The Bureaucracy of Buildings in Ancient Rome
Many physical remains as well as texts have allowed us a complete understanding of how these great water works functioned. What we don’t often realise is that the building and maintenance of the aqueducts and roads required a bureaucratic infrastructure capable of managing it all.
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Particularly noteworthy is the textbook manual De aquis urbis Romae -“about the water of the city of Rome” – written by the ancient Roman Sextus Frontinus who was responsible for the statio aquarium department (water works) at the time of the five good emperors (beginning with Nerva). Frontinus’ department had been instituted at the time of Augustus by his son in law Agrippa (who is particularly remembered for having built the Pantheon).
The bureaucratic machine has already been mentioned and whilst we have looked at the construction of the aqueducts it is worth noting the great deal of effort required for their maintenance. To start with, the water of Rome is particularly hard, meaning that liming (calcium deposits) in pipeworks and channels is continuous and consequently requires continuous, planned, attention. Further attention had to be paid to normal maintenance and of course for the identification and stopping of unauthorised theft of water. Some 700 people worked in the bureaucracy and maintenance of the water system.