscus (615–578 B.C.). These works were originally undertaken for the drainage of the area occupied by the forum, and of the Velabrum valley, situated between the Capitoline and Palatine hills. The result of this work was an underground canal which later became the most important part of Rome’s sewerage system, the so-called Cloaca maxima. This collector, then the only one, carried the storm and ground waters of the indicated district into the River Tiber. The Cloaca maxima was, beyond doubt, built by covering a natural stream with a stone vault. Its completion belongs to the reign of Tarquinius Superbus (534–509 B.C.). It must be supposed that its construction was not carried out systematically, but with interruptions; it is likewise beyond doubt that subsequently it was repeatedly rebuilt in sections, so that in it we find parts belonging to different epochs. Already in the time of Tarquinius Superbus, besides the Cloaca maxima, there existed lateral canals, closed and partly open, for which it served as the main collector. The gradual expansion of the city’s sewerage and its reconstruction continued thereafter, as the city grew. But with particular energy the building activity for the development and improvement of Rome’s sewerage resumed in the time of the emperors. Most of all in this direction was done under Augustus. In this reign Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, the emperor’s son-in-law, in the office of aedile in charge of the sewerage of the city of Rome, brought the existing network into full order and supplemented it with new drains. He also, among other things, introduced artificial flushing of certain parts of the network by constructing seven reservoirs, filled from the aqueducts, the pressure from which was used for flushing. In the course of the centuries the secondary elements of the ancient network were destroyed. But its main part, the Cloaca maxima, exists to the present time and even continues to perform, at least in part, the same role that was assigned to it 2,500 years ago.

This role was very similar to that of the collector of the combined system of our time, since the Cloaca maxima served simultaneously for the removal of storm waters from the streets, household waters from buildings, and also the ground waters of adjacent districts. That various public buildings were connected with the Cloaca is beyond doubt. But to this day no examples have been found of devices for discharging filth from private houses directly into underground canals. Such a poss—

...possibility was, however, provided for in the imperial period by a law that permitted householders to construct, at their own expense, drains from their houses to the collectors, with payment of a special fee for the connection (cloacarium).

Judging from the remains of Rome’s sewerage that have survived to our day, it consisted of a system of underground channels of various lengths and cross-sectional dimensions. These channels were built in the form of two stone walls, with a trough between them and a covering. The covering was made chiefly vaulted, although in smaller channels a flat covering was also used, in the form of horizontal or inclined slabs laid in pairs. For receiving wastewater there served, first, extensions of the small collectors in the form of open ditches, and second, stone receiving wells and pipes. Similar devices also served for ventilating the network. For flushing the network there were special reservoirs filled with water from the aqueduct.

The total length of the sewerage network of ancient Rome and the location of its individual branches remain unclear to us. The considerable extent of the network in a comparatively early period of its development, before its expansion under Emperor Augustus, may be judged from the well-known historical fact that up to 1000 talents (1½–2 million rubles) were spent by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa on repairing and cleaning the sewers. This expenditure was made out of a specially established sewer tax. M. V. Agrippa significantly increased the size of the network, and under him, according to writers’ testimony, the sewerage of Rome had such an extent that an inspection tour of this sewerage, which Agrippa made by traveling through the collectors in a boat, required an entire day. Under Augustus’ successors the expansion of the network continued, and by the end of the imperial period a considerable part of the city’s area was equipped with sewers.

Of the cross-sectional dimensions and the method of construction of parts of the Roman sewerage system, we can form an idea from the parts of the Cloaca maxima that have survived to our time. To show how the cross sections of the Cloaca maxima change from above downstream toward the mouth, the following figures may serve. Its width at the Forum Augustum is 3.15 meters; at the Basilica Julia, 3.20 m; on the Via del Velabro, 2.15 m; at the temple of Janus, 2.50 m; at Marrana di S. Giorgio, 4.30 m. The full height from the crown of the vault to the invert is, at the Forum Augustum, 4.10 m; at the Basilica Julia, 4.20 m; on the Via del Velabro, 3.19 m; at the temple of Janus, 2.50 m; at Marrana di S. Giorgio, 3.30 m. From a comparison of the cross-sectional dimensions with the local conditions it is seen that the dimensions of the collector increase...

to the mouth; but, in addition, there are local widenings at points with a gentler slope. Thus the dimensions of the Cloaca maxima were, to a certain extent, coordinated with the discharges and the topographical conditions.

