Functional and Beautiful--What A Concept!

Every few blocks in Rome there's a public fountain. Not just The Trevi or the Tritone, but smaller fountains that supply water for the public to drink from, to wash their hands or refresh themselves with a quick splash on the face and neck. These smaller ones are more accurately called "basins".










The fountains, basins, and famous Roman baths were all served by the elaborate aqueduct system. During the height of the Roman Empire nine aqueducts fed about forty fountains, nearly 600 public basins, the baths, and private villas of the Imperial family. Two aqueducts led to each fountain in case one was broken.







Everything worked fine until the famous fall of the Roman empire. Then maintenance of the water system was neglected and things started to fall apart. In the 14th century the Popes began rebuilding  things and reworking the aqueducts. [Editorial comment: Just another example of something great the Catholic church did for the world.] It took a few centuries, but everything is working fine now using a combination of gravity and mechanical pumps to keep the water flowing.

It's constantly amazing that the Romans were not just great engineers of their public works, but they also went to great efforts to make sure whatever they built was beautiful to look at, as well.

With the exception of the dark age hiatus, everything has been working continuously for 2000+ years.

Trained to drink

On our eating tour through Trastavere we were taught the proper way to drink from a Roman fountain. Only Mr. C was brave enough to try the technique. I was very proud of him. Basically, when you do it right, the water arches up from the spigot so you can drink without getting wet--it works just like a modern day water fountain.

Oh, on another note...we found out Romans didn't have soap so they had their slaves scrape them down with clay pot shards before they entered into a series of hot and cold baths to get clean.

My mom and I used to fantasize about how cool it would be to live in the era of the Roman baths, hand-laid mosaic tiles on the floors and walls, surrounded by beautiful art, etc. Then we'd realize we wouldn't be part of any noble family and we'd laugh. I wish she was around. She'd get a kick out of hearing we'd be the slaves scraping some fat, sweaty guy's skin off before he jumped into the hot tub.


Katerina