imagine thousands of years ago, if you were very rich, you would stay away from rivers because of the risk of flooding - but you still needed a source of water

imagine thousands of years ago, if you were very rich, you would stay away from rivers because of the risk of flooding - but you still needed a source of water - so you hire people to carry water from the streams to your home. how would you automate that? by building robots to carry the water containers? what is the optimal solution may not be the most obvious.