With regard to the method of construction of the Cloaca maxima, it must be said that in this structure we do not find uniformity among its individual parts. Evidently, in the present case we are dealing with a series of elements built at different times. The walls are made of stone, partly of a volcanic rock, the so-called peperino (lapis piperinus among the Romans), partly of limestone, quarried along the river Anio (now Teverone) near the town of Tibur, travertine (lapis tiburtinus among the Romans). The masonry of the walls is for the most part laid in mortar, but over a considerable length there are sections made of large stones laid without mortar. The vaults are semicircular, usually made of large stones and consisting of two or three stones in thickness, laid in mortar. There are also portions of stone vaults constructed without mortar. In some places the vaults are also made of brick. The channel is sometimes horizontal, sometimes cylindrical, paved with large stone slabs. In some places sidewalks are arranged along the walls, and in the middle of the flume there is a cuvette. In addition, in places projecting stones are set into the walls, intended, perhaps, for laying pipes upon them to the fountains.

The structures of the Roman sewerage system constitute one of the remarkable monuments of ancient architecture. But especially striking is the durability of these structures. Built 25 centuries ago, in the remote times of the Roman kings, they still serve the sanitary needs of modern Rome. They remain undestroyed, despite the destruction of the mass of monumental buildings that stood above them; even the most terrible shocks and blows of earthquakes had no effect on their integrity. Pliny already said of the Cloaca maxima: “The ruins of age-old buildings covered the ground of old Rome. Earthquakes shook its walls and hills. But this underground gigantic structure survived everything.”… We, 18 centuries after Pliny, can only repeat the words of the famous historian.

The drains of ancient Rome have been studied in detail by the Italian engineer Pietro. A detailed description of them is contained in Richter’s work, “Die Cloaca maxima in Rom” (Antike Denkmäler herausgegeben von Kais. Deutsch. Arch. Inst.). At the present time an attempt has been made to restore the Cloaca maxima and to bring it into a form accessible for dia

for public inspection. Thanks to the work of the engineer Boni, the underground channels of Rome are now accessible to the traveler, just like the streets of the Eternal City.

From all that has been set forth above, we see that the Romans in their world capital had an extensive and properly arranged system of urban sewerage; that they widely and rationally employed house sewerage and sanitation; that they practiced the removal (and probably also the destruction and agricultural utilization) of solid household refuse, as well as the cremation of corpses. To this must be added a few words on the utilization of wastewater. We have already seen that in the Roman system of house sewerage it was not uncommon to conduct spent domestic waters, after they had first been discharged beyond the limits of the estate, for watering plantings. In addition to this method of utilizing wastewater, there is evidence that the city’s wastewater was diverted from the drains, before entering the Tiber, and used for irrigating gardens and fields situated below. This measure was applied with a view to protecting the Tiber from pollution by putrefying substances. In this we find one of the early instances of the use of so-called irrigation fields, which at the present time are recognized as the best system for rendering urban impurities harmless. Thus we see that the Romans employed, in a form corresponding to their epoch, varied and sufficiently perfected methods of sanitation for their city.

The considerable scale of the sanitary-engineering works—water-supply and sewerage structures—created in ancient Rome at the expense and under the direction of the government and constituting the property of the state, could, of course, function properly only if there existed a very complex administrative organization. In the works of the ancient writers that have come down to us, enough information has been preserved to reconstruct, in broad outline, this system of organization; and it seems worthwhile to become acquainted with it, as a supplement to what has preceded.

