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>Did they improve sanitation, irrigation, medicine etc.? They built a network of aqueducts that was the largest in the world for a thousand years. The plumbing
by Miraste 2y ago
>Did they improve sanitation, irrigation, medicine etc.?
They built a network of aqueducts that was the largest in the world for a thousand years. The plumbing and sewage systems they installed in their cities were so effective that some are not just intact, but in use, right now. There are plenty of negative points you can raise about the Roman Empire, but water systems aren't one of them.
- lo_zamoyski 2y agoAnd let us not forget about Roman law.
- bigiain 2y agoBut apart from the aqueducts, what have the Romans ever done for us?
- notarealllama 2y agoOkay, but apart from orthography and aquaducts, what have the Romans ever done for us? Now as punishment go write this on the wall 100 times!
- mrandish 2y agoSeeing the comedy beats of that scene play out on HN, first unintentionally and then intentionally, has made my day!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- baud147258 2y agowell, being part of the Roman Republic/Empire meant peace, even if it was enforced at the tip of a pilum. And the population under the Empire were more prosperous and numerous, so much that the collapse of the Empire in the West had long-lasting negative consequences (I'm mostly basing my opinion off this article: https://acoup.blog/2022/02/11/collections-rome-decline-and-fall-part-iii-things/ https://acoup.blog/2022/02/11/collections-rome-decline-and-f...)
- 71bw 2y ago>some are not just intact, but in use, right now. Thanks for giving me something to research at work. What query do you recommend I put into a search engine? "intact aqueducts italy" doesn't seem to help much
- SonOfLilit 2y agoWhy Italy? There are (inactive) roman aqueducts as far away as Israel
- soyyo 2y agoStart by expanding the countries in your search. At its peak, the roman empire covered Europe, North Africa, and parts of Eurasia. In Spain the most famous is the one in Segovia, it is incredibly well conserved, but not in actual use.
- botzi2001 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aqueducts_in_the_Roman_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aqueducts_in_the_Roman...
- Miraste 2y agoI was particularly thinking of the Aqua Virgo, an aqueduct to Rome that supplies city fountains to this day, and the Cloaca Maxima, a sewer and drainage system that has been in operation since it was built two thousand years ago