Roman Aqueducts Essay

The Roman empire was one of, if not the, most successful civilizations throughout all of history. Lasting over 1,000 years, the empire flourished through economic wealth, military power, and set the groundwork for how many societies build themselves today. Rome had many key factors to its success, but one of its most powerful assets were the ancient Roman aqueducts that loomed over the city. Theses aqueducts were key to the success of the Romans. They towered over Rome, bringing fresh water for people to drink, providing water for public baths, and to bring help in the agriculture of Rome. Engineers were even considered artists whose aqueducts were their works. (Perowne, 34) The Roman civilization would not have flourished if not for the aqueducts, …show more content…
The Romans set up water-powered gristmills in order to grind grain into flour to produce the bread needed to supply soldiers with food. They produced artificial conduits powered by aqueducts that would turn a wheel and a milestone attached to it, thus grinding the grain into flour (Evans, 84). This was important because it kept the soldiers of the Roman army well fed. If the soldiers were not well fed, it could lead to a revolt in the army, and death to many of the soldiers. This system kept Rome's army alive and the Romans workload low. As the empire slowly but surely began to crumble, the Romans built no new aqueducts. It was said that the end of aqueduct production mirrored the fall of the empire. In 226 AD the final aqueduct was built, mostly to refurbish the emperor's bath. (Solomon, 91) After that the empire fell to barbarians and the Roman empire was gone. Water is one of the most important resources. The Romans took advantage of mountain springs full of clean water and gave their citizens all they needed. This helped the Roman society advance at a rate that almost no other society could have advanced. If not for aqueducts, it is likely the empire would never had succeeded in the first