In the time of the republic, responsibility for this matter was entrusted to the censors and aediles. Under the empire, the aqueducts were managed by an official who bore the title of curator—Curator aquarum. The same title was borne by the chief administrators upon whom rested the duty of supervising the maintenance of the sewerage network, as well as the good condition of the bed of the River Tiber. They were called Curatores alvei Tiberis et cloacarum Urbis. Often these two duties were combined in one person.

The administrators who performed these duties belonged to persons of high station, enjoying the special confidence of the emperors. In these offices we see men of outstanding position and, at the same time, of great talent. Such, for example, was Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, son-in-law and favorite of the emperor Augustus. Such also was the well-known Roman engineer and technical writer Sextus Julius Frontinus, of whom we shall speak later, and who left the office of curator to take the supreme command of the Roman colonial army. In general, it is noteworthy that the Romans treated such a utilitarian structure as urban drains with rare attention, and did not hesitate to connect their name with the names of their gods. We see such a curious combination in the name of one temple of Venus—Venus Cloacina.

The organization of the administration of the Roman aqueducts and sewerage belongs to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. He entered into charge of the aqueducts of Rome in 34 B.C. and was the first person to bear the title of curator of the aqueducts and drains of Rome, remaining in this office until his death. M. V. Agrippa was one of the outstanding Roman engineers and builders, and during his administration brought the sanitary-technical structures of Rome into exemplary order. He also organized supervision over the sewerage (as well as the water-supply) structures and their maintenance. For this purpose the network of drains was divided into sections, over which special overseers—villicii—kept watch. Supervision over the flushing reservoirs belonged to special persons, who were called castellarii. For carrying out repair work, crews of workers were organized, divided by specialties: masons—muratores, plasterers—tectores, pavers—silicarii, unskilled laborers—opifices, and so forth. For higher control over the works there were special traveling inspectors—circitores. Finally, at the head of the works stood the curator himself with his assistant engineers.

As the boundaries of the empire expanded, the Romans carried into their colonies, together with other elements of culture, the technical knowledge and methods developed in Rome. Thus there were introduced and developed on new soil, in considerable numbers, types of technical structures which we find in the capitals of the empire: roads, aqueducts, and, in particular, sewerage systems. It is therefore not surprising that in a number of cities that had been Roman colonies we can establish the existence of sewerage structures.

The presence of sewerage works in the cities of the Roman colonies is attested, on the one hand, by references in the literature and, on the other, by the remains and traces of these works that have survived down to our own time. Both sources alike are fragmentary, which prevents us from forming a complete and clear picture of the sewerage of these cities as a whole. Nevertheless, they provide sufficient grounds for asserting that the partial use of sewerage in the cities of the Roman colonies was not an uncommon or unusual phenomenon. At the same time, it must be said that the scale of such urban sewerage systems nowhere could compare with the sewerage system of Rome, either in absolute size or even in relative development across the city’s territory. Most often, the sewerage systems of the provincial cities of the Roman Empire consisted of separate elements serving several buildings or estates of outstanding importance, such as palaces and gardens of governors, baths, and the like. In their methods of construction these sewerage systems show complete analogy with those parts of the sewerage system of Rome that belong to the imperial period. This gives grounds for thinking that, in general, the methods of sanitation, insofar as they were applied in the Roman provinces, were the same as in Rome itself.

We shall begin the list of cities for which we have information, literary and archaeological, concerning the existence of sewerage with the Roman possessions located in Europe. Here, first of all, one must mention Herculaneum, situated in Italy itself, where remains of sewerage have been found. Further, in Paris (the Romans’ Lutetia Parisiorum) we find remains of sewerage in the ruins of the palace of Emperor Constantius Chlorus, now known as the Thermes. In Trier (Augusta Trevirorum) there are remains of sewerage in the ruins of Trajan’s palace, as well as in the ruins of the baths in the suburb of St. Barbara. Remains of Roman sewerage have also been found in Cologne (Colonia Agrippina).

Among the Asian cities of the Romans that had sewerage, Nicomedia must be mentioned first of all. Pliny the Younger, when governor of the provinces of Pontus and Bithynia, petitioned Emperor Trajan concerning the construction of sewerage in this city. Whether sewerage was carried out in Nicomedia under him is unknown. But it undoubtedly existed under Emperor Diocletian, and during his reign major works were undertaken for its expansion and repair. Further, there is information on the existence of sewerage in Damascus and Palmyra. Excavations carried out have confirmed this information and, among other things, have clarified the character of domestic water supply and sewerage in these cities.

In the houses of Damascus and Palmyra, water was usually conducted into an open basin situated in the middle of a courtyard paved with mosaic. From there it flowed into another basin, placed in the kitchen, and then washed the latrine. The wastewater was at first directed into garden cisterns and used for irrigation, and then discharged into the municipal sewerage system.

It was mentioned above that Pliny the Younger, governor of Pontus and Bithynia, touched in his letters to the emperor Trajan upon questions concerning the construction of drains. There is another example of this, relating to the city of Amastris. In one of his letters Pliny proposed, and the emperor then permitted, that a stream running along one of the main streets of Amastris, which had naturally turned into an open drainage ditch, be covered over with a vault.

Finally, among the cities situated in the African provinces of Rome, there is reason to suppose the existence of elements of sewerage belonging to the Romans in Alexandria.

The list given, of course, does not exhaust all the cities of the Roman provinces in which sewerage was employed, and the number of such applications within the borders of the Roman Empire was probably considerably greater.

X.

Turning to the development among the Romans of knowledge and arts significant for sanitary engineering and expressed in their sewerage works, it must be said that, in comparison with their predecessors in culture, they took several new steps in the development of hydraulics and hydraulic construction engineering. As for the Romans’ knowledge in the field of hygiene, it is true that they were not below their cultured neighbors, and in the best period of the empire’s existence the expression of this knowledge in the form of sanitary measures reached considerable development; however, it must be pointed out that in this field the Romans displayed little independent creativity and, even in the period of the highest development of their culture, did not go beyond borrowing from their cultured neighbors, chiefly the Greeks.

In the ancient period of Rome’s existence we find here independent beginnings—perhaps, however, inherited from the Etruscans—of hygienic knowledge and sanitary measures. Thus, in the most ancient code of Roman legislation—the laws of the Twelve Tables—there are found certain sanitary

prescriptions of a general character concerning supervision over food supplies, the maintenance of cloacae and canals, etc. But with the advent of the epoch of territorial expansion of the Roman state and the subsequent development of civic culture, Rome came into close cultural contact with Greece and in many respects fell under the influence of Greek culture. Having the opportunity to inherit from the Greeks, and through them from the peoples of the East, a quite developed stock of knowledge in the field of medicine and hygiene, the Romans did not need to develop this knowledge independently. They merely adopted and preserved this stock, and also made considerable use of it in application to the practical needs of populated places, for which, it must be said, they had greater means and opportunities at their disposal. Thus it may be considered that the hygienic knowledge of the Romans in the epoch of their highest culture was on the level of the same knowledge among the Greeks. In respect, however, of the application of hygiene to the improvement of populated places, the Romans attained greater breadth. In the epoch of the emperors, the matter of the sanitary improvement of Rome, and also in part of other cities, enjoyed serious attention, and on this path Rome outstripped Athens. In this connection one may point, for example, to the existence in Rome of legislative norms corresponding to a building code, which relate to the reign of Nero and later emperors. By such special ordinances in Rome the height of houses was regulated and, in accordance with their height, the width of streets; householders were charged with concern for the cleanliness of streets; measures were indicated for preserving the proper condition of drainage canals and the purity of the water in the Tiber River; governmental organs were appointed to supervise the execution of sanitary prescriptions, as well as the sale of edible supplies, for prosecuting adulteration, etc. The existence, in large numbers, of baths, bathing establishments, water conduits, sewerage systems, etc., also indicates a high degree of public self-awareness among the Romans in matters of hygiene and sanitation.

Turning now to the question of the development of hydraulic knowledge among the Romans, it must be said that the existence among them of a series of grandiose water-supply and sewerage structures, constructed and functioning rationally, undoubtedly proves that the Roman engineers who created these structures possessed extensive experience in this field and, in particular, were able to take into account the hydraulic character of the operation of such structures. This applies especially to the question of the choice of gradients. A consecutive examination of the details of the arrangement of hydraulic-engineering structures

of the city of Rome proves that Roman engineers did not cease to improve in the study of the dependence of the movement of water upon gradients, since in the aqueducts of the later period the alignment was chosen more skillfully, and the natural slopes of the ground were utilized better than in the most ancient structures. They were seriously occupied with the question of the minimum gradient of canals, and we find a solution to this question on the basis of experience in the technical work of that epoch that has come down to us—the treatise of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio. As for the dependence of discharge on cross-section, this dependence was not only known to the Romans, but even, to a certain degree, studied in its application to cross-sections of small size. This is proved by certain passages in the works of the Roman technical writer Sextus Julius Frontinus, as well as by the invention of water meters in the form of calibrated pipes of small diameter. They could not calculate cross-sections of large size as a function of discharge, and in choosing the dimensions of their canals they seem to have been guided by the possibility of passage for people, with a view to making repairs. The method of using tubular water meters, of which we shall speak later—namely, the placement of their openings at a definite depth—also indicates the Romans’ acquaintance with the influence of head. This is proved, on the other hand, by the use, though rare, of pressure sections in their water-supply structures.

All this proves that the Roman engineers had at their disposal a large store of experience and observations concerning the movement of water, a store so substantial and so well verified that they were already able to make certain generalizations. However, the Romans, like the Greeks, in the field of hydraulics had barely entered upon the path of generalization and did nothing to create a theory of the movement of water. In this, however, there is nothing surprising, since in the field of pure science the Greeks continued all along to be the teachers of the Romans.

The lack of theoretical treatment of the data of experience in the field of hydraulics did not, of course, hinder their application to the needs of life. And indeed, among the Romans we find the same breadth of these applications as among the Greeks. In this respect the Romans adopted from their cultural predecessors, together with knowledge, all the types of hydraulic devices that had been developed by them, adding on their own part, with the passage of time and experience, chiefly constructive improvements. Thus they employed devices for raising water, both of the type of mechanisms set in motion by the power of men and animals or automatically by the movement of water, and of the type of pumps. Among other things, to Roman

The epoch (the 2nd century B.C.) saw the invention of double-acting force pumps and of an air regulator for pumps, although their inventors were Greeks (Ctesibius and Hero). The Romans were the first to introduce fire pumps into use (Siphones—whence the word siphon). Also new was the application, invented on Roman soil, of hydraulic power to perform work in industry, in the form of the water mill wheel. In applying their hydraulic engineering structures, the Romans, like the Greeks, used shields, sluices, and valves of various types and of very advanced design. But the most original of their inventions among the devices relating to these structures is the water meter.

Among the Romans, the taking of water from the water supply was carried out chiefly directly from public reservoirs. But, by way of exception, with the permission of the government, water was also conducted into private houses, and it was then necessary to measure the quantity of water allotted to each householder. This quantity was measured by means of a nozzle or small pipe of a definite cross-section. The unit of measurement was the “quinaria”—the discharge obtained with the aid of a special measure (calix), a cylindrical bronze tube, 0.33 meter long and about 30 mm in diameter, placed vertically in a reservoir, with an opening at a depth of 0.33 meter below the surface of the water. The quinaria amounted to about 420 liters per day. On the basis of the unit of discharge, the quinaria, a system of 25 cylindrical water-measuring tubes was developed, with which the water branches from reservoirs to private consumers were to begin, depending on the quantity of water authorized for delivery. These tubes were made of bronze or lead, bore a government stamp, and had to be at least 30 centimeters long. It was also required that the water-supply pipe carrying water into the house have, for a distance of at least 15 meters, the same diameter as the measuring pipe, since the Romans discovered that widening the pipe close to the water meter increases the discharge. This first water meter was proposed, according to S. Yu. Frontinus, by Vitruvius.

There is no need to say much about the skill of the Romans in the field of constructional hydraulics. The number, the grandiose dimensions, and the centuries-long existence of their hydraulic engineering structures speak for them. The evidence that has come down to us, and the remains of the structures they created, undoubtedly attest that they were magnificently capable of managing all kinds of construction work encountered in the erection of hydraulic engineering structures—earthworks, rock—

...tunnel, and stone works. It must be said that they made use of tunnel works considerably more rarely than the Greeks, preferring above-ground monumental structures. As for stone works, which constituted the bulk of their constructions, they used both natural stone materials, in the form of ashlar and rubble stone, and materials of artificial manufacture. In the most ancient period, masonry was laid dry, from stones of large size, roughly hewn in the foundations and dressed in the upper parts of the structure. Later one encounters the same masonry with the use of mortar only for filling the exposed parts of the joints; and, finally, in a later period, mortar begins to be used as a binding material, with the joints filled through the entire thickness of the masonry. Lime, as well as pozzolana, was used as binding material.

Here it is appropriate to say a few words about the methods and achievements of the Romans in the manufacture of pipes for conveying water. The pipes used in Roman sanitary-engineering structures were stone, earthenware, and lead. Stone pipes were made of hard rock, in which a cylindrical or polygonal channel was drilled or hollowed out, and did not differ from similar pipes of the ancient Greeks. Earthenware pipes were made in such a way that the diameter of the pipe at one end was larger than at the other. This made it possible, when joining pipes, to insert the narrow end of one pipe into the wide end of the next, with the joint sealed. In this way the inconvenience caused by the tapering ends of pipes, which we noted in pipes of Greek workmanship, was avoided. Lead pipes had a pear-shaped cross-section, which is explained by the method of their manufacture: to obtain them, a lead sheet was bent and its edges were soldered on the upper side.

A remarkable consequence of the Romans’ attention to sanitary engineering and of the high degree of experience in this field is that they produced from among themselves the first, and indeed very notable, technical writers; and sanitary engineering proved to be one of the first fields seriously illuminated in technical literature. Separate passages describing technical structures are found in the works of many Roman writers. We shall mention, for example, the well-known Commentarii of G. Julius Caesar, the Commentarii of M. V. Agrippa (containing very interesting information on the composition of the plan of the Roman Empire). But the first exclusively technical writers were two Roman engineers, Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (M. Vitruvius Pollio) and Sextus Julius Frontinus (S. Iulius Frontinus).

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio lived in the time of Emperor Augustus. According to some accounts, he was born in Verona; according to others, in Gaeta (ancient Cajeta); the year of his birth, as well as of his death, is unknown. Having begun his activity with the construction of civil buildings (the basilica at Fano is attributed to him), he then accompanied Julius Caesar as a military engineer on campaigns in Gaul, Spain, and Greece; under his direction siege engines and other military machines were built, as well as bridges, described in part in the Commentaries of Julius Caesar himself. In old age, through the intercession of Octavia, the sister of Augustus, he was awarded a pension and devoted his leisure to the composition of an extensive work on the art of building, embracing all branches of engineering and entitled by him De Architectura. This work was written approximately in 16–13 B.C. It consisted of ten books, of which only the first seven and a fragment of the ninth have come down to us. Vitruvius’s treatise was illustrated with drawings, but the latter have not survived. The first copy of this work was found in the library of the monastery of Monte Cassino. It was first published in Venice in 1497, and was then reprinted several times in various languages (including in Russian, by the Academy of Sciences in 1792–1797, in Bazhenov’s translation from the French edition of Perrault, 1678–1684). Some editions contain attempts, on the basis of the text, to reconstruct the lost drawings. In his work Vitruvius devotes much space to sanitary-engineering structures and presents a fairly coherent picture of the condition of water conduits and sewerage in Rome, Greece, and the Roman provinces in his own era, and of the views of Roman engineers on methods for accomplishing the tasks of rational water conveyance.

The other Roman technical writer we have mentioned, Sextus Julius Frontinus, lived in a later period. The year of his birth is not known precisely. It is supposed that he was born in A.D. 35–40 and lived until 103–104. A Roman patrician by origin, S. J. Frontinus held various posts in government service. His activity took place during the reigns of the emperors Vespasian, Titus, Nerva, and Trajan. In A.D. 69 he participated in the general survey of lands undertaken by order of Vespasian; in 70 he was praetor urbanus; from 75 to 78 he was in Britain, where he commanded an army corps, and later took part in campaigns in various countries. In 96 S. J. Frontinus received the office of Curator aquarum et cloacarum urbis Romae, i.e., imperial superintendent of the aqueducts and sewerage of Rome,

...Rome. He was the seventeenth holder of this office and remained in it until his death. In the year 97 Frontinus was also consul suffectus, and in the year 100, under Trajan, consul.

S. J. Frontinus wrote, judging from excerpts and references in later writers, the following works on various subjects: “The Art of War,” “A Manual of Land-Surveying Science,” “Strategy,” “On Agriculture,” “On Boundaries, Roads, etc.,” “On the Roman Colonies,” and “On the Aqueducts of the City of Rome.” Of these, the last of his works, the largest and most important, Commentarius de aquaeductibus urbis Romae, has come down to us in more or less complete form and without significant distortions. The other works of S. J. Frontinus are lost, with the exception of several excerpts from the “Manual of Land-Surveying Science.” The origin of his major work is as follows. Upon assuming the office of curator of the aqueducts and water drains of Rome, Frontinus, in order to acquaint himself with the capital’s complex needs in the matter of water supply, resolved to collect detailed information on the Roman aqueducts. By his order, detailed drawings of the water-supply structures were prepared; public and private water consumption, the number of reservoirs, and other data were determined. On the basis of these materials Frontinus composed his remarkable book, mentioned above, Commentarius de aquaeductibus Urbis Romae. It contains a description of all the Roman aqueducts existing in the author’s time. Here we find indications of when and by whom they were built, from what distance the water was brought, and detailed information on the extent of the aqueducts inside the city and within its limits, the length of the underground aqueducts and the bridge-aqueducts, the dimensions and construction of the latter, as well as on the quantity of water delivered by each aqueduct according to measurements in the field, and on the number of public and private reservoirs. The same work also gives data on the cost of the water-supply structures to the treasury and to private persons, and on the water rates established by governmental regulations.

The appearance among the Romans of technical literature is a characteristic fact, showing that their knowledge in construction technology in general, and in particular in the field of sanitary engineering, had attained a completeness and orderliness that required written expression. This fact promised the further normal course of development both of the art and of knowledge in this field. But the political disorders that marked the last centuries of the Roman Empire’s existence halted the development within it of sanitary-engineering construction, and the dark ages of the Middle Ages that followed...

almost destroyed, among other elements of culture, the Romans’ sanitary-engineering structures even in Italy itself, to say nothing of other countries. The modern age had to begin anew the cultural path already partly traversed by the peoples of the ancient world. And so, during the revival of European culture, Roman sanitary-engineering structures and, in part, Roman technical literature had to repeat their educational role among the peoples. In antiquity, living Rome had the great merit of disseminating to all parts of the then-known world the technical art and knowledge inherited from cultured predecessors and augmented by its own experience. In modern times, the dead remains of its sanitary-engineering structures and fragments of its technical literature once again served as an example and stimulus for the renewal of the great cause of sanitary-engineering construction among the new peoples that had begun their political existence on the ruins of the Roman Empire.

The next issue will be devoted to an outline of the development of sewerage in the Middle Ages and in modern